Stingray Cove at The Sedgwick County Zoo

This Friday kicks off a big weekend at the Sedgwick County Zoo. The interactive exhibit, Stingray Cove, returns and allows visitors to see, touch, and feed stingrays.

Here’s an idea of what you can expect:

Stingray Cove Basics

Stingray Cove opens to the public on Friday, March 10. It will be open daily from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. from March through October.

There is a charge to enter Stingray Cove. For a fee of $5 for non-members and $4 for zoo members (children 2 and under are free), people can visit and touch the backs of stingrays. If you want to enhance the experience, feedings can be purchased for $2 which come with two pieces of shrimp/fish.

Touching the stingrays is one of the most enjoyable parts of the exhibit. Upon entering, all visitors are asked to wash their hands and forearms. Then when walking over to the pool, you lay your hand flat and the stingrays come swim under your hands. It’s such a cool, weird feeling having them glide by you.

Feeding the Stingrays

This is a crazy, fun experience that everybody should try once. After paying the $2, you are given two little pieces of shrimp/fish. You place the shrimp between your fingers as so.

Then you place your hand in the water and wait for a stingray to come over.

The stingray then swims into your hand like a hammerhead shark, then all of a sudden, you feel something sucking on your entire hand with a force that is hard to describe. The first time I did it, it took me by surprise at first and felt so odd. Everyone laughed and felt a little startled the first time while feeding the stingray. Then, everyone did it a second time.

The Backstory

The exhibit is located near The Tropics exhibit in the northwest corner of the zoo. It’s housed in the open-air pavilion that used to be used for special events.

Stingray Cove is a temporary exhibit which will be open until October. Don’t worry though, the exhibit will be here for at least four more years, if not longer if it’s successful.

Last year, they had 40 stingrays along with five sharks in the cove’s 17,000-gallon pool.

You will probably learn more about stingrays on your visit than any other day in your life. Something to note, the habitat at the zoo mimicked the stingrays natural habitat.

Overall, Stingray Cove is certainly one of the coolest additions to the Sedgwick County Zoo. Just another bonus for one of the best zoos.

The Sedgwick County Zoo is located at 5555 W. Zoo Blvd. For more information, check out the Stingray Cove section on the Sedgwick County Zoo’s website.

Here’s a video look at the new interactive exhibit from last year.

@wichitabyeb Have you ever fed a stingray before? We finally got the chance to try at our local zoo! #fyp #zoo #Wichita #stingrays #animals ♬ As It Was – Harry Styles

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