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Oceanworld Manly Oceanworld / Underwater World / Marineland Manly!

Discussion in 'Australia' started by ollielloyd, 11 May 2009.

  1. ollielloyd

    ollielloyd Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    11 May 2009
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    63
    Location:
    Sydney, Australia
    Hey everyone :)

    Just wondering why oceanworld doesnt have its own forum?? Also, does anyone remember when they had seals on display, or one of their white sharks? If anyone has any photos of the seal display, thatd be AWESOME :)

    Thank you,

    Ollie
     
  2. tetrapod

    tetrapod Well-Known Member 15+ year member

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    sw england
    Did they ever house great whites? I am aware they have held tigers in the past.
     
  3. thorney_devil

    thorney_devil Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    21 Jun 2008
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    Location:
    Liverpool, NSW
    I remember reading they had one Great White on display (not for long),
    due to it's interest in the divers attempting to get it feeding,
    they destroyed the animal. (waste if u ask me?)
    The animal probably wouldnt have survived due to Great White's,
    captive history they dont eat and often are re-released or die...
     
  4. Hix

    Hix Wildlife Enthusiast and Lover of Islands 15+ year member Premium Member

    Joined:
    20 Oct 2008
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    Location:
    Sydney
    Went there yesterday. Hadn't been since the 70's. Lots of photos. Will post when a directory has been created. Will post a review too.

    :p

    Hix
     
  5. ollielloyd

    ollielloyd Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    11 May 2009
    Posts:
    63
    Location:
    Sydney, Australia
    Oceanworld, formerly Manly Marineland actually handeled about 5 white sharks in the past.

    Here is a very interesting piece from a journal by Ian Gorden of Oceanworld:

    "In 1968 a fishing boat off Long Reef, Sydney caught a white shark by hook and line. It was a 2.3 mtr long male who fought the line hard and was eventually landed off long Reef Point in the early hours of the morning. The shark was dragged around to a sheltered beach called Brown Water where the fisherman contacted the aquarium manager. The shark was tethered to the boat while a truck was dispatched from the aquarium arriving about an hour later. The shark was dragged into the beach and shipped via road on the truck back to the aquarium in a open water tank with no filtration. This process took about 45 minutes, when arriving at the aquarium it was stretchered up two flights of stairs to the top of the aquarium, out of the water, and dumped into the top of the tank. The old (now demolished) Marineland tank was 2 stories high and 18 feet deep, holding approx, 1 million ltrs of water. It had a central artificial reef and multiple marine occupants ranging from turtles to Grey Nurse sharks.

    With little diver help amazingly the shark started swimming around the aquarium with little problem avoiding the obstacles. The shark swam around happily in the tank for 7 days with no problem still avoiding the walls of the tank. This was amazing in itself as the construction of the tank was poor, with little distance between the aquarium walls and the steel reinforcing rods that supported the concrete structure. The window frames, 72 in all - 36 top and 36 bottom, posed an even greater electrical barrier, as they were glass internals bolted to the walls with an protected bronze frames.

    After about 3 days the shark started feeding in captivity on live snapper that were plentiful in the aquarium. The divers started to be concerned with the apparent interest that the shark showed in them whilst in the water. After a reported close call by one of the divers , it was decided that the shark would have to go out of the aquarium. As no one was game to catch it, it was decided that the shark had to be power headed. It was advertised in the media ( remember this was the 60's ) that the killer shark was too dangerous and would have to be killed at a certain time on a particular day and sales went through the roof. On the fateful day 10 days into the shark's captivity a group of divers entered the water with power heads loaded. The shark took 7 shots before it died on the bottom of the aquarium. Although this sounds like a great pub yarn it actually happened and magazine articles ensued with the sharks death as headlines in 1968.

    The shark was feeding and avoiding the walls of the aquarium which would have been leaching considerable electric interference. If it hadn't have been the bad old days of the 60's the shark may have survived for who knows how long in the aquarium.

    In late 1979, I started my long association with Manly Marineland and after hearing these stories I developed a interest in trying to duplicate the aquariums previous success in keeping a white shark in captivity. Over the next 6 years we tried introducing another 5 small whites into the aquarium all with little to no success. In all cases the sharks were by catch from fishermen, mostly in nets. The longest we could keep one was 30 hours but in most cases the shark died within 12 hours. We tried every method known to man at the time to minimize the stresses of capture and transportation. We tried developing our methods with other sharks hoping one day to get a crack at a healthy white.

    In 1986 we demolished the old Manly Marineland and re constructed a new aquarium which we called Oceanworld. Much of the aquarium was designed with the hope of keeping larger sharks and one day possibly a white. For a number of years we had had no reports of incidentally caught whites in the Sydney area and eventually lost interest in looking for whites for captivity. I became more interested in working with large whites in the wild and working on jaw morphological questions on dead shark jaws all around Australia.

    In 1994 we were fishing for seven gills in 100ft of water off Sydney with a drop line and as we were setting a drop line I noticed it start bobbing around violently. I moved the boat to the line and grabbed the buoy and nearly got pulled overboard. As I pulled the line to the surface a shark shape appeared before me. Peering into the water it became apparent that I had caught a 2.1 mtr white which was fighting hard on the line. We had a full water tank on the boat and flat seas so the shark was boated carefully and within 20 minutes of capture we were transferring the shark into the aquarium lock system. The shark swam into the aquarium without any trouble and started avoiding the walls easily. In the first hour the shark we called Bruce only hit the wall hard twice and was swimming clockwise circuits on the aquarium only touching the wall gently once or twice with it's pectoral fin. The next morning the shark was fine and even showed some interest in the diver feeding display I regularly undertook for the public. I thought great, we have a white in captivity and he should stay for a while. On day 3 the shark started to have trouble with some of the skimmer overflows in the aquarium and we had to invent some skimmer covers to keep Bruce from beaching. He became more aware of slight changes in the aquarium system ( eg lights going on and off etc ). These changes seemed to freak him out, causing bumps and collisions with walls close to the disturbance. He also started to be attracted to one sand flat area in the aquarium close to the pump room. This effectively halved his swimming space as he would refuse to swim around the entire tank. He developed problems in turning hard enough in this tight area without hitting the walls. This was because of the sharks' stiff swim action which favours smooth larger turns rather than small tight turns. He seemed to approach each problem developing ways to move around the obstacles he encountered each time, you could see the light was on and he was thinking.

    On day five it was apparent that he was starting to weaken and go downhill so we decided to release him. I assembled some of my dive staff with stretchers and developed a way to catch him out with minimal damage ( and no power heads ). The plan was simple. As he swam past me on scuba, I would grab him and the other divers would stretcher both me and the shark and swim us into the lock. This worked well and he was soon in the dive lock awaiting the boat to pick him up. We transferred him to the boat transport tank and rushed him back to the same area he had been caught. On arrival I took him into the water on scuba and swam him a short distance eventually releasing him. He swam off strongly, I followed him to 100ft and then he disappeared into the gloom never to be seen again. "

    I contacted Ian a couple of months ago, asking him about housing whites in the future. Despite new methods (monterey bay aq) for keeping whites successfully, he confirmed Oceanworld has changed the focus of their tank to Nurse Sharks, and is no longer seeking white sharks to display. Sad, since the tank was effectively designed for the sharks! Oh well :)

    I'm producing a short documentary on whites in captivity, will be completed soon, I'll post the link here for everyone to enjoy.
     
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  6. Simon Hampel

    Simon Hampel Administrator Staff Member 20+ year member

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