I posted about the latest attempt to bring a great white shark into captivity, this time by the Monterey Bay (Calif.) Aquarium. The shark is still alive and has set the record for a great white’s survival in captivity.
A shark did something important Friday by swimming around and around in a circle and not dying.
The shark, a great white, survived its 17th day in captivity. That broke the all-time record for great whites which, historically, tend to go belly up in aquarium tanks.
Not this one. She made the rounds inside a giant tank at the Monterey Bay Aquarium with 70 other fish, none of which she ate. Everyone was getting along swimmingly.
I’d like to point out that, yes, I do know that dead sharks do not go “belly up” like other fish. They sink. Hey, I didn’t write it.
Anyway, the aquarium is treating the shark gingerly and, by doing so, have reaped the expected benefit with the public.
“This is a relaxed shark, an unstressed shark,” said shark keeper Manny Ezcurra. “I can’t say if she’s a happy shark, but she’s adapting well.”
She certainly ought to be, in light of the regal treatment that the aquarium has bestowed upon her. She is fed salmon fillets on a stick every other day, her soft and gentle killer eyes have been protected from the flash cameras of her admirers, and she is surrounded by exhibits proclaiming just how wonderful, misunderstood, rare and unfairly maligned sharks are.
About 30,000 additional visitors, at $20 a ticket, have come to the aquarium since the year-old shark arrived Sept. 15, after being accidentally caught by a halibut fisherman off the Orange County coast. Attendance is up by 50 percent, and most of those folks head directly from the front gate to the three-story Outer Bay tank.