Gulf Specimen’s sharks are now residents of the New York Aquarium
Story & Photos By
LEGION TAYLOR
Reporter
Gulf Specimen Marine Lab recently transferred three nurse sharks to the New York Aquarium located in New York City.
These nurse sharks were originally from the Florida Keys, and had been transferred to Gulf Specimen from Key West Aquarium in 2012, which had run out of room to keep them comfortably.
But these sharks kept growing since their transfer, and had grown to about 12 feet long, too large for their tank at Gulf Specimen.
Staff at Gulf Specimen reached out to other aquariums in the country via a list server which allows them to communicate with a large number of other institutions, offering to donate these three nurse sharks so long as the receiving aquarium would provide the transportation.
New York Aquarium was the first to reach out, and they arranged transportation for the sharks through Living Exhibits, which is a company that specializes in the transportation of sea life.
In order to keep these sharks healthy on their journey, they were moved in specialized trucks with large tanks, which were filled with nearly 2,000 gallons of water, and rigged with their own oxygen, filtration, and monitoring systems. This transfer cost Gulf Specimen nothing, as New York Aquarium paid for the entire process.
“I’m very proud of Hunter (Eichler, Aquarist and AmeriCorps site supervisor at the lab ) and the AmeriCorps staff and all the staff here at Gulf Specimen, they did a fantastic job,” said Cypress Rudloe, Executive Director at Gulf Specimen. “One of the main things we care about is the health of our animals… Although those sharks were in a very safe and healthy environment for their size, we wanted to make sure they have the best life possible. At the end of the day I hate losing them, but I’d rather see them in a better environment where they’re happier.”
“It’s definitely the biggest transfer we’ve ever done,” said Eichler. “We’ve done small sharks in the past, and we do biological supplies, so we ship small fish and invertebrates almost every day. But this was the biggest sea life transfer that we’ve ever completed.”
Visitors will notice, however, that the nurse shark display is still the home of four nurse sharks, younger and much smaller than the three who have gone to live in New York. These sharks were originally residents of a casino in Alabama, which bought them for a display in the lobby, only to discover that they grow much faster and larger than anyone at the casino expected.
Rather than euthanizing them, the casino reached out to Gulf Specimen, which happily accepted the transfer.
The New York Aquarium is using these nurse sharks in a new exhibit about the Hudson Canyon, an environment off the coast where these nurse sharks are a native species, where they’ll be in a much larger tank with other species from the area.
There are plans for expansions at Gulf Specimen, which include larger tanks for larger species that call local waters home, such as Bonnet Head Sharks and Cow Nose Rays.
“We want to get a lot larger tanks that can hold the bigger sea life that’s found in our area, just so we can teach people about them,” Eichler said. “And so we can take in animals that need a home, animals that need rescue or rehabilitation, we want to have as big a facility as we can manage to be able to do that.”
