New Sharks Grace Monterey Bay Aquarium

January 4, 2007

Release from: Tom Ragan
Santa Cruz Sentinel

MONTEREY — They swim in packs and attack in packs. Most sharks have five gills; these have seven, and they feed at the bottom of the ocean.

Sevengill sharks are the closest you'll get to the great white, and now you can find two of them, which both measure 8 feet 7 inches, at the Monterey Bay Aquarium, which is one of a few aquariums in the nation to display sharks.

"They're amazing," said Angela Hains, a spokeswoman for the aquarium, as she pointed out the sharks in the dark of the Monterey Bay Habitat Exhibit. "If you look close enough, you can count their gills."

Although the shark exhibit started in early December, the interest is almost as popular as the great white shark, which the aquarium has housed since September and plans to release as soon as it gets too big for the exhibit. It's the second great white to call the aquarium home.

The sevengill sharks also will be released in time, but first aquarium biologists will study their growth and development in captivity, hoping to learn more about when they reach their reproductive age, a key element in fisheries management.

Certainly, this is not the first time that the aquarium has put a sevengill shark on display.

From July 1990 to June 1994, the aquarium netted "Emma," a 9-foot, 10-inch long female which eventually was released and survived in the wild for another two years before being netted by a commercial fisherman off the Northern California coast, the same waters where she was originally found.

Considered "near threatened" status, the sevengill sharks are often found in offshore waters at depths of 1,870 feet. They have a broad head, small eyes and a short blunt snout.

It feeds on just about anything, from salmon and sturgeon to dolphins, porpoises and seals. In some regions of the world the shark is consumed, its liver oil believed to contain medicinal properties.

There was a time when the shark was common off the coast of California in the 1930s and the 1940s, but its population started to decline in the late 1980s and 1990s as a result of anglers accidentally catching too many of them.

Today, the greatest concentration of the sharks can be found in the Humboldt and San Francisco Bay areas, but the future of the sharks depends on the conservation of their habitats, according to the aquarium.