Sharks

I found this interesting because we went to the Okinawa Expo Aquarium in about 2003 or 2004. They had recently renovated the main tank. It was absolutely enormous, 3 stories tall. It contained a multitude of large and small species, including a whale shark and a large ray. I have a picture here, but not of the whale shark. The tank was so big, you can't see everything inside at once.



Science Blogs' Frontal Cortex
When we have to force feed our enclosed animals, something has gone very wrong. But the Atlanta aquarium isn't the first place to struggle with keeping whale sharks alive in captivity.

A study of 16 whale sharks kept at the Okinawa Expo Aquarium from 1980 to 1998 found they survived, on average, 502 days in captivity.

"We don't know enough about whale sharks to say we can keep them alive for long periods of time in a captive environment," said Jason A. Holmberg, a scientist with the Earthwatch Institute who is studying whale sharks in the Ningaloo Reef in Australia. "The expectation is that if you put a whale shark in an aquarium, it's a death sentence."