White Shark Captured!

http://www.ktvu.com/news/2376328/detail.html

Monterey Bay Aquarium Captures White Shark

POSTED: 3:00 p.m. PDT August 1, 2003

The Monterey Bay Aquarium is holding a young 5-foot-long white shark in an ocean pen off Southern California, aquarium officials announced Friday.

The holding of the shark was just one step in a multi-year effort to study sharks in the wild and determine if it would be possible to display one in a public aquarium.

The female shark has been fitted with an electronic tracking tag and will soon be released unless there are strong indications that she could successfully be displayed in the aquarium, according to John O'Sullivan, head of the Monterey Bay Aquarium's white shark project team, who says she appears to be healthy since her capture on Tuesday off the Ventura County coastline.

"She was very responsive and appeared to be in very good shape," O'Sullivan said.

On Thursday, she was swimming well in the 5 million gallon pen and feeding on the mackerel offered to her. O'Sullivan said those are two critical benchmarks before the aquarium could consider bringing her into an exhibit.

"At this point, we could release her and it would have been a very successful season," O'Sullivan noted. "If she continues to swim well in the pen, if she takes food, we might consider bringing her to the aquarium."

O'Sullivan and his team plan to observe the shark in the pen a little while longer before making their decision. If they decide to bring her north to Monterey, she would be housed in the million-gallon Outer Bay Exhibit, along with giant bluefin tuna and other open-ocean species.

Before she was placed in the pen, scientists outfitted the shark with an electronic tag that will record information about her movements for 60 days if they decide to return her to the wild.

The tag is programmed to detach and transmit the stored data via satellite to scientists in the lab and records depth and water temperature data, as well as her migrations up and down the coast.

Based on body length, O'Sullivan says the shark is likely about a year old and weighs about 77 pounds. She is a protected species in California -- a top predator vital to the health of ocean ecosystems.

Aquarium officials were confident that if she does arrive at the aquarium, her influence on the public will be positive.

"Visitor studies have established that the experience of seeing live animals in an aquarium can have a significant and lasting effect on people," noted Cynthia Vernon, the aquarium's vice president of conservation programs.

"If we succeed in exhibiting a white shark, we can raise awareness about the threats they face. It's been true with other sharks we've exhibited over the years, and I believe it will be true with white sharks, too."

"Given the way white sharks have been demonized in popular culture, a change in public attitude is critical if we want to ensure their survival. We have strong shark conservation messages to deliver. The appeal of live animals makes our visitors more receptive to hearing -- and acting -- on the conservation messages."

As part of its multi-year research project, the aquarium hopes to tag and release a number of young white sharks each year to take blood and tissue samples and to tag and release thresher and mako sharks caught during the summer field operations.

 

theres one good thing that can come out of this if it does well in captivits is what they mentioned about people learning about the sharks and hope to get more people interested in saving them than killing them. the thing that sucks is to many people believe the sci fi stuff its amazing isnt it

 

It's nice to know I'll be able to go visit the white shark for free ;D
CSU Monterey Bay Students (such as myself) are let into the aquarium for free several times each year. That would be rather awesome to get to see... and only a 10 minute drive from here too.

 

Actually I forgot to post the follow up Chales. They released the shark. I can't remember the reason. I'll have to look it up.

 

What a bummer... oh well :

In any event, my jury service is now stretching into next week when I have classes again Not a big suprise unfortunately. :'(

In any event, I'm still getting notifications at school, and I think that's deserving of a beer. [smiley=beer.gif] I'm still curious as to what's happening to others. Matt, I'm curious if you can email the people who aren't receiving notices directly or not. [smiley=grin3.gif]

Weird theory behind that one, [smiley=computer.gif] because the follow up is to send them an email looking exactly like a forum notification. I'm wondering if the emails are tripping spam filters or not. [smiley=inquisitive.gif]

That's my theory at this point... URLs are often quite suspicious, as is a return path that doesn't match the from header... two things that might increase the apparent "spamminess" of a message from the forum.

Telling the forum to use SMTP to deliver the message will take care of the return path issue, and that might be enough to get the email to most everyone. [smiley=idea.gif]

 

The gears are turning!

I like your ideas Chales. The spam thing sounds plausible. I'll change it to smtp. Then I'll go to the admin center and try emailing some members directly. [smiley=thumbs_up1.gif]
If they get those. We may have our answer! THEN I'll buy you some beers! ;D

 

if ur buying the beers ill take a couple ;D ;D ;D

 

Karla if you come all the way out to California, I'll definitely buy you beers. [smiley=beer2.gif] [smiley=beatnik2.gif]