I've seen the post on this before, there are 4 of them in the tank btw which is about 30 ft deep and the size of a football field for reference. Now, while I don't condone capturing animals for this purpose, the whale sharks were all caught by fisherman in Thailand and were destined to be chopped up for food, so if the GA hadn't bought them and brought them here, they would have been dead over 10 years ago. There's also a few manta rays in there while we're discussing. Pick your poison, but there are now laws restricting capture of these creatures and there won't be anymore in captivity unless they are bred in captivity which is unlikely. There are quite a few of them in captivity in Japan, China, and Dubai as well, these are just the only ones in the US.
If these had just been captured in the wild for the sole purpose of being put in the aquarium that would be one thing, but since they've been there for a decade at this point and were destined to be on someones plate I think there are far worse places they could be....