Resident shark aquarium's new great white hope
By Diana Marcum
FRESNO BEE
MONTEREY - The bluefin tuna are bigger. Even the comically cute sea turtle has more mass. But there's no denying that it's the great white shark -- even a 5-foot-8-inch-long, 104-pound baby -- that is drawing crowds at the Monterey Bay Aquarium.

He is newly arrived and the only white shark in captivity in the world, but it's more than that.

The other fish get out of the way when he glides near. The excited ******r of the people who have come from miles away to see the shark quiets when he slides near the glass.

"It always tickles the imagination -- and the back of your neck -- a little when you talk about the great white," says John Hutcherson, 72, of Monterey, who has brought his 5-year-old grandson Zachary, of Pasadena, to the exhibit.

"Duh-duhn, duh-duhn," sings 8-year-old Glenn Teagle of Los Angeles, re-creating the shark's theme in the movie "Jaws." It seems a fitting soundtrack to the white shark's glide around the shadowy tank.

This is the second time the Monterey Bay Aquarium has exhibited a white shark. Nearly two years ago, the museum kept a female white shark for a record 198 days before returning her to the wild after she killed two soupfin sharks in the exhibit.

"She was chowing on her tankmates, which is a big no-no," says Christina Slager, a shark expert who is the aquarium's curator of husbandry. "She didn't actually eat them. She would just bite them in half, which is unpleasant."

Beautiful biters

Monterey Bay Aquarium spokesman Ken Peterson says an interest in white sharks is second nature for many people.

"We love our monsters. White sharks are inherently interesting. They are the great hunters, the top of the food chain."

No one can say how long the shark will be on exhibit. He didn't feed for the first week, which caused concern. But Friday, the shark ate some of the skate that was dangling in the exhibit for him. He still hasn't touched the salmon fillets on the bottom of the tank.

"It comes down to whether the animal is feeding and healthy; navigating well; a size that the exhibit can accommodate; and 'Does it play nice with others?'" Peterson said.

"It's a very good sign for us that he is feeding."

In the past, sharks -- open water fish used to swimming 50 to 100 miles a day -- died in captivity in a matter of weeks.

Monterey Bay Aquarium's shark program is different, in part, because sharks are held and observed in an ocean pen before being moved to the aquarium.

So far, the new shark seems to be adapting to his surroundings -- other than flash pictures, which send him to the back of the tank.

Visitor guides are busy asking people to turn off the flash on their cameras and telling everyone within earshot that more people die from falling coconuts than white shark attacks.

Which may not be a comfort to the California coastal town of Avila Beach.

While the white shark behind glass is bringing in green to Monterey, a white shark sighting closed the waters and dampened business over the same Labor Day holiday in the beach town 21/2 hours down the coast.

A woman was killed in a shark attack in Avila Beach in 2003.

Even 4-year-old Daniel Lenz of Carmel, standing as close to the Outer Bay tank's glass wall as he could get, wasn't crediting errant coconuts with more fear factor than a shark.

"A shark is more scary than a coconut. A shark is more scary than anything," he said. "That's why I like sharks."