Exhibit camps out at aquarium

Shunning the sharks, the South Carolina Aquarium is staking its future on skunks, snakes and snot otters.

Workers at the 8-year-old facility are rushing this week to finish "Camp Carolina," the aquarium's first new exhibit in four years. Stocked with creatures indigenous to the Palmetto State, the 2,000-square-foot display opens to the public Saturday for what likely will be a four-year run.

Creative director Kevin Kampwerth cooked up the idea in late 2006 when he heard a radio report that Americans are camping about three times as much as they used to. "That was my 'ah-ha' moment," he said. "It wasn't the most glamorous idea ... but it kind of really clicked."

The nonprofit also was considering an exhibit showing how an aquarium works and a display on how animals adapt to different environments.

With a rock-climbing wall, a light-up map of the state and a station of camping scents, much of the exhibit is interactive — a must for attractions looking to grab the attention of kids.

And, equally important, Camp Carolina was cheap — imagined, designed and built entirely in-house for about $100,000, about half as much as the exhibit that it replaced, "The Secrets of the Amazon."

"That's what I'm most proud of," said curator Jason Crichton.

The aquarium would have paid about 10 times as much if it had commissioned the display from a professional exhibition firm, according to Kampwerth.

"It's truly an amazing figure," he said. "We've saved a ton."

An estimated 2,000 people will go to the first day of "camp" Saturday, said aquarium spokeswoman Beth Nathan.

A bald eagle stands like a sentry at the entrance to the gallery. Snakes slither under a nearby porch. A pair of skunks sniff for mealworms around the corner. And three fluffy barn owls perch over a makeshift stable.

For an aquarium exhibit, Camp Carolina is light on the aquatic, although a 60-pound one-eyed catfish from Lake Marion lurks in a 1,200-gallon corner tank and a tub in the "bait shop" squirms with American eels.

And then there is the snot otter, also known as a hellbender, mudcat, devil-dog and Allegheny alligator. This slimy-looking salamander hails from an Upstate stream and can grow up to 30 inches and weigh 5 pounds, if it gobbles up enough of the crawfish scuttling around his new home.

The Secrets of the Amazon was torn down the first week of January, and aquarium staff have been hammering away on their "camp" ever since — painting weathered-looking signs, building fake trees out of concrete and reclaiming wood for the owls' "barn."

The exhibition was designed to attract families with children, specifically those who already have been to the aquarium. Almost a third of the 427,000 people who came to the facility last year live nearby, so the venue has a lot to gain by keeping those folks coming back. Roughly half of aquarium visitors are from other states and might not be familiar with South Carolina's fauna.