Corpus Christi Caller Times Caller.com - Aquarium sharks, stingrays die

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Tuesday, June 5, 2001
Aquarium sharks, stingrays die
The 26 dead animals were in the popular touch pool exhibit
By Lety Laurel
Caller-Times

Paul Iverson/Caller-Times

The stingray and shark exhibit at the Texas State Aquarium remains closed after most of the sharks and rays inside it died.

   Something mysteriously killed 26 sharks and stingrays at the Texas State Aquarium and aquarium officials would like to know what it is.
   The aquarium's shark-ray touch pool exhibit, which allows people to feel the texture of the animals and is one of the aquarium's most popular exhibits, is closed until the culprit is discovered and the exhibit is replenished.
   Only two animals - both cownose stingrays - survived.
   "We came in and they were dead," said senior aquarist Sally Hoke. "It's bad enough to lose one animal, but for a tankful like that, it's very tough.
   "The bad part is we still don't know what happened."
   Texas State Aquarium officials hope to know by today what caused the sharks and stingrays to suddenly die on Tuesday night.
   A routine examination of the holding tank showed the animals behaving normally Tuesday evening, before the aquarium closed, Hoke said.
   The two that survived are in a holding tank at the aquarium and appear to be doing fine, Hoke said.
   For visitors, all that remains of the exhibit is a tank of water and a sign saying the exhibit is closed.
   Jennifer Boggiano, of Robstown, who visited the aquarium with three children Monday, was disappointed that the sharks and stingray exhibit was closed.
   "It's disappointing because that's where the kids actually get to look at it and where we do too, for that matter," she said. "It would have been nice to actually put their hands in the water."
   Bodies were tested
   The aquarium sent eight of the dead animals, two of each species, to the Texas Veterinarian Medical Diagnostic Lab at College Station for an animal version of an autopsy.
   The results, which check overall health of the organs and looks for parasites and internal damage, showed everything to be healthy, said Rick Schafer, consulting veterinarian for the aquarium.
   Results of tests that look for toxic substances in the animals, are pending, Hoke said.
   Schafer said water samples from the tank were taken to Jordan Laboratories Inc. to test for foreign chemicals. While Hoke wouldn't speculate on what might have caused the deaths, she said it could be an environmental problem.
   Since March, the animals have been kept in a 300,000-gallon tank, which has a life support system that cleans and circulates the water.
   "When it comes to animals, it is one of the most important things you can have," Hoke said. "We ran initial water quality tests and they showed everything was under the normal parameters."
   Complex system
   But, Schafer said, with such a complex water system, anything could go wrong.
   "Who knows what could get into their system if the pumps stop working," he said. "You need to be a detective to find out what's going on."
   With so many sunscreen-covered hands dipping into the water, water conditions may not be optimum for the animals, Schafer said.
   "It's not the best, but that's why that water is so heavily filtered," he said. "Hopefully if we find out the cause of the problem we can look out for it in the future and prevent it from happening again."
   The exhibit, which featured white spotted bamboo sharks, horned sharks, Atlantic stingrays, southern stingrays and cownose stingrays, has existed about seven years, Hoke said. Every day, water samples are taken to ensure the water temperature, salinity levels and pH levels are healthy for the animals, she said.
   'Came as a shock'
   Donna Stockwell, director of marketing, said she has never seen so many deaths in one exhibit at the aquarium.
   "It really came as a shock to all of us," she said. "This has been hard on the staff because you never hear about this happening at the Texas State Aquarium."
   The exhibit will reopen after the test results come in, Hoke said.
   "We will open again, it's just a matter of when we will open again," Hoke said. "We'll probably start slow and add a few animals at a time and see how they do. Everything is pending those results. They can change how we progress."
   For Principal Carol Dabdoub's 106 elementary school students from San Antonio, the missing exhibit didn't matter at all.
   "It didn't really have that much impact," she said. "They would have liked to see them, but they saw so many other things."


Contact Lety Laurel at 886-3716 or laurell@caller.com

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