Captured Whale Shark - what's your opinion?

[island_sands]

Yes, i know i keep going on about this. See this link and read the reaction of the UAE residents concerning a juvenile whale shark which was allegedly "rescued" from the sea and brought into captivity. It is currently being kept in the aquarium of the Atlantis Palm (Dubai).

Gulfnews: Rescued whale shark

 

[mishu1984]

i heard it was donated by an environmetalist group...

 

[island_sands]

i heard it was donated by an environmetalist group...

hahaaha! You heard wrong. I know personally the head of EDA and he called me this morning and told me he knows personally fisherman who caught it. There was a rumour that the Atlantis put out a bounty but apparently this is not the case. There is a small injury on the tail (possibly from the rope during capture, or a previous injury from a boat propeller or another sea creature), and that's it. The shark is in perfect health.

 

[trux]

Well, since the option "eat it" or "sell to Japan" is missing, I voted for releasing

 

[Hugh.]

Whoops, didn't who voted what would show up.rofl
I was joking, it should be released.

 

[jay cluskey]

whoever said keep it till it dies and get a new one probably lives in disneyland
and should be sat in a shop window for three months , so he can be observed by morons

 

[podge]

£50 says that if it’s being kept in the aquarium of the Atlantis Palm then there was money involved somewhere down the chain.:rcard
Release the bloody thing and let it take it chance out where it should be and not in some man made watery zoo.:rcard:rcard

 

[drunkinbda]

hopefully this doesn't raise too much controversy, but im curious. This has nothing to do with my opinion, just playing devils advocate.

For all those who say it should be released: Why say the whale shark should be released and not all the other fish? Is it cause its bigger and "gentler"? More endangered? Harder to sustain (inevitable death)? Just too big to be comfortable in tank? Perhaps you do think the others should be released too but this article atm is about the whale shark? Perhaps you're plotting some ninja/mercenary secret mission put all the fish in big plastic bags so they can roll their way back to the ocean?

 

[jay cluskey]

free them all , i whent to atlantis ,paradise island , people were just mereley glancing at them on their ways to the casino
i even seen a tourist with a large kitchen knife trying to get on the underwater walk , he was worried about the sharks,
i done the shark feed over at stuart coves place , plenty of sharks , not much else though . the sharks have become domesticated -ish , and all of the rays had gone due to the overpopulation of sharks in the vicinity , due to food being available easily.
im not moaning . i loved it but thease places do have their down sides

 

[ILDiver]

We should take the whale shark to Mexico and tie it to a rocket and return it to the moon so it can be with it's family! (South Park reference)

I think they should build more aquariums and model them to look like some real sections of reef, like the Christ statue in the Keys and such. Maybe a wall like the Caymans. Since humans will destroy the real thing soon enough we should build replicas so we know what we are missing </sarcasm>

 

[salibandy]

hopefully this doesn't raise too much controversy, but im curious. This has nothing to do with my opinion, just playing devils advocate.

For all those who say it should be released: Why say the whale shark should be released and not all the other fish? Is it cause its bigger and "gentler"? More endangered? Harder to sustain (inevitable death)? Just too big to be comfortable in tank? Perhaps you do think the others should be released too but this article atm is about the whale shark? Perhaps you're plotting some ninja/mercenary secret mission put all the fish in big plastic bags so they can roll their way back to the ocean?

I have the exact same thoughts too. Anyone care to answer?

 

[trux]

Well, drunkinbda already answered it himself. All the reasons he named are (more or less) valid. But it is a clear that with an animal of these proportions and rarity, you change the balance in the environment much more seriously than by removing a few smaller and easily replacable species. The small fish also may not feel as stressed in captivity as a big one that is used to cruise the seas in big distances.

 

[hudasmt]

I'm for releasing it

 

[podge]

Well, drunkinbda already answered it himself. All the reasons he named are (more or less) valid. But it is a clear that with an animal of these proportions and rarity, you change the balance in the environment much more seriously than by removing a few smaller and easily replacable species. The small fish also may not feel as stressed in captivity as a big one that is used to cruise the seas in big distances.

Dam straight Trux, you hit the nail right on the head there mate.
A few small fish that do bugger all except cruise up and down the same piece of reef every day I would imagine would feel quite at home in a big enough tank, but you put a big enough fish in the same size tank that spends its time swimming from coast to coast or country to country and I would think it would get fairly piss off fairly quick.
I say dap the poor old boy (or young boy) back in the sea and let him get on with it.

 

[jay cluskey]

put him on ebay

 

[island_sands]

The things, they went out and caught it illegally, bring it to the fish tank (no quarantine), in jure its tail in the process, and are using it for commercial gain (they are already selling Sammy the Shark soft toys) and they initially said it was 'sick and they rescued it', (b0ll0cks) and that they would nurse it back to health and release it, then the fat boy from Kerzner says there was never any intention of releasing it. they have no permit to keep the shark, it is a migratory species, juvenile, and probably still hasnt reached its destination where it would feed on natural plankton to be able to grow healthily.

read about the whale sharks in the aquarium in Atlanta and Okinawa. Out of 16 whale sharks captured for the Okinana aquarium, only 3 have survived..

in Atlanta 2 out of 4 survived.

so that's 15 less whale sharks in the ocean for us to enjoy.

 

[salibandy]

I'm against capturing whale sharks for aquariums too. Like evidence has shown, we do not know enough about the shark to safely keep it. We hardly even know anything about it.

Over here in Singapore, we will have at least 2 sharks to worry about in the future. Singapore right now is building an Integrated Resort that will house ''an oceanarium spanning 8 hectares with the largest single marine tank in the world (which will be 20 mil gallons), a 6.5 million gallon Whale Shark Lagoon, and interactive dolphin habitat, operated by the world-renowned Dolphin Quest''. The oceanarium will house at lest one, and the lagoon at least one. Further more, ''visitors to the oceanarium will also be able to swim among whale sharks inside a 6.6 million gallon lagoon''. The quoted sentences are from different sources, but they basically say the same thing.

Any ideas on how to protest against this?

 

[jay cluskey]

i think the unlucky 13 in okinawa all whent down well with some sake ... sarcasm not humour.
if lucky these species will only last for 2 years in large captive areas ( seen atlanta aquarium on documentary)
also the sudden down turn in the worlds economy may give the richer nations some leverage in implementing sanctions on less richer countrys who are actively whaling and shark finning i just hope someone has the cahoneys to do it (iceland and japan to name just two)

 

[fcallagy]

Not sure how to effectively protest againest it salibandy but maybe we should be trying to promote more natural encounters and this too can be fraught with problems.
On one of Tanyas programmes where she swims with a whale shark she was very upset ( and rightly so) about the tourist part of swim with the whale shark but this was a once in a life time oppertunity for most of those people they did not have the luxury of waiting for a better oppertunity to present itself it probably come down to the operator at the end but do we need to start screening people to see who is allowed to dive with these mammels? We all know not to touch mammels but yet regularly see other celebraties ( not Tanya) doing the very thing thats normally warned againest. I.m just being devils advocate here by the way. I would much prefer a more natural encounter with any animal but if I was on the same boatand was told theres a whale shark and had paid for the once in a lifetime oppertunity i may well have being one of the swimmers. Any other thoughts on how to effectively give people what they want ( garunteed encounters with mammels like these) and do so without impacting on the animals themselves?

 

[jay cluskey]

people just have to accept the facts .. if you are swimming , sailing , diving ore holidaying were palagic mamals are frequenting then you are more likley to see them . we should not bring them to us