Get a whole new level of interactive

A close-up interaction with our colorful, feathered friends. Our Animal Trainers will have the birds perform various tricks and allow guests to hold or feed a select bird at the trainers’ discretion, although this option may not always be available. Guests are more than welcome to request a particular bird the aquarium has, to be in the encounter if they wish.

A chance to get up close and personal with our stingrays, starfish, and smaller fish within our Ray Tank. An Animal Trainer will be with the guests to answer any questions, as well as tell the guests all about our loving sea animals. Stingray food will be provided for the guests to feed out. It is recommended that guests can bring a swimsuit. The Aquarium provides towels and wetsuits for the guests to wear, but guests can bring their own towels if they so wish.

Want to cross something off your bucket list? Guests are allowed to come swim with our sharks for up to twenty minutes! Our Animal Trainers’ will provide a background on all our sharks large and small, as well as our friendly fish who love to swim alongside our guests. Guests can even dive down and pet our nurse shark! The aquarium provides wetsuits, towels, goggles, snorkels, kickboards, pool noodles, and life jackets.

The Aquarium has the opportunity for you to interact with our long, scaly friends of all sizes! Three of our beloved snakes will be brought to the encounter, where guest will be able to pet and even hold them. Our Animal Trainers will be happy to tell guests everything they would like to know. Hand sanitizer will be provided for the guests to use.

We have four small mammals for guests to choose from our (rats, ferrets, and sugar gliders) are some familiar favorites whom the guests and pet and hold. We are currently working with our raccoon who is a new addition to our animal education team! Guests are still very much welcome to see our raccoon, but any interactions are up to our Animal Trainers’ discretion. Hand sanitizer will be provided after the encounter for the guests to use.

Our creepy crawlers are available to be seen up close and personal! We have a wide variety some of which are hissing cockroaches, a tarantula, and our millipedes! There is more to them than meets the eye. Each critter will be brought out one at a time, and guests will be able to handle them with the help and instruction of an Animal Trainer.

Our pokey, but loveable porcupine is one that guests will for sure enjoy. During the encounter, the Animal Trainer will show the guests all sorts of tricks that our porcupine can do. If the guests want, they will even be able to shake our porcupine’s hand, pet him and offer him treats by hand.

Slow but sweet, our sloth is a great treat for guests at the aquarium. During the encounter, our Animal Trainers will give guests the opportunity to pet and feed our furry friend. Guests are not able to hold the sloth. During our encounter, our animal trainers will have our sloth paint a picture for the guests and show them some training techniques.

*Not available to book online. Please call for availability – (208) 569-2996 ext 4

During our lizard encounter, guests will be able to get an up-close look at some of our scaly friends who are not on display to the public. During this encounter, the Animal Trainer will allow guests to pet our reptiles and even hold a couple of them at the trainers’ discretion. Hand sanitizer will be provided during the encounter.

 *VIP members get one free animal encounter per year! You’ll get a credit to use to pick the animal and amount of people that can be part of the encounter.