The 4-foot, 55.5-pound young female shark was brought to the aquarium Wednesday after being trapped Aug. 16 in a net off Malibu, aquarium spokesman Ken Peterson said in a news release. The shark will likely remain on exhibit for several months.
Since 2004, three white sharks have been displayed at the aquarium, with more than 2 million visitors seeing them before they were released into the ocean.
I find your reference to the Aquarium as a “Fish Jail” offensive an indication of your ignorance about what aquariums do for conservation by educating millions of visitors to the status of threatened ocean wildlife. When I started in my profession 50 years ago at Marineland, Sea World, Steinhart and then the Monterey Bay Aquarium there were annual shark “derbies” with prizes for the largest and most sharks killed. The Canadian navy was machine gunning Orcas as pests. Aquariums and oceanariums’ exhibits of live animals changed that. Four years ago almost nothing was known about the young of the top fish predator, the great white shark. Temporarily displaying a healthy young shark in an aquarium allows millions of people to see and appreciate the beauty of this top predator and to learn about the threats to its existence. After the shark’s release the satellite tags then give us priceless information about where they go and how they live their lives.
David C. Powell