Biology Reference
In-Depth Information
He told me to work with the reptiles, and I refused. Then he ordered
me to do so. It wasn't that I was afraid of the snakes; I respected them,
of course, but it wasn't what I had been hired to do. It was the princi-
ple of the thing. I went to Dr. George Lindsay, director of the Acad-
emy, and we agreed on a compromise: I would work only with the
aquatic amphibians.
PROVOKING A SHARK ATTACK
Herald's attempt to have everyone do everything regardless of interest
or ability eventually backfired, with near tragic results. At that time,
aquarists Bob Kiwala and Lloyd Gomez, Phyllis Ensrud, who was Her-
ald's secretary, and I were the only divers at the aquarium. Herald's next
move, therefore, was to make every aquarist become a scuba diver.
Senior aquarist Tom Green was a good aquarist but was getting along
in years and not exactly in top physical shape. Somehow, although Tom
wasn't a strong swimmer, he passed the diving tests and was certified
as a scuba diver. As far as Herald was concerned, he was now fit to per-
form any diving task.
At one point during the reconstruction, the large temperate marine
fishes such as yellowtail, bass, and leopard sharks were taken out of their
old exhibit tanks and placed temporarily in the newly completed fifty-
five-thousand-gallon dolphin tank. Around this time, too, a four-foot-
long sevengill shark (
Notorhynchus cepedianus
) was donated to the aquar-
ium, and it was placed in the dolphin tank as well. Herald, who had
taken a special interest in the new sevengill, insisted that we make sure
it was fed daily. The tank was outdoors in the sun, and a resulting al-
gae bloom made the water a pea green color with only three feet of vis-
ibility. This made it impossible to see through the window if the shark
was feeding on any of the food tossed in for the other inhabitants. Her-
ald therefore wanted us to dive into the tank, catch the shark, and bring
it to the side for force-feeding. We would take turns with the diving,
shark catching, and force-feeding.
I was standing ready with the food on one of Tom Green's days to
catch the shark when suddenly he broke the surface with his arm held
up in the air and blood pouring out. He made it to the side, and I saw
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