Did I mention that I saw the Great White Shark currently on exhibit at the Monterey Aquarium? Unless you were a friendless loser in Fourth Grade like I was, you may not know much about carcharadon carcharias. That's okay.
The Great White at the Monterey Aquarium is the first of its kind that has ever been successfully fed in captivity. Usually they refuse to eat and thrash about until they die or are let go. A couple of years ago, the aquarium began a project, based in Southern California, to study these mysterious, elusive creatures and to determine whether one could successfully been put on exhibit. A couple of months ago, a commercial fisherman brought the Great White to the researchers. She had been caught in a gillnet set out to catch other fish.
The shark is small -- about four feet long -- and less than a year old. When she is full-grown, she will be about 21 feet long, which is average for female Great Whites. There is a team assigned to monitor and care for the shark, and when she gets too big for the ""Outer Bay" exhibit (which, by the way, is easily one of the most amazing things I have ever seen), she'll be released into the ocean.
I had always accepted the conventional wisdom that it would be impossible to keep a Great White in captivity, as previous attempts had been such miserable failures. Certainly, if the shark in question were older or larger, I think that that would likely be true in this case as well.
When I was a child, I was obsessed with sharks, and particularly inspired by Eugenie Clark and Jacques Cousteau. I don't eat seafood, just because I was so interested in the ocean and its inhabitants that I never acquired a taste for them.
Related:
-My other favorite sharks are the Greenland Shark, and the Tiger Shark.
-I'm looking forward to The Life Aquatic.
-Shark conservation, for all species, is of critical importance.
-If you eat seafood, please do so responsibly.
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