A metro spokesman, who refused to give his name, and who took two months to answer a probing series of questions about the top-apex predator shark, would only say: “A Carcharodon carcharias specimen was handled by the aquarium in terms of the Marine Living Resources Act 18 of 1998, which controls the exploitation of marine animals.”
A source at the East London Aquarium explained: “We took care of a 1,000kg female Great White who, but for a cut on her side, was in excellent condition. “Ichthyologists who examined her were surprised to find that instead of the expected 240 serrated teeth, she had 294 – just a few short of a world record.”
“She was at first a bit angry, and took it out on our penguin rehabilitation colony, but we discovered by sheer fluke from debris which made its way into her pool that fried spiced chicken was her favourite and calmed her down completely, to the point that, once she had been fed, staff were able to get into the pool with her and swim happily.
She said the shark became so tame that they named her Gorgeous “because of her lovely shiny teeth and athletic form”.
Staff also discovered that when a taxi parked outside the aquarium played Wololo by Babes Wodumo, “Gorgeous really livened up”.
This was great, but then we realised that a number of other sharks were also beginning to gather in the waves and director of amenities said staff at Orient Beach were complaining that this was a danger to the hundreds of bathers using the pay beach every weekend. We had to ask the taxi driver to move off. Which he happily did.”
The source said: “We did think of building a tank for her at the East London Zoo, but were worried that people might want to swim with her…so we released her from the aquarium into the ocean at midnight on Saturday.”
East London open water swimmer Mrs Joy Sinknot, told the Dispatch: “We were on our Orient-to-Nahoon swim on Sunday morning and we wondered why there was this enormous “dolphin” in the pod of dolphins which swam around us, which was leaping higher than the rest.
“Then Juan Skeeper, who was driving our boat shouted: ‘Shark!’ We all wear anti-shark devices and this shark appeared to be having a great time, so we thought, ‘whatever’, and carried on with our training swim. The shark seemed to want to hang out at Eastern Beach.”
East London Environment Network chairperson Sheena “Greener” Baggem was delighted and called on all clean ocean activists to join her in a ceremonial swim off Eastern Beach to hang out with the shark. At Nahoon Reef surfers were furious. “This is outright habituation! I am surprised they did not put a surfer and board smeared with fried chicken oil into that tank to train this highly intelligent predator what to eat next!
“Great whites are wild and beautiful, but not when you are eyeball-to-eyeball and far from safety,” said Save Nahoon Facebook activist Keiv Usabraq.
On Sunday the Dispatch received a call from Quigney resident Sandy Beacham to say: “You people wrote about a duck (Egyptian goose] being saved by the aquarium on Saturday, but I was sitting on that deck and I saw that duck being eaten in the sea right in front of me by a huge shark. There was just a lot of teeth and feathers. That duck got nailed properly. That shark just did not leave. It kept on trying to swim into the aquarium’s tidal pool. And it had its husband with it!” – DDR
EL folk angry after Great White released into sea
Image: File
A great white shark, which was believed to have been hit by a ship’s propeller in the Buffalo River mouth in January this year, has been rehabilitated and secretly released back into the sea by Buffalo City Metro.
A metro spokesman, who refused to give his name, and who took two months to answer a probing series of questions about the top-apex predator shark, would only say: “A Carcharodon carcharias specimen was handled by the aquarium in terms of the Marine Living Resources Act 18 of 1998, which controls the exploitation of marine animals.”
A source at the East London Aquarium explained: “We took care of a 1,000kg female Great White who, but for a cut on her side, was in excellent condition. “Ichthyologists who examined her were surprised to find that instead of the expected 240 serrated teeth, she had 294 – just a few short of a world record.”
“She was at first a bit angry, and took it out on our penguin rehabilitation colony, but we discovered by sheer fluke from debris which made its way into her pool that fried spiced chicken was her favourite and calmed her down completely, to the point that, once she had been fed, staff were able to get into the pool with her and swim happily.
She said the shark became so tame that they named her Gorgeous “because of her lovely shiny teeth and athletic form”.
Staff also discovered that when a taxi parked outside the aquarium played Wololo by Babes Wodumo, “Gorgeous really livened up”.
This was great, but then we realised that a number of other sharks were also beginning to gather in the waves and director of amenities said staff at Orient Beach were complaining that this was a danger to the hundreds of bathers using the pay beach every weekend. We had to ask the taxi driver to move off. Which he happily did.”
The source said: “We did think of building a tank for her at the East London Zoo, but were worried that people might want to swim with her…so we released her from the aquarium into the ocean at midnight on Saturday.”
East London open water swimmer Mrs Joy Sinknot, told the Dispatch: “We were on our Orient-to-Nahoon swim on Sunday morning and we wondered why there was this enormous “dolphin” in the pod of dolphins which swam around us, which was leaping higher than the rest.
“Then Juan Skeeper, who was driving our boat shouted: ‘Shark!’ We all wear anti-shark devices and this shark appeared to be having a great time, so we thought, ‘whatever’, and carried on with our training swim. The shark seemed to want to hang out at Eastern Beach.”
East London Environment Network chairperson Sheena “Greener” Baggem was delighted and called on all clean ocean activists to join her in a ceremonial swim off Eastern Beach to hang out with the shark. At Nahoon Reef surfers were furious. “This is outright habituation! I am surprised they did not put a surfer and board smeared with fried chicken oil into that tank to train this highly intelligent predator what to eat next!
“Great whites are wild and beautiful, but not when you are eyeball-to-eyeball and far from safety,” said Save Nahoon Facebook activist Keiv Usabraq.
On Sunday the Dispatch received a call from Quigney resident Sandy Beacham to say: “You people wrote about a duck (Egyptian goose] being saved by the aquarium on Saturday, but I was sitting on that deck and I saw that duck being eaten in the sea right in front of me by a huge shark. There was just a lot of teeth and feathers. That duck got nailed properly. That shark just did not leave. It kept on trying to swim into the aquarium’s tidal pool. And it had its husband with it!” – DDR
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