We're at the North Carolina Aquarium at Pine Knoll Shores, where there is plenty to discover, from the habitats of the Crystal Coast to some especially playful critters.

This is gonna be fun, come on.

(upbeat music) ♪ What will visitors experience when they come here to the Aquarium at Pine Knoll Shores?

- So we start our visitors off in the Mountain Gallery of the Aquarium here, and what happens is, as you're walking through the Aquarium, it's like you're walking across the whole state from the mountains to the sea.

And so in the Mountain Gallery, you see animals representative of animals you've found in the mountains.

And then in the Piedmont Gallery, which is our next gallery, you'll find animals, mostly aquatic animals that you would also see in the Piedmont areas of the state, including our North American River Otter habitat.

- Oh my goodness, they are so cute.

- Then you'll continue on through the coastal plain, and in the coastal plains, you'll see a lot, some more freshwater fish, some snakes, and then move into what we call our Tidal Waters Gallery, which is where all of our salt marsh and invertebrates are showcased in that gallery.

And then from there, we move into our Ocean Gallery.

And the Ocean Gallery, which is where we are right now, showcases and highlights a lot of the shipwrecks that you would find off the coast of North Carolina.

We dive every day in this habitat, most days.

We do have an amazing dive program with an amazing team of divers.

[upbeat music] - You don't just get to see the sharks here.

You might even get to watch people swimming right alongside them.

- In the Living Shipwreck, we're gonna have educational presentation dives.

That's where we utilize underwater full face mask communications on the diver, and they're gonna talk to an educator out front.

[person in tank speaking] - [Ethan] It's a good way to showcase sharks, you know, that have such a bad reputation of being very vicious animals, very aggressive predators, that they have a soft side as well.

And we get to see that as scuba divers on a regular basis out here off the coast.

But our visitors might not have the chance to see that.

- [Deb] That closer look at life underwater continues in the Future Waters Gallery, where visitors can watch the aquarium's conservation work firsthand.

In the Coral Lab, the team safeguards corals from Florida, preserving their genetic diversity as disease threatens reefs in the wild.

Nearby, baby fish are raised through aquaculture, reducing the need to collect animals from the ocean.

And for some of the animals we met earlier, daily care comes with a playful twist.

I joined keeper Kristen to help make food-filled enrichment for the river otters, giving them a little challenge at snack time.

- Cut it up.

- We've got a nice yellow bell pepper.

- Yep, bell pepper.

I try to give them a lot of crunchy vegetables, especially the carrots.

We want to cut the items so that they fit in the different enrichment items, but it's not too small that it's gonna fall right out.

You don't wanna make it too easy for 'em.

We wanna keep 'em busy.

- Okay.

- Yeah.

Yeah, like bigger pieces like this.

- Okay, that gets the ticket.

We got a lot of work to do here, Kristen.

We gotta fill this one up and this one up.

- After we cut up the veggies, Kristen dropped the snacks on the otter's habitat, and I watched to see if they could find their food.

The otters snack four times a day between their three meals of fish.

Can you get it?

(otters chattering) Here he goes.

He got it!

(Kristen clapping) He got it.

(Kristen laughing) He got a carrot.

- Aw.

- Yes.

He's looking for it, he's looking for it.

He got it, he got it!

(people chattering) How many otters are there?

- So we have three male river otters.

Petey and Rocky are actually brothers, and our third otter's Eno.

Petey has learned from Eno, which is really, really cool to see that Eno used to always do back flips.

And then one day I came in and I saw Petey doing the back flips.

So he's learned from Eno.

- Oh, that's so cute.

- He's like, "Oh, this is kind of fun.

Let me try this out."

- Oh my goodness.

Are you happy?

- What do you enjoy most about working with these little guys?

- They're so cute and playful, and they just, they make me smile.

Just so much fun to watch.

They're so playful, energetic, and they just have a great spirit about them.

(children chattering) A lot of the kids and families, they love seeing their playful nature, and they love seeing them playing with each other.

Petey and Rocky play like they're siblings, and people become connected with them.

(otters chattering) These guys, they were almost extinct in the western part of the state in the 1930s because of over-trapping and water pollution.

They have to have clean water in order to thrive, and we want that to, we want to always have river otters around.

We never want to see that decline again.

(upbeat music) - The North Carolina Aquarium at Pine Knoll Shores is located at 1 Roosevelt Boulevard in Pine Knoll Shores.

It's open daily from 9 a.m.

to 5 p.m., except on Thanksgiving and Christmas.

For more information about its offerings, visit ncaquariums.com/ pine-knoll-shores.