Captive Great White Shark Dies Before It Has Chance to Star in Outrage-Generating Doc
Great white shark in Japanese aquarium dead.
A great white shark has died in captivity in Japan’s Okinawa Churaumi Aquarium, after spending only three days in the exhibit.
The shark was captured accidentally just a few days before off the coast of Japan. The Wall Street Journal reported on this zoological trainwreck Thursday, which paints a bleak picture of the shark’s captive experience that’s probably not tearjerking enough for someone to call Sundance or even block off an hour of CNN airtime.
From the WSJ:
“The shark hasn’t eaten anything since it arrived, but its feed will include fish, squid and even pork. ‘Every day is a new experience for us and we are learning many new things–this is a first for us,’ the keeper said.”
Because nobody was there to film man wrestle with the animal unknown, we’re left with this ominous paragraph instead of a sequel to Grizzly Man:
“Workers at the Churaumi Aquarium had to guide it in the tank so that it wouldn’t crash into the clear walls. They also had to prompt it to continue swimming after it stopped and sank to the bottom of the tank. But the shark appears to have settled well after a few days, according to the aquarium.”
On Friday, the aquarium pulled the plug on the exhibit, because the shark had, regrettably, died:
Considering the public had neither time to name the animal or project outrage on the level of Cecil the Lion or a rhino hunter, the shark never had the chance to achieve the infamy of Tilikum, the SeaWorld orca featured in the 2013 documentary Blackfish.
From the aquarium’s website:
“We are going to announce termination of Great White Shark exhibition. We had been displayed the shark in ‘the Sea of dangerous sharks’ tank from January 5th, 2016 but, the shark’s condition took a sudden turn worse and we confirmed its dead January 8th.”
Great white shark, we never knew ye or your Oscar nomination potential.
