Great White dies in captivity
The Monterey Bay Aquarium recently had another setback in their attempts to successfully house a great white shark in captivity. The aquarium staff's most recent aquisition, another small white shark, died after being transported to temporary a holding tank in Malibu. The shark was caught by a commercial fisherman off the coast of Huntington Beach, CA, but wouldn't eat once it was in captivity. Biologists from the aquarium didn't feel comfortable releasing it back into the wild because its eye was injured and they felt they still had a chance to save it. This is a definite bummer, and although the aquarium is getting some flack about this from other scientists and animal rights people, I don't think they should give up. Aquarium spokesmen Ken Peterson makes a good point...
"We know that when people see living animals up close they get more engaged with them, more emotionally attached to them... You have to see that level of attachment before you can motivate people to take the political action to save these creatures... Sharks are dying by the tens of millions a year worldwide, and the public has to cry out loud to save the sharks."
Comments
Uhhhhh, this isn't science. This "project" is
being conducted in one of the top ten worst polluted beaches in CA as published by Heal the Bay organization. How the heck can they purport to be conducting a scientific study when they don't even realize the bacteria levels existing in the location of the study site obviously can be singularly detrimental to the health of a stressed, hungry and injured shark???? Take a longer look at this and especially who is funding the research project - the Tuna Industry!! Well, sit back and think a bit on that for awhile, they certainly have a financial interest in removing the great whites from the endangered species list
don't they?? From the website's own data collection, the hungry great whites are released directly onto the local shores where the sharks remain for approx 1-2 months in depths of 0-5M.
I doubt this is a recipe for safety, especially since there exists no previous data for man-made
alterations to shark habits and instincts. Read more than just this little piece, the critics really have something to chew about with this group of quasi-scientists with a wad of papers (PHD's) that supposedly mean we should feel safe in the assumptions they know what they are doing?
The great white in captivity was receiving a lot
of controversial attention due to the injuries and stress observed by even casual visitors much less shark authorities. It always boils down to the money involved, don't begin to play the "info gained" role that is laid out, if the previous shark hadn't brought in the ticket sales, this program would have only been viable for it's original 3 years but is now expanded for 10 years due to the windfall of ticket sales. NOT RESEARCH
Posted by: maxiloon | July 7, 2005 12:41 PM