Young White Shark Drops By Malibu for Six-Day Visit

• Juvenile Male Placed in Point Dume Holding Pen Decided the Menu Wasn’t to His Liking

BY ANNE SOBLE

A juvenile white shark that was accidentally caught by a commercial fisherman last Tuesday spent six days in the Monterey Bay Aquarium holding pen at Paradise Cove before being released into the ocean on Sunday.
The shark, a young-of-the-year shark—that’s a shark less than 12 months old—measured four-foot, nine inches in length.
First described by an MBA spokes­person as navigating well in the pen, the shark was offered food—primarily mackerel caught locally by the field team. White sharks this age are fish-eaters.
Ken Peterson of MBA said the staff usually makes a decision on whether to tag and release a shark from the pen, or bring it to Mon­terey as a candidate for temporary exhibit, within two to three weeks of the time it is put in the pen.
But this shark was not swimming as well in confinement as the MBA staff wanted, and hadn’t eaten any of the fish put out for him. Even though it was possible the shark was eating schools of baitfish swimming in the pen, they could not quantify his intake.
Peterson said, “The evaluation of the folks in the field, supported by our white shark team in Mon­terey and our veterinarian, was it was in the best interests of the animal to tag him and release him back to the wild.”
In addition to the young male released last weekend, MBA re­search colleagues have field-tagged and released three other juvenile white sharks since the Memorial Day weekend.
MBA began the white shark field research program in 2002 and brought three animals to the aquarium for periods up to six months in 2004, 2006 and 2007. All three were tagged and re­turned to the wild.
The tag on the most recent re­lease, in February of this year, just popped off about halfway up the Sea of Cortez. The data from the tag is being analyzed for information about depths and water temperatures during the shark’s travels.
A second tag, that reports only his approximate position, is still on the shark and will transmit for another couple of months until the battery runs out.
Scientists at the aquarium indicate a preference for calling the animals white sharks rather than use the popular term great white shark in order to downplay the sensationalism of the commercial demonization of the species.