By: Kai Wang
Have you ever seen a great white shark in an Aquarium? Probably not. That’s because there are any sharks in an aquarium right now. Aquariums have been trying to contain the great white for decades, but they never lasted very long. The longest one lasted only 16 days. It wasn’t until 2004 that Monterey Bay proved it possible to keep these sharks for at least six months. It took a massive effort, and no one’s done it since.
The Monterey Bay Aquarium had a million-gallon, egg-shaped tank, 35 feet deep designed for open ocean animals. Adult great whites reach 15 feet on average. The Monterey Bay Aquarium captured one that was only four feet four inches, less than a year old. That made it easier to move and keep. When great whites are younger, they feed on fish. As they get older, they transition to feeding more on mammals. They didn’t take the shark straight to the aquarium. Instead, the Monterey Bay team set up a four-million-gallon pen right in the ocean, to see if it would feed. Then they would transport the sharks up to the aquarium. Sharks like all fish, need water to continually pass through their gills in order to get oxygen. To breathe, the sharks need to move forward with their mouths open. So, the Monterey Bay team made a custom-built transport tank.
Aquarium attendance jumped 30 percent while the shark was on display. After six and a half months, they decided to release it because it had killed two other sharks. Over the next six years, the aquarium displayed five baby sharks. Some they paid fishermen to hand over, and some they caught themselves. Their stay ranged from 11 days to five months. The Monterey Bay Aquarium succeeded, but it took a toll on the sharks. The sharks developed sores and scrapes.
Historically, aquariums kept sharks that lived near the seabed or reef. It’s easier to recreate those habitats. But in recent decades, they have been trying to keep larger sharks that roam the open sea. They have even been able to exhibit the largest shark in the world; the whale shark. These sharks are used to open water where they can move wherever they want.
Faster-moving sharks have trouble with walls. That’s what happened to Monterey Bay Aquariums’ sixth white shark in 2011. They decided to release it after 55 days, and its tracking tag revealed that it died soon after. Since then, they haven’t been trying to get another. “It’s a very, very, very resource-intensive program and we felt like we had accomplished our goal of introducing the general public to a live white shark”-Jon Hoech, director of husbandry operations.