Biology Reference
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aquarium. Ken ran the boat back to the dock, and the shark was
carried in the shark stretcher to the transport tank on one of the
trucks. With lots of oxygen pumping into the tank, aquarists
Gilbert Van Dykhuizen and Scott Nygren took o¤ for Monterey.
Ken headed back out to check the remaining setlines and found
there was a nice seven-foot male on one of the other lines. This
one was much easier to bring on board and was transferred to the
transport tank on the second truck. It had been a great day. We
had two sharks, and one of them was the largest ever seen in an
aquarium.
Ten hours later both sharks were swimming around the Mon-
terey Bay Habitats exhibit. The big female looked huge. Not only
was she long, but she was so big in girth that we were convinced
she must be pregnant. She began eating quite soon and did well,
avoiding the sides of the tank and the rockwork and wharf pil-
ings. Although the aquarium had a policy against giving names
to our animals, she was uno‹cially christened “Big Emma,” named
after the ample proprietress of a local diner.
As time went by she became less rotund and pregnant-looking,
and after a year we concluded she definitely wasn't going to give
birth. It's quite possible that she'd originally been pregnant but
had absorbed the eggs or developing embryos.
Over the next four years Emma did well, but there were times
when she displayed her predatory nature, which was a bit of a
worry. On several occasions she bit and even consumed some of
her tank mates. Most disturbing were the deep slashes she made
on our prized white sturgeons. Fortunately, our veterinarian, Tom
Williams, was able to suture the wounds, and the sturgeons re-
covered completely.
By 1994 Big Emma had developed a white abrasion on her
snout and was also showing disconcerting, possibly aggressive
behavior toward divers in the tank. She would swim over a diver
and stop almost motionless overhead. This, of course, was most
unnerving.
We decided, for her benefit and for the good of the fishes and
divers who shared her tank, that we'd release her into Monterey
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