Ice Sculpture Sea Lions

Boston’s first ice sculpture of the holiday season made its debut on Monday at the Aquarium and will be up all week until First Night. Hopefully, this spectacular ice art will weather the slightly warmer temperatures to join the other New Year’s Eve ice sculptures across the city. Thousands of families have been welcomed by the sea lions as they head into the Aquarium to touch sharks and rays during December vacation week.

 Photo posted on tumblr by off-to-new-adventures

The sea lion sculptures get the crowd's attention on the Aquarium Plaza.

This year’s ice sculpture is of the Aquarium’s two new adorable sea lion pups, Zoe and Sierra. They both came to Boston this past summer from California after being rescued. The sea lion ice sculpture weighs several tons, is larger than life but is thankfully motionless.

Zoe and Sierra the California sea lions

In contrast, Zoe and Sierra are in constant motion and each eat 15 pounds of fish per day to fuel their 70 pound bodies. That is eating 20 percent of your body weight every day. You do the math for yourself to see how much food that is! See the ice sculpture on the Aquarium’s front plaza and meet the real girls on the Aquarium’s harbor-side in the New Balance Foundation Marine Mammal Center.

The sculptures were done by Don Chapelle, ice sculptor extraordinaire, who has been one of the principal First Night ice sculptors for many years. Here's a post about his work at the Aquarium from last year.