Monterey Bay Aquarium puts fifth great white on exhibit
- Sentinel staff report
Posted: 08/27/2009 01:30:09 AM PDT
MONTEREY -- Monterey Bay Aquarium staff brought a young great white shark from
Malibu to Monterey on Wednesday afternoon and put it on display -- the fifth time
the aquarium has given the public a chance to look at the fearsome fish.
Aquarium staff collected the female 5-foot-3-inch, 80-pound great white off of
Malibu on Aug. 12. It was collected with the help of a spotter plane and a commercial
fishing crew using a purse seine net. It was transferred to a 4 million gallon
ocean holding pen off Malibu, where it stayed for nearly two weeks. Staff observed
the shark swimming comfortably and feeding in the pen nearly a dozen times before
bringing it north in a 3,000-gallon "mobile life support transport vehicle,"
according to the aquarium. The shark is now in the million-gallon Outer Bay exhibit.
Aquarium staff hope to keep the great white on exhibit for several months in an
attempt to promote stronger protection for sharks and change the public attitude
about the predator.
The aquarium is only institution in the world to exhibit a white shark for more
than 16 days. In 2004, the first female white shark exhibited in Monterey was
part of the aquarium's Outer Bay exhibit for more than six months, and was seen
by more than a million people.
Since 2002, the aquarium and its partners have collected DNA samples, tagged and
tracked 26 young sharks in the wild. The four sharks previously kept at the aquarium
were tagged and tracked after their release.
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