Collecting the fish - A Fascination for Fish: Adventures of an Underwater Pioneer - page 216

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C OLLECTING THE FISH
V ISITORS TO AQUARIUMS have certain expectations about what they
want, or at least hope, to see. At the top of most people's list are whales
and dolphins, octopuses, eels, and of course sharks. It was decided at
the very beginning of the Monterey Bay Aquarium project that we
wouldn't have cetaceans. Not only was public sentiment growing in
the United States and Europe against keeping highly intelligent, social
animals like dolphins and whales in captivity, but Sea World, with its
large marine mammal exhibits, was already doing an excellent job of
exhibiting orcas and bottlenose dolphins.
We would, however, have the Pacific giant octopus and the scary-
looking but actually docile wolf eel, as well as plenty of sharks col-
lected from Monterey Bay and Elkhorn Slough, an estuary at Moss
Landing, midway between Monterey and Santa Cruz. Leopard sharks
and gray smoothhounds ( Mustelus californicus ) are perfectly fine
sharks, but most of them are small—two to four feet long on aver-
age. And small is not what most visitors have in mind when they think
of sharks. They want to see big sharks, sharks that fit the Hollywood
prototype; some even want “Jaws” itself. Of course, that portrayal is
mostly fantasy. Still, I wanted at least to show them sharks of a re-
spectable size.