please save WHALESHARKS -sign petition

DiveGirl55 · Feb 5, 2007

Please sign this petition I put together to collect enough signatures to get the remaining 3 whalesharks released from the Georgia Aquarium. On January 12, one of their 4 whalesharks died. They are not meant to be in captivity, they are too large. I have personally dove with 2 last year (they were 30 and 40 feet long) and I will never forget what a beautiful experience it was. Incidentally, they are sharks, not whales.

Send the petition to ALL your friends, it just take 5 seconds to sign and will not be shared with others.

Thank you, and may God bless all creatures.
VALENTINA "DiveGirl55"

http://www.petitiononline.com/back2sea/petition.html

tonka97 · Feb 5, 2007

DiveGirl55:
Please sign this petition I put together to collect enough signatures to get the remaining 3 whalesharks released from the Georgia Aquarium. On January 12, one of their 4 whalesharks died. They are not meant to be in captivity, they are too large. I have personally dove with 2 last year (they were 30 and 40 feet long) and I will never forget what a beautiful experience it was. Incidentally, they are sharks, not whales.

Send the petition to ALL your friends, it just take 5 seconds to sign and will not be shared with others.

Thank you, and may God bless all creatures.
VALENTINA "DiveGirl55"

http://www.petitiononline.com/back2sea/petition.html

Thank you, and Bless you for your compassionate actions to protect these wonderful creatures!

Jcsgt · Feb 6, 2007

Petition signed! I also copied the link into an email and forwarded it to my like-minded friends.

Kudos to you for getting this out there.

daclozer · Feb 6, 2007

So you place absolutely no value on being able to study and do valuable research on these whale sharks? Not signing, sorry.

DiverBeth · Feb 6, 2007

Signed the petition. I saw a whale shark on a dive and they don't belong in an aquarium.

EvaL · Feb 6, 2007

DiveGirl55, I've signed. If this succeeds, I hope they are released into the Atlantic, because I'm very skeptical they'll survive for long in the Pacific and Indian Oceans. Whaleshark fins are among the most prized fins on the Asian market. Asian fishing vessels are taking tons of sharkfins for the growing markets in Asia. I've seen their vessels from South Africa all the way to Costa Rica. Maybe Greenpeace should do the same to these fin-harvesting ships what they do to Japanese and Norwegian whaling ships.
DaClozer, we can still study them in the wild (and possibly learn more than in captivity), there's no need to put them in a tank. I'm not BSing about this because I'm a field biologist.

Diver Dennis · Feb 6, 2007

Just a few questions. Is it feasible to release them and have them survive? Have they been in captivity long? I admittedly don't know too much about this. What did the first one die from and are the others at risk?

EvaL · Feb 6, 2007

Diver Dennis:
Just a few questions. Is it feasible to release them and have them survive? Have they been in captivity long? I admittedly don't know too much about this. What did the first one die from and are the others at risk?

I think they're still trying to figure out the cause of death. If it is an infectious disease that persists in the aquarium, then the remaining whalesharks may be at risk.
As far as I know, there aren't any records of whalesharks being released from captivity (there aren't many whalesharks in captivity to start with). Dolphins and killer whales, which are social, group-forming mammals, have been released with some successes. In contrast, whalesharks are usually solitary and are fish (not mammals), so it's hard to predict what will happen. Their food source (mainly plankton) is completely different as well. There are probably some releases of sharks from captivity. I know Monterrey bay Aquarium released their first and only white shark not too long ago. They tracked it for a while until the transponder fell off.
Dive safely.

Diver Dennis · Feb 6, 2007

Thanks Eva. Depending on the length of captivity, it would be a shame to release them only to die. I'm not condoning having them in captivity, just wondering about this particular case.

diversteve · Feb 6, 2007

According to this link, Ralph and Norton were destined to be dinner in Taiwan before the Aquarium bought them. So for them at least it's a better fate to be on display.

http://www.underwatertimes.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=1838

I have mixed feelings about it, on the one hand if seeing them at the aquarium prompts enough people to stop the slaughter of whalesharks, it might be worth their capture and even eventual sacrifice. Otoh, although I intend to go there to view them, there seems to be something inherently wrong in keeping an animal that large in captivity. It seems to me a convenient excuse to say that scientific research can be better performed on them, somehow I don't think they display natural feeding or swimming behavior restricted in the aquarium.

Haven't signed yet but I probably will. I also support Greenpeace to help stop the slaughter of whales and sharks caught for finning.

please save WHALESHARKS -sign petition

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