White Shark Holding Pen Is Back in Malibu Waters

• Aquarium Hopes to Capture Another Young Specimen for Temporary Display •

BY ANNE SOBLE

Small craft towed the Monterey Bay Aquarium holding pen—the first step in the live specimen tagging and acquisition phase of its White Shark Study Project—into the waters off Point Dume last week.
According to Ken Peterson, the MBA communications director, this year’s field season is from now through early September.
This involves “working with commercial fishermen who may accidentally catch young white sharks; tagging and releasing most of them in the field so we can learn where they’re traveling; and then [we’re] hoping to get a candidate or two to bring to the pen as a potential short-term (several month) exhibit animal at the aquarium,” he said.
Young sharks that are caught are placed in the holding pen for a health check and short-term acclimation to confinement. If a specimen is deemed suitable for display, it will then be trucked to Monterey and placed in the aquarium’s special shark exhibit.
As the white shark project has evolved, sharks have been released after a four-to-six month period, depending on the animal’s behavioral response to captivity.
Peterson noted, “[We’re] still tracking the last shark we released early in February, and he now is in the Sea of Cortez. He’s still—fingers crossed—doing well.”
That shark’s travels can be monitored at the Tagging of Pacific Predators web site at www. topp.org