The blood spurted higher than David Packard’s expectations. Intestines flopped like angry elephant trunks. The celebrated “stink” of John Steinbeck’s Cannery Row had nothing on it.

“A geyser of putrid blood,” as Monterey Bay Aquarium Executive Director Julie Packard describes it. “Hot enough it burned.”

“Compared to a well-decayed whale, skunks are perfume,” says Dr. Steve Webster, one of the four marine biologists from Stanford University’s neighboring Hopkins Marine Station – along with Packard’s daughter Nancy Burnett, her husband Robin and Chuck Baxter – who hatched the idea for the Aquarium, which at that point was a few years from opening. “It was hissing like Old Faithful.”

An earlier call led them there: There was a dead whale on a beach to the north. They decided they could use it to help initiate the Aquarium building, which had fallen into disuse as the former Hovden Cannery.

Two tow trucks buried their axles trying to clear the bloated gray from the tides that threatened to take it back. A heavier-duty rig finally pulled it free, where its barnacles and baleen were guarded by a volunteer teen overnight. The next day, a team of volunteers, Aquarium principals and Moss Landing Marine Lab grad students armed with knives awaited a permit to clean it; by 2pm, the sun had swollen the carcass into a drum-tight calzone. “Whatever you do,” one student warned, “don’t puncture the stomach or chest.”

When someone did, Webster says, it looked like “the worst cheap samurai movie ever.” But they persevered, hacking to bones that were soon buried to let sand critters scrub over the coming months, before the skeleton’s slats were piled in a truck, taken through a carwash and lacquered with archeologist-grade goop.

By the time they were hung in the MBA’s Marine Mammal Gallery, their story paralleled the Aquarium’s: Something dead and decaying transformed into a beautiful and powerful learning tool by way of scientists, volunteers and vision.

“The founders wanted to tell the stories of the animals of Monterey Bay,” Julie Packard says. “And we wanted them to be authentic.”

The stories summoned the wonder; the wonder the desire to help; the desire to help a re-imagining of the Aquarium’s mission to both educate and inspire conservation. Here the Weekly assembles 25 of those stories.

-Mark C. Anderson

Creatures Featured Pt. 1
Eels to Chitons

Creatures Featured Pt.2
Sharks to Rays

Creatures Featured Pt. 3
Tuna to ROV

Creatures Featured Pt. 4
Cuttlefish to More Sharks!

Creatures Featured Pt. 5
Jellies to Barnacles

EXCLUSIVE SLIDESHOWS:

Architecture Digested
A look at the Aquarium’s sublime structural design, from its acrylic panes to its historic cement skeleton.

Behind the Curtain
peek behind the scenes with the white shark, the seahorses and other aquatic wonders.

Magic Staff
Portraits of the legion volunteers and skilled staff that make the MBA splash every day.

CELEBRATORY EVENTS:

25th Anniversary Celebration | Oct. 17-18 Special historic programs, sustainable seafood demo-tastings, live jazz and Caribbean music, family crafts, bilingual presentations and a scavenger hunt fill a busy weekend.

Final 25th Anniversary Community Free Day | Oct. 20 The Aquarium has been opening its doors to locals on the 20th of each month all year; the quarter-century anniversary-to-the day marks the last of the sequence.

PAST WEEKLY COVERAGE:

Astronomic Gastronomy
Thomas Keller’s obsession with the best made him a legend – and Cooking for Solutions’ 2009 Chef of the Year.

Magic in the Water
The Aquarium’s new Secret Lives of Seahorses succeeds swimmingly.

A Shark's Tale
The untold story of the biggest star to ever swim in the Monterey Bay Aquarium.

Sea Change
The Monterey Bay area has long been hospitable habitat for ocean research, politics and advocacy. Opening its doors this month, a new hybrid organization, Center for the Future of Oceans, aims to heal the sea.

Liquidity Crisis
Is the ocean a victim of global warming? Our intrepid reporter travels thousands of miles – from Moss Landing to Peru and Chile – to crack an environmental crime.

Jellyfish Wrangler
The Aquarium’s chief jelly-scientist respects the freaky little critters.

Jellies for Everyone
An Aquarium scientist’s book brings little creatures to the people.

Big Dave’s Legacy
The Packard Foundation has made a mark on global philanthropy, nowhere more profoundly than in Monterey County.

L’Enfant Terrible
Aquarium staff watches and waits to see if its new great white shark will survive.

Seahorsing Around
Monterey Bay Aquarium showcases one of life’s most mesmerizing creatures.

Deep Trouble
Pew Report adds to a mounting pile of evidence that the oceans are dying.

Sea Minus
Ten years after the creation of the Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary, things are getting worse.

Wild Over Salmon
Farmed fish stir worry.

Sharks on a Truck
Tracking Aquarium predators after their exhibit closes.

Deep Lessons
The Monterey Bay Aquarium’s Science Under Sail program is more than just nerds on the water.

No-fish Zones Gain Support
Aquarium works to change state and federal policy.

Food for the Future
Cooking for Solutions is a gala with global vision.

Church And State Of The Oceans
Aquarium hosts confab on religion and science.

Sea Czar
Obama picks former Aquarium trustee to head NOAA.

Life After Shrimp
Some of the most crucial lessons at the Aquarium’s Sustainability Institute involved salmon, shrimp and tuna.

Roll Playing
Adjusting habits with the Aquarium’s new sushi guide in mind.