Georgia Aquarium Whale Shark Death

[MattK]

http://edition.cnn.com/2007/TECH/science/06/13/whale.shark.dies.ap/

[ClownReef®]

Maybe he got jealous and died..

[ClownReef®]

Isn't the survival rate of Great Whites in captivity pretty much the same??

[aprilmayjune]

I think it would be awesome to see a whale shark in person, but I agree with Joshua and don't think they need to be kept in an aquarium. Same for Great Whites.

[Headless_donkey]

It's kind of like keeping a tank in a nano. Sure it will live, but at what cost.

[matt]

I've been there, it's pretty amazing. From what I could see, the whale shark tank is probably about as good as is realisticly possible. For instance, when you're on one side looking into the tank, you can't see the other side, you just see the sharks swimming off until they disappear in the water. The beluga whale exhibit looked a little more questionable to me, as they are more active swimmers and seemed to be in a more confined space.

I don't know enough about whale shark lifespan and mortality to guess about the cause of these deaths and whether conditions in the aquarium contributed. I think it's too early to tell whether they'll be successful.

[RayAllen]

Ive also been there and it was truely a amazing place. I agree with Matt that it is to early to tell the outcome. Man kind has a habit of trying what is thought to be impossible and we usually succeed. Obviously we witness positive and negative.

[MikeP]

Keeping small filter feeding type invertebrates and fish is already a challenge. I can only imagine trying to replicate it in a closed system - these fish feed on huge amounts of aquatic plankton in the ocean and while I'm sure well intentioned its a herculean task to replicate in an aquarium, no matter the size.

Would rather they stay in the ocean also in my humble opinion.

[don-n-sa]

Actually the survival rate for great whites is worse than whale sharks...nobody has sucessfully kept a great white in captivity long term.

If you think about it , the whale sharks at the Georgia Aquarium have more simmming room than our fish in our tanks. Like Mike said trying to duplicate the planktonic diversity in the water (without polluting it) has got to be the the biggest challenge.

[Ram_Puppy]

Josh, i think that a while back a juvenile was kept for several months and returned successfully to the wild. i think it was monteray bay.

yes... it was. longest ever captive great white - 198 days

http://www.mbayaq.org/cr/whiteshark.asp

[RayAllen]

You are correct Ram Puppy. Was a really big success compared to past attempts.

[matt]

They trained the whale sharks to accept being fed by a net. (or something like that) I saw the video; it's pretty cool. The sharks basically open their mouths and the staff shovel krill in front of them. It would probably be totally impossible to keep the quantity of krill alive and swimming in the tank that's necessary for the sharks without seriously fouling the water.

[don-n-sa]

Ahh..yes Matt I do believe that you are correct, I remember seeing video of that. Man would that be an awesome job or what???

Hey what do you do for a living??? I get to feed whale sharks...that would be waaayy cool.

I wonder how many/ how large the skimmers are???

[Ram_Puppy]

who gets to brush their thousands of teeth (i forget the technical name) :)