Whale shark dies at Atlanta Aquarium

By MARK DAVIS
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Published on: 01/29/07
Nothing makes a protest come alive like a death or two. Jeff Swanagan knows.

The president and executive director of the Georgia Aquarium, Swanagan stood by Jan. 2 when a veterinarian plunged a needle containing a fatal chemical into Gasper, euthanizing the ailing beluga whale. Nine days later he watched as specialists tried to revive Ralph, one of the fish tank's marquee whale sharks. Ralph died, and no one yet knows why.

Now, the aquarium is in a fish bowl of its own.

Back-to-back deaths of two big swimmers have prompted protests from private citizens and national organizations. They range from reasoned to outraged.

"If they'd never put whales or whale sharks there, then people never would miss them," said Russ Rector, an activist in Fort Lauderdale. "It went from an aquarium to a prison."

Swanagan, who has been in the zoo and aquarium business for nearly 30 years, still sounds surprised when he hears such emotional criticism.

"It's almost like, I'd call it a religion," Swanagan said a week after Ralph died Jan. 11. "It's like, 'You can't love animals' " if you oversee an aquarium, he said.

The deaths have defined, again, the chasm separating aquarium fans and foes. In the public-relations battle over large displays of fish and mammals, neither side is willing to give way to the other.

The Georgia Aquarium protests took the form of e-mails, a newspaper column, telephone calls and a five-person candlelight vigil. The critics range from an angry ex-trainer of dolphins who nearly spits with indignation to a senior lecturer in neuroscience and behavioral biology at Emory University. They are as close as Chamblee and far away as the United Kingdom.

The aquarium has its supporters, too. A Covington resident who heads a state wildlife organization thinks the anti-aquarium people are all wet. A retired executive from SeaWorld defends the aquarium as an unmatched teaching tool.

Marilee Menard, executive director of the Alliance of Marine Mammal Parks and Aquariums, says, in a laugh edged with irritation: "There's not one person who goes to work at an aquarium who does not love animals."

Pushing the envelope

Bernie Marcus, the Georgia Aquarium's chief benefactor, is an animal lover. The retired co-founder of Home Depot toured the world, looking for exhibits to populate the $300 million fish tank in downtown Atlanta. When he saw whale sharks in Asian aquariums, he had to have some. In time, he got four: Ralph, Norton, Alice and Trixie. Their honeymoon with the public lingers today, more than a year after the aquarium's November 2005 debut.

Marcus remains convinced the aquarium did the right thing when it designed a tank big enough to accommodate swimming leviathans. In an e-mail Friday, he defended the decision to bring whale sharks to Georgia.

"We first asked our team, and then we asked those aquariums that have whale sharks, is this something we could do? Something we should do?" he said. "And they said 'yes,' for a variety of reasons. ...

"They said if mankind is going to help save whale sharks, we needed to study them and learn more about them, and make people aware of their existence," Marcus said. "They said any research we could accumulate would be invaluable. They convinced me that the whale sharks would not only amaze our guests, but that it would be a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for people on this side of the world to ever even see these magnificent animals up close."

Naomi A. Rose of the Humane Society of the United States has another theory. The aquarium was willing to risk putting the creatures on display to give it an edge on every other aquarium in America, she said. Few have belugas, and none has whale sharks.

"These big swimmers aren't adaptable to confinement," said Rose, who wrote two columns critical of the aquarium that appeared in The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. "I really resent that they're exploiting these animals' lives."

Trying to duplicate a wild environment in a tank isn't possible, said Lori Marino, an Emory University professor.

A neuroscience lecturer who specializes in cetaceans — whales, dolphins and porpoises. — Marino believes the aquarium "pushed the envelope" when it placed belugas and whale sharks on display. "There is a 'wow' factor there," she said. "But at what cost?"

A federal inventory of belugas in U.S. aquariums and marine parks indicates that they live about 11 years in captivity. Their maximum life expectancy in the wild is 30.

Forty-five out of 75 belugas held in U.S. displays have died since 1972, according to records from the National Marine Fisheries Service. The agency has kept a tally of belugas since Congress passed the national Marine Mammal Protection Act in 1972.

Statisticians tried to keep complete records of each dead whale that died in captivity the past three decades, but didn't always know a beluga's approximate birthdate, making age records sketchy. One born in 1959 lived 25 years. Another lived one day. The causes of death included drowning, infection and trauma.

Swanagan said he contacted the fisheries service after Gasper died, as required by law. As of Monday, the agency's inventory still listed him as living.

Education, research

Jim Antrim, a retired SeaWorld executive, has heard critics question aquarium displays for years. He has a query for them:

"Do you think you can sit on a bluff and watch these whale sharks swim by and learn anything about them?" he asked. "It is naive to think you can learn about species if you don't bring them into a captive environment."

A San Diego resident, he insists that the Georgia Aquarium is doing everything right with its fish and mammal populations — even in death. The necropsies performed on Gasper and Ralph will be invaluable for their counterparts living in the wild, Antrim said. (The aquarium cremated their remains and buried them in an animal cemetery in the metro area; it won't specify where.)

"It's about getting scientific data," Antrim said. "You just don't want to say, 'Oh, you [fish or mammal] don't look well.' "

Others say the aquarium also is performing a public-relations service for creatures that swim. Menard, whose organization includes aquariums and marine parks around the world, including the Georgia Aquarium, thinks the sight of a beluga can do wonders for a species' survival.

'You need to see them, be inspired by them, and care for them," said Menard.

Aquariums also teach, said Jerry McCollum, president and CEO of the Georgia Wildlife Federation. Founded in 1936, the non-profit organization boasts nearly 60,000 members, ranging from bow-hunters to bird-watchers. "You know, the more families you have that appreciate wildlife, the more wildlife conservation programs they'll support," he said. "The closer you get to it, the more affection and stewardship you have for wildlife."

The whale shark, the world's largest fish, also is one of its most mysterious, said Robert Hueter, director of the Center for Shark Research at Sarasota's Mote Marine Laboratory. Ralph helped raise awareness of them, he said.

"I don't think his life was in vain," Hueter said. "I think he did a tremendous job in helping his fellow sharks in the wild."

'Fringe extremists'

The confinement/freedom debate has reached the Association of Zoos and Aquariums, a licensing-and-standards agency for animal facilities all over the country. Based in Silver Spring, Md., it has 211 member institutions, including Zoo Atlanta. The Georgia Aquarium, barely a year old, is not a member. Swanagan said it will apply this year.

The AZA has heard arguments from "fringe extremists" against detaining animals, said Steve Feldman, a spokesman for the organization. "We are the animal-care experts," he said. "We care deeply about animals."

When an animal dies at a member zoo or aquarium, the AZA requires the agency to file a detailed report, Feldman said. Since it is not an AZA member, the Georgia Aquarium didn't have to report Ralph's or Gasper's deaths to the agency, he said.

Would those deaths hurt the aquarium's chances at AZA membership? Feldman thinks not.

"Animals are living things," he said. "Unfortunately, living things die."

That argument doesn't hold much water with the Captive Animals' Protection Society, a 50-year-old animal-rights organization based in Manchester, England, that claims 5,000 members worldwide. "I think they [aquariums] should all be phased out," said CAPS publicity director Craig Redmond.

Swanagan dismisses such talk.

"I think we should be given credit," he said. If we only wanted to bring [beluga] Nico here, we could have done it. We knew Gasper was sick. We just didn't know he was going to die."

And Ralph? Worldwide, fewer than a dozen whale sharks are in captivity; Swanagan isn't sure if Georgia Aquarium will add another to those ranks.

Dino Vlachos hopes it won't. The Chamblee resident is founder of Georgia Animals Rights and Protection. He joined four other people outside the aquarium Jan. 14 in a candlelight vigil for the fish tank's two dead stars, handing out brochures damning aquariums.

"It's tough to convince people about the cruelty," said Vlachos, who ignored the occasional catcall from passers-by as patrons left the aquarium.

He has not been inside he aquarium. "I really can't," he said. "It's hard enough for me to deal with it without seeing it."