Loveland Living Planet Aquarium
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| Date opened | February 1999 |
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| Location | Draper, Utah, United States |
| Coordinates | 40°33′36″N 111°52′17″W / 40.5599°N 111.8714°WCoordinates: 40°33′36″N 111°52′17″W / 40.5599°N 111.8714°W |
| Floor space | 136,000 sq ft (12,600 m2) |
| No. of animals | 2,484 |
| No. of species | 450+ |
| Volume of largest tank | 300,000 US gallons (1,100,000 L) |
| Total volume of tanks | 600,000 US gallons (2,271,000 L) |
| Annual visitors | 1 million + |
| Memberships | 30,000 |
| Major exhibits | 74 |
| Website | www |
The Loveland Living Planet Aquarium' is located in Draper, Utah, United States. It currently houses 4,500 animals representing 550 species. The public aquarium currently consists of five main exhibits.
The Loveland Living Planet Aquarium was founded in 1998 by Brent Andersen, a Utah native and marine biology graduate from the University of California Santa Barbara. The initial plan was to build a 100,000 square feet (9,300 m2) aquarium that showed ecosystems from around the world. Locations for the aquarium were considered in Salt Lake County and Utah County, and feasibility studies indicated downtown Salt Lake City would be the best location. The first education component was launched in February 1999, when the Aquavan was outfitted with educational portable marine exhibits and began visiting Utah schools.
Additional outreach vans were created in December 1999 (the Rain Forest Van) and May 2002 (the Utah Waters Van). In order to promote funding for the full-size aquarium, the Living Planet Aquarium Preview Exhibit opened in The Gateway mall in June 2004. It featured a 10,000 square feet (930 m2) exhibit with freshwater fish, sharks, stingrays, eels, a coral reef, a giant octopus, a small theater, and other interactive exhibits. Attendance reached over 150,000 visitors per year the first two years and the small space was quickly outgrown. The Aquarium relocated in June 2006 to a much larger 43,000 square feet (4,000 m2) space in Sandy, Utah. Attendance reached 460,000 visitors per year
Several prominent members of the business community joined to lead the board including Ken Murdock, Jim Loveland, Tim Cosgrove, Jeff Flamm, and Paul Hutchinson. The Loveland Family Foundation had been a long time donor, and in 2011 presented a gift that allowed the organization to raise $29 million and build a permanent home in Draper, Utah. The 136,000 square feet (12,600 m2) Loveland Living Planet Aquarium opened to the public on March 24th, 2014 and saw over 1.1 million visitors the first year of operation. The Aquarium is a 501(c)(3)non-profit organization.
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