Rare Monterey Bay Aquarium Shark Returned To Wild
MONTEREY (BCN) ―
A prickly shark on display at the Monterey Bay Aquarium.
A rare deep-water shark found Tuesday in Monterey Bay has been returned to the wild, only hours after it was put in an aquarium exhibit.
A spokeswoman for the Monterey Bay Aquarium said Wednesday that the 6-foot, 8-inch prickly shark found late Tuesday night near Moss Landing was set free after 15 hours because it was too buoyant to swim easily in the exhibit.
"It was hanging out at the top, and it would move along...it was kind of top-heavy, so it turned over," said spokeswoman Karen Jeffries.
"We don't know if eventually it would have been a-okay and righted itself...but with this one, it was marine biologist's call to just put it back in the bay," she said.
The shark was fitted with an electronic tag that will record the location of its travels and is programmed to pop free after six months, and released near Marina.
This was only the second of the little-known species, Echinorhinus cookei, ever collectedhowever brieflyin the wild.
Jeffries said the shark, which lives in cold water at depths of up to 3,000 feet, "carries a lot of fat, which makes it buoyant."
"When sharks turn over like that, it's called tonic immobility, it's a little bit like being hypnotized...they go into a trancelike state," she said.
Jeffries said the creature, a bottom-dweller that has unusual rows of rough, thorny spines along its back, was "very cool."
"We figure at least 1,000 people got to see it," she said.
http://www.mercurynews.com/ci_12568899?source=rss
http://www.nowpublic.com/environment/prickly-shark-captured-brief-exhibit-monterey-bay-aquarium
MONTEREY (BCN) ―
A prickly shark on display at the Monterey Bay Aquarium.
A rare deep-water shark found Tuesday in Monterey Bay has been returned to the wild, only hours after it was put in an aquarium exhibit.
A spokeswoman for the Monterey Bay Aquarium said Wednesday that the 6-foot, 8-inch prickly shark found late Tuesday night near Moss Landing was set free after 15 hours because it was too buoyant to swim easily in the exhibit.
"It was hanging out at the top, and it would move along...it was kind of top-heavy, so it turned over," said spokeswoman Karen Jeffries.
"We don't know if eventually it would have been a-okay and righted itself...but with this one, it was marine biologist's call to just put it back in the bay," she said.
The shark was fitted with an electronic tag that will record the location of its travels and is programmed to pop free after six months, and released near Marina.
This was only the second of the little-known species, Echinorhinus cookei, ever collectedhowever brieflyin the wild.
Jeffries said the shark, which lives in cold water at depths of up to 3,000 feet, "carries a lot of fat, which makes it buoyant."
"When sharks turn over like that, it's called tonic immobility, it's a little bit like being hypnotized...they go into a trancelike state," she said.
Jeffries said the creature, a bottom-dweller that has unusual rows of rough, thorny spines along its back, was "very cool."
"We figure at least 1,000 people got to see it," she said.
http://www.mercurynews.com/ci_12568899?source=rss
http://www.nowpublic.com/environment/prickly-shark-captured-brief-exhibit-monterey-bay-aquarium
