By Brent Frazee
To many fishermen and hunters, the Wonders of Wildlife National Museum and Aquarium is the Greatest Show on Earth.
Johnny Morris, the founder and CEO of the Bass Pro Shops empire, set out to build a one-of-a-kind monument to fishing, hunting and conservation when he drew up plans to build the museum and aquarium. When visitors step into the 350,000-sqare foot attraction next to Bass Pro Shops’ national headquarters in Springfield, Mo., there’s little doubt he accomplished his goal.
This isn’t your ordinary museum and aquarium. WOW, the acronym for Wonders of Wildlife, goes a long way toward describing this place.
“Wonders of Wildlife is an inspirational journey around the world that celebrates the role of hunters and anglers as America’s true conservation heroes,” Morris said.
So what makes Wonders of Wildlife so special? Let’s take a tour.
- In the Great Oceans Hall, visitors plunge to the depths of the sea. They step into the middle of a 300,000-gallon circular aquarium filled with sharks, leopard rays and huge sea turtles. They can get a closeup look at historic fishing boats owned by Ernest Hemingway and Zane Gray., and can marvel at a conical bait ball filled with thousands of smaller fish.
- Visitors also are awed by a shipwreck on the ocean floor with giant goliath groupers, eels and other reef creatures circling overhead.
- Visitors also can dive with the sharks inside a metal cage. State-of-the-art air helmets allow them to submerge without diver certification.
- Kids can climb into popup bubbles in the middle of aquariums to get a close look at the saltwater giants roaming the depths.
- In the freshwater exhibits, fishermen can view their dream fish. Enormous largemouth bass—the largest weighing 20 pounds—roam lifelike habitat.
- Visitors also can step into the Presidential Hall and see memorabilia of former presidents who wet a line. One of the most popular exhibits is the Bass Tracker bass boat that Morris presented to George W. Bush.
- In the Great African Hall, visitors can feel the warm, dry climate of the African savannah. Lifelike displays of elephants, giraffes, rhinos, crocodiles, zebras and other species transport visitors to another continent.
- Exhibits of trophy mounts of everything from whitetail deer to elk to bears are a hunter’s dream.
But that’s just a small part of the intrigue of Wonders of Wildlife. The complex includes more than 1.5 miles of trails through exhibits and displays, and is home to 35,000 live fish, mammals, reptiles, birds and amphibians representing 800 species.
The biggest living fish? A 405-pound Atlantic goliath grouper caught in 2017 by Morris and legendary fisherman Bill Dance on a fishing trip off the coast of Florida. Landed on sporting tackle on a special educational-collection permit granted by the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, the species is normally protected and off-limits to fishermen.
The giant grouper was transported to a waiting mobile aquarium from the Wonders of Wildlife crew, then transported to Missouri after being pampered to ensure that it was in good health.
For Morris, that fish represented part of his overall goal – to not only provide entertainment, but to also educate visitors about the world’s many different fish and wildlife species and the role hunters and fishermen have played in building those populations.
He teamed with more than 40 conservation organizations such as the International Game Fish Association, the Boone and Crockett Club, the Bass Fishing Hall of Fame and Audubon to come up with exhibits for this mecca.
In the 10 years it took to create Wonders of Wildlife, more than 2,000 biologists, taxidermists, artists, sculptors, woodworkers, and others contributed to the masterpiece.
Though tickets are sold, Wonders of Wildlife is a non-profit venture. A portion of the proceeds go to operational costs (for example, the feeding of the live species on display), the rest goes to the conservation organizations that made it happen.
There’s little doubt that Wonder of Wildlife has been a success. In the first year after it opened in September of 2017, it attracted 1.6 million visitors. In 2018, USA Today readers voted WOW the “Best New Attraction in America” and “America’s Best Aquarium.”
“Johnny is a kid at heart,” said Shelby Stephenson, public relations manager for Wonders of Wildlife. “He has a great deal of respect for the other museums and aquariums across the country, but he wanted to build something that would take it to the next level.
“He wanted to transport visitors to the middle of different habitats and make them excited about the outdoors and conservation.”
In many ways, WOW is a monument to conservation. Morris tries to convey a strong message – that hunters and fishermen are the reason so many species of wildlife and fish are thriving today.
“One thing that separates (WOW) from many museums and aquariums and even the Natural History Museum is that we very proudly salute the hunters and anglers, the sports men and women of America,” Morris said in an article on the springfieldmo.org website.
Photo courtesy of Wonders of Wildlife
A visitor to the Wonders of Wildlife aquarium gets a close look at a school of piranhas in the Amazon rain forest exhibit.
