Georgia Aquarium in Atlanta, US, has bought Florida's Marineland attraction, home to the Dolphin Conservation Center.

Marineland, near St. Augustine, opened in 1937 as Marine Studios, a facility designed and built for filming underwater sequences for motion pictures. Later, it became a theme park known as Marineland of Florida, one of the first such attractions in Florida, and was added to the National Register of Historic Places. More recently, an updated and modernised Dolphin Conservation Center (DCS) at the site has become a centre for the study of marine mammals, particularly dolphins.

Marineland's acquisition is part of a long-term strategy by Georgia Aquarium to expand its programmes throughout the southeastern US. In 2008, the aquarium opened the Dolphin Conservation Field Station (DCFS) at Marineland, a joint venture with Marineland's DCS. Among other initiatives, DCFS is dedicated to studying marine animals off the coast of Georgia and northeast Florida and rescuing and rehabilitating stranded animals. Now under the same ownership, with Marineland being operated as a division of the Georgia Aquarium, DCFS and the DCS are expected to develop a closer working relationship.

Image: Diliff