Biology Reference
In-Depth Information
BLACKIE'S SHARKS
I had learned a lot about the capture, transport, and husbandry of sev-
eral species of sharks during the experimental work we did at Sea World.
Although Steinhart lacked tanks of a size suitable for large sharks, it
did have the roomy tank that Herald had built in the hopes of some-
day collecting and displaying a coelacanth (
Latimeria chalumnae
). The
coelacanth, considered to be a living fossil, is related to the fishes that
left the world of water and eventually evolved into land-dwelling ver-
tebrates—including, of course, us. More about the coelacanth later,
but su‹ce it now to say that Steinhart had a tank available to use if I
could come up with an appropriate species of shark.
Herald's would-be coelacanth tank was presently occupied by a col-
lection of trout and salmon. I thought that if I could find a small species
of shark whose natural habitat was around reefs and so was adapted to
living in tight spaces, we could create a much more interesting exhibit.
No sharks in California fit those criteria other than leopard sharks, and
we already had quite a few of those attractive animals in other exhibits.
In the tropics, however, there are several shark species that live around
coral reefs; I thought one of these would work well in an exhibit the
size of the coelacanth tank.
Bruce Carlson at the Waikiki Aquarium had recently flown in a cou-
ple of small blacktip reef sharks (
Carcharhinus melanopterus
) from Can-
ton Island, in the Phoenix group of the South Pacific. These sharks
reach a maximum size of about six feet and at birth are only about
fifteen inches long. They seemed like perfect candidates: small enough
to be transported from their native waters at reasonable cost, but also,
as members of the requiem shark family, always active and very “sharky”
looking.
Canton Island has an interesting history. Under joint American and
British control, it became the stopover point in 1940 for Pan Ameri-
can Airways trans-Pacific Clipper seaplanes on their way to the Orient
and Australia. During World War II it was used as a military base. In
1946 it reverted to civilian use as a stopover for trans-Pacific flights, a
function that eventually became unnecessary when long-range jet air-
craft came into use. A NASA space tracking station was located there
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