Ian Gordon on White Sharks in Captivity

Rudy van der Elst wrote:

We are seriously considering the development of a large new aquarium which would be excellent news for our future operations especially as it will support the research activities of ORI. However, there are also other agencies planning to look at aquaria and therefore the entire question of aquarium development is receiving considerable local attention. Pressure is being put on us and the other agencies to deliver a white shark in healthy condition and then to maintain it in an aquarium for years to come. Considering our attempts at doing this as well as the review of many other attempts, I am increasingly skeptical of such a venture unless it is part of a long term, well funded programme. Do you have any up-to-date opinions on this and are you aware of anyone who has had more success keeping white sharks alive for longer than a few days? I am somewhat concerned about being forced into a corner and having to agree to support such an initiative when inherently I have reservations

Hi Rudy,
White Sharks in Captivity !!!!! That's a big one mate.

I am sure you already know the history of whites in captivity to date, so I won't go over old ground. Manly Marineland in Sydney probably had the best record of success even though it didn't set a record beyond 21 days (SeaWorld San Diego) [21 days not correct, should be 16 days, Mike Shaw personal communication April 2003 and Ian Gordon agrees]. In 1968 a fishing boat off Long Reef, Sydney caught a white shark by hook and line. It was a 2.3 mtr long male who fought the line hard and was eventually landed off long Reef Point in the early hours of the morning. The shark was dragged around to a sheltered beach called Brown Water where the fisherman contacted the aquarium manager. The shark was tethered to the boat while a truck was dispatched from the aquarium arriving about an hour later. The shark was dragged into the beach and shipped via road on the truck back to the aquarium in a open water tank with no filtration. This process took about 45 minutes, when arriving at the aquarium it was stretchered up two flights of stairs to the top of the aquarium, out of the water, and dumped into the top of the tank. The old (now demolished) Marineland tank was 2 stories high and 18 feet deep, holding approx, 1 million ltrs of water. It had a central artificial reef and multiple marine occupants ranging from turtles to Grey Nurse sharks.

With little diver help amazingly the shark started swimming around the aquarium with little problem avoiding the obstacles. The shark swam around happily in the tank for 7 days with no problem still avoiding the walls of the tank. This was amazing in itself as the construction of the tank was poor, with little distance between the aquarium walls and the steel reinforcing rods that supported the concrete structure. The window frames, 72 in all - 36 top and 36 bottom, posed an even greater electrical barrier, as they were glass internals bolted to the walls with an protected bronze frames.

After about 3 days the shark started feeding in captivity on live snapper that were plentiful in the aquarium. The divers started to be concerned with the apparent interest that the shark showed in them whilst in the water. After a reported close call by one of the divers , it was decided that the shark would have to go out of the aquarium. As no one was game to catch it, it was decided that the shark had to be power headed. It was advertised in the media ( remember this was the 60's ) that the killer shark was too dangerous and would have to be killed at a certain time on a particular day and sales went through the roof. On the fateful day 10 days into the shark's captivity a group of divers entered the water with power heads loaded. The shark took 7 shots before it died on the bottom of the aquarium. Although this sounds like a great pub yarn it actually happened and magazine articles ensued with the sharks death as headlines in 1968.

The shark was feeding and avoiding the walls of the aquarium which would have been leaching considerable electric interference. If it hadn't have been the bad old days of the 60's the shark may have survived for who knows how long in the aquarium.

In late 1979, I started my long association with Manly Marineland and after hearing these stories I developed a interest in trying to duplicate the aquariums previous success in keeping a white shark in captivity. Over the next 6 years we tried introducing another 5 small whites into the aquarium all with little to no success. In all cases the sharks were by catch from fishermen, mostly in nets. The longest we could keep one was 30 hours but in most cases the shark died within 12 hours. We tried every method known to man at the time to minimize the stresses of capture and transportation. We tried developing our methods with other sharks hoping one day to get a crack at a healthy white.

In 1986 we demolished the old Manly Marineland and re constructed a new aquarium which we called Oceanworld. Much of the aquarium was designed with the hope of keeping larger sharks and one day possibly a white. For a number of years we had had no reports of incidentally caught whites in the Sydney area and eventually lost interest in looking for whites for captivity. I became more interested in working with large whites in the wild and working on jaw morphological questions on dead shark jaws all around Australia.

In 1994 we were fishing for seven gills in 100ft of water off Sydney with a drop line and as we were setting a drop line I noticed it start bobbing around violently. I moved the boat to the line and grabbed the buoy and nearly got pulled overboard. As I pulled the line to the surface a shark shape appeared before me. Peering into the water it became apparent that I had caught a 2.1 mtr white which was fighting hard on the line. We had a full water tank on the boat and flat seas so the shark was boated carefully and within 20 minutes of capture we were transferring the shark into the aquarium lock system. The shark swam into the aquarium without any trouble and started avoiding the walls easily. In the first hour the shark we called Bruce only hit the wall hard twice and was swimming clockwise circuits on the aquarium only touching the wall gently once or twice with it's pectoral fin. The next morning the shark was fine and even showed some interest in the diver feeding display I regularly undertook for the public. I thought great, we have a white in captivity and he should stay for a while. On day 3 the shark started to have trouble with some of the skimmer overflows in the aquarium and we had to invent some skimmer covers to keep Bruce from beaching. He became more aware of slight changes in the aquarium system ( eg lights going on and off etc ). These changes seemed to freak him out, causing bumps and collisions with walls close to the disturbance. He also started to be attracted to one sand flat area in the aquarium close to the pump room. This effectively halved his swimming space as he would refuse to swim around the entire tank. He developed problems in turning hard enough in this tight area without hitting the walls. This was because of the sharks' stiff swim action which favours smooth larger turns rather than small tight turns. He seemed to approach each problem developing ways to move around the obstacles he encountered each time, you could see the light was on and he was thinking.

On day five it was apparent that he was starting to weaken and go downhill so we decided to release him. I assembled some of my dive staff with stretchers and developed a way to catch him out with minimal damage ( and no power heads ). The plan was simple. As he swam past me on scuba, I would grab him and the other divers would stretcher both me and the shark and swim us into the lock. This worked well and he was soon in the dive lock awaiting the boat to pick him up. We transferred him to the boat transport tank and rushed him back to the same area he had been caught. On arrival I took him into the water on scuba and swam him a short distance eventually releasing him. He swam off strongly, I followed him to 100ft and then he disappeared into the gloom never to be seen again.

Lessons to the learnt are many, but here are a few.


1. If the shark is the right shark it is possible for it to live at least for a short time in a poor aquarium environment i.e. Marineland Manly. Note the shark in 1968 did exist and survived with everything done wrong.
2. White sharks have a stiff swimming pattern which restricts their ability to make sharp turns around aquariums. Any aquarium that was to house a white shark would have to have large radius turns and minimal obstacles within the structure.
3. White sharks are sensitive to mild electro kinetic currents that could be generated by cathodic protection (I have seen many whites bite the bottoms of dive boats where the zinc anode was bolted on the hull or propeller), unprotected or inadequately covered rebars in reinforced concrete, lighting cables or pump house equipment.
4. The most crucial time for the shark is broken down into 3 areas
A) Capture (minimal restraint of the animal is crucial, it can't be wrapped up in a net or held motionless for long periods. They are highly susceptible to stress in the fight after capture due to the endothermic nature of the animal ).
B) Transport ( Animal movement needs to be addressed as well as water quality etc.
C) Captive housing

Many other points need can be covered but this note is long enough already.

It is my personal feeling that a white could be kept in a captive situation if all the above and more are addressed ( or you got a freak animal like the 1968 specimen ). Much scientific information could be gained by 1 animal in captivity, if it was monitored correctly and responsibly.

I however do have great reservations about many animals being caught and killed in the name of aquarium keeping and many aquariums rushing to be the first to succeed in keeping one successfully.


Yours in Sharks. Ian Gordon
PS Comment and discussion on this subject would be good over weeks to come
Added August 1998. Back to previous page
Please send comments or corrections to henry@elasmollet.org