ATLANTA (AP) In captivity, a 25-foot whale shark glides gracefully above a throng of enthralled tourists who hurriedly snap pictures from inside a clear tunnel at the Georgia Aquarium's giant six-million-gallon Ocean Voyager tank.
In the wild, whale sharks live much more hidden lives. Little is known about how much they eat, where they swim and where they give birth.
But since the Atlanta attraction opened in 2005, more than 5 million guests have helped generate hundreds of thousands of dollars for new research into whale sharks.
The research has new details about their nutrition, roaming habits and numbers.
The aquarium has invested in research projects on the whale shark in Mexico and Taiwan. Satellite tags on the Mexico whale sharks have helped track them from the Yucatan Peninsula across the Gulf of Mexico, the Straits of Florida and the Caribbean.
Chief science officer Bruce Carlson said the research helps the aquarium learn more and allows for better care of the whale sharks.
Carlson declined to say exactly how much the aquarium has spent on whale shark research but said it was in the ``hundreds of thousands of dollars.''
He and other researchers hope other studies answer more questions about whale sharks' lives: Where do they travel and how much do they eat? The mating behavior of the animals has never been observed, nor do researchers know where the whale sharks give birth.
On the Net:
Georgia Aquarium: http://www.georgiaaquarium.org
Thursday
June 13th, 2024
1:29PM
