New Great White at Monterey
From Microcosm Aquarium Explorer
Carcharodon carcharias, the Great White Shark, Isla Guadalupe, Mexico. Terry Goss/Wikipedia/GNU
[edit] Monterey Bay Aquarium Unveils New White Shark
The Monterey Bay Aquarium has just welcomed a new 4-foot, 55-pound female Great White Shark (Carcharodon carcharias). This specimen, the Aquarium’s fourth white shark in its history, was caught in a seine net in Santa Monica Bay and brought to Monterey in a 3,000-gallon tank.
The exhibit, which will allow visitors to view the shark up-close, will last only a few months, but the aquarium is expecting a huge number of visitors. The first Great White Shark on display there, in 2004, drew more than one million people.
The Monterey Bay Aquarium is the only aquarium in the country to successfully provide the White Shark with a comfortable, temporary living situation; most attempts to display this species fail because it is very sensitive to camera flashes, vibrations and too-small tanks.
The Aquarium will use the exhibit to provide the public with biological information and grave news about White Sharks, whose numbers are declining worldwide due to slow reproduction, overfishing, and targeting by trophy hunters (who profit from the Great White's savage reputation).
[edit] Shark Tracking Online
The shark will eventually be tagged and released. Curious visitors can track previous white sharks’ whereabouts on the Tagging of Pacific Predators website: www.topp.org.
Visit the Monterey Bay Aquarium’s White Shark webpage for more information about conservation, feeding, research and lifestyle of this still-mysterious creature:
Note: The online video of the shark being fed at the aquarium is well worth watching.