Well, not really an encounter, but I saw one.
My wife and I went up to Carmel Sunday through Tuesday to celebrate our
43rd anniversary and revisited the Monterey Bay Aquarium to see their
GWS. No previous GWS has survived over 16 days in captivity, and this one
has been there over 170 days and seems to be thriving.
Almost as interesting as seeing the shark is attending a presentation
where they tell the story of its capture and show photos. They say that
So Cal is a nursery area for these sharks and many new borns are taken
every year in nets. Last summer they positioned a giant holding pen net
off Santa Monica and put out the word that they wanted a shark. A halibut
netter caught this young female and notified them, and they had it
transferred into the pen within an hour. They kept it there for a few
days feeding it salmon filets to make sure it would eat, then put it in
their 3000 gallon "finnebago" truck and drove it up I-5 to Monterey.
It was just over 4 feet and 62 pounds when taken, and now is about 5 feet
and 80 to 90 pounds. Its in a tank with other sharks, tuna, and mahimahi
but has let them alone so far. They say that if it ever shows aggression
to the divers or other fish, they will let it go. If that happens while
its still relatively small, they will take it home to So Cal. If its
bigger, they will just give it a helo lift out into Monterey Bay where
it can entertain local divers and surfers.
The divers who clean the tank now work in teams of three wearing
stainless steel chain mail, and one of them carries a shark billy with a
padded end and covers the other two while they clean.
It was neat to see the shark from behind the safety of glass, but what
got my pacemaker really working hard were the big tuna. The largest
bluefin are about 300 pounds.
Here is a link to a live cam that works from 7AM to 7PM PST.
http://www.mbayaq.org/efc/efc_hp/hp_obw_cam.asp
I'm told its really neat, but I can't seem to open it.
These photos are pretty bad since the light was poor and kids kept getting in the way, but at least you can see how fat the tuna are.
My wife and I went up to Carmel Sunday through Tuesday to celebrate our
43rd anniversary and revisited the Monterey Bay Aquarium to see their
GWS. No previous GWS has survived over 16 days in captivity, and this one
has been there over 170 days and seems to be thriving.
Almost as interesting as seeing the shark is attending a presentation
where they tell the story of its capture and show photos. They say that
So Cal is a nursery area for these sharks and many new borns are taken
every year in nets. Last summer they positioned a giant holding pen net
off Santa Monica and put out the word that they wanted a shark. A halibut
netter caught this young female and notified them, and they had it
transferred into the pen within an hour. They kept it there for a few
days feeding it salmon filets to make sure it would eat, then put it in
their 3000 gallon "finnebago" truck and drove it up I-5 to Monterey.
It was just over 4 feet and 62 pounds when taken, and now is about 5 feet
and 80 to 90 pounds. Its in a tank with other sharks, tuna, and mahimahi
but has let them alone so far. They say that if it ever shows aggression
to the divers or other fish, they will let it go. If that happens while
its still relatively small, they will take it home to So Cal. If its
bigger, they will just give it a helo lift out into Monterey Bay where
it can entertain local divers and surfers.
The divers who clean the tank now work in teams of three wearing
stainless steel chain mail, and one of them carries a shark billy with a
padded end and covers the other two while they clean.
It was neat to see the shark from behind the safety of glass, but what
got my pacemaker really working hard were the big tuna. The largest
bluefin are about 300 pounds.
Here is a link to a live cam that works from 7AM to 7PM PST.
http://www.mbayaq.org/efc/efc_hp/hp_obw_cam.asp
I'm told its really neat, but I can't seem to open it.
These photos are pretty bad since the light was poor and kids kept getting in the way, but at least you can see how fat the tuna are.
