Aquarium must not be allowed to acquire a new whale shark
July 2013. Taiwan's National Museum of Marine Biology and Aquarium 'released' a whale shark into the wild that it had held in captivity for 8 years. The Whale shark was released with no preparation for life in the oceans, and was not tagged to enable scientists to track the animal in an effort to help it survive.
The animal had been kept in a small tank where it spent its life swimming slowly in one direction around the tank. The shark was released into the sea much too close to the shore; on release the shark continued to swim in a similar pattern to its pre-release and shortly afterwards stranded on the shoreline, not once, but twice. The shark was eventually re-floated on the first occasion thanks to efforts of the coast guard, local fishermen and conservation workers, but it is not known what happened to the animal after that. The aquarium cliamed that the animal was last seen swimming out to sea, but those who had helped rescue the animal stated that it was already badly injured, and was last seen being towed on the end of a rope out to sea by a boat - They believe it had no chance of surviving, if it wasn't already dead.
Not a release, but an abandoning
The method that was used for this so-called release appears to be that the over-riding priority was to get rid of the whale shark, with no thought given to its wellbeing.
The Environment and Animal Society of Taiwan (EAST) have been urging the aquarium to release the captive whale shark and not to bring in new ones.
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