There has been a bit of a stink in the blogosphere--whatever that means--about the Monterey Bay Aquarium's attempt to get another live juvenile White Shark to exhibit. The aquarium's White Sharks--the aquarium claims--come from rescued bycatch from compensated commercial fishermen. Others claim that this is propaganda spread to hide that the aquarium bribes Shark fishermen to specifically target juvenile White Sharks in order that the aquarium may put them on display.

This from Ken Peterson, an aquarium mouthpiece:

Since 2002, we and our university research colleagues have handled 30 young white sharks in Southern California waters. Of those, 29 were caught accidentally in gear used by commercial fishermen as they were fishing for sea bass or halibut. The 30th was caught hook-and-line by our staff, and was one of three young sharks brought to the Monterey Bay Aquarium. Of the 29 caught in commercial gear, five died. Some of those deaths undoubtedly were the result of injuries the sharks sustained in fishing nets before we received them. (There's no definitive way to say in how many cases that was a factor.)
We do know that, because fishermen are willing to alert us when they accidentally catch a young white shark, we've been able to tag and track more than a dozen animals and learn more than has ever been known about their movements in waters off Southern California and Baja. You can find the published data from the initial tagging work here.

[LA Times]

Who you gonna believe? Do you really think that only five of the supposed 29 Sharks died? Do you really think that the commercial fishermen were only fishing for "sea bass or halibut?" Which member of the aquarium "staff" was responsible for catching the 30th Shark hook-and-line? If you pay a trophy fisherman to catch you a Shark, doesn't he in fact become aquarium staff? The aquarium likes to give a lot of lip service to their tagging programs. Can't these Sharks be tagged and released without penning them in Malibu and bringing them all the way up to Monterey to but on display for drooling tourists?

Enough words...here are some pictures.

A freshly captive juvenile White Shark:

Same Shark after he becomes stressed:
Notice the squashed rostrum? That is from bumping into the sides of his enclosure.

Squashed Rostrum:

Close up:

On Sunday, a juvenile male White Shark was released from the captivity pen off Malibu after six days, because he wasn't eating. But, there is late-breaking word that a juvenile female White Shark caught off Ventura on Monday is already in the captivity pen off Malibu. It looks like the Monterey Bay Aquarium is really working overtime to get a captive Shark just in time to capitalize on that late-summer tourist revenue.

Read.

Stamp out greed and hubris.

--Sharky

technorati tags: Sharks, Great White Sharks, Shark Fishing, Ventura, Monterey Bay Aquarium, Malibu, bycatch, aquariums, Halibut, Sea Bass

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