National aquarium: Moving 2,500 underwater creatures to a new home

Moving house is always an exhausting and stressful experience - but imagine if the property is an aquarium and 2,500 underwater creatures need to be packed up.

That was the task faced by staff at the National Aquarium in Washington DC when it closed to the public on 30 September after more than 80 years at the same site.

During the past three months 1,700 animals - from sharks and an octopus to turtles and alligator - have been removed from tanks and transported to the aquarium almost 40 miles (64km) away in Baltimore. The rest have gone to a variety of other facilities in the US.

Jay Bradley, the curator who helped build many of the exhibits, showed the BBC how hard it can be to catch a fish in a tank - and what protection you need to handle an electric eel.

Produced by the BBC's Thomas Sparrow, Markus Zeffler and Bill McKenna