For the first time ever a white shark has lived in captivity at the Monterey Bay Aquarium giving us the rare opportunity to view, watch, record, learn and love. Sometimes white sharks, or as they used to be refered to the "great white sharks", carry around quite a stigma. Well there was Jaws, and then JawII and then all the fear of the unknown and white sharks have literally been unknown to us humans until just in the recent decade. Much important research has been conducted specifically at the Farallon Islands on white sharks. We learned for example that they migrate. We used to think that the red triangle, or the body of water between Point Reyes, The Farallon Islands and Ana Nuevo, was the home of the white shark. We now know they MIGRATE here to the gulf of the Farallones by the observations of scientists on the Farallon Islands and using satellite tracking systems.

Back to the Aquarium. I visited the Montery Bay Aquarium October 20th, 2004 to catch a glimpse of white shark called "Charolette gray" by some. She has since been released into the gulf of the farllones waters since then, on March 31, 2005.



White Shark on Exhibit (2004-2005) Put on exhibit Sept. 14, 2004 62 pounds 5 feet
Released to the wild March 31, 2005 162 pounds 6 feet 4½ inches


I had the good fortune to go on a weekday and be able to watch her for a few hours. I closed the place down and the really nice janitor had to ask me to leave finally. She circled the tank. It was hard to photograph her through the thick glass, and it only worked out when she swam through the light, but there are a few pictures for you here.

The Monterey Bay Aquarium is an aquarium in it's own class with scientific studies of many kinds going on in the area and vast research resources. Please visit the web site to learn more on white sharks http://www.montereybayaquarium.org/cr/whiteshark.asp their other projects like Seawatch and much more.

The aquarium has many other incredible exhibits as well such as the penquins, sea otters, giant kelp forrest aquarium, jellies as art, monterey canyon, and past special exhibits like seahorses with sharks being the current featured exhibit.

To whet your whistle here is the link to the pequin webcam. They have a few webcams on their website, the kelp cam, the shark cam, the penguin cam, the otter cam, the outer bay cam and the monterey cam. http://www.montereybayaquarium.org/efc/cam_menu.asp Monterey Bay Aquarium Webcams But, I can not say enough about an actual visit to an aquarium in person. ______________________________________

I was very partial to the jellyfish as art exhibit while I was there, finding jellyfish to be quite art like. Moving flowing art. On my trips to the Farallon Islands in the fall I have sometimes see great schools of Lions Mane Jellyfish migrating from Peru. It was magnificent and looks like a ballet. I have also see the moon jellyfish, sail-by-the_wind or Velella Velella , and a few other kinds. The naturalists on the trips point them out and help identify them.

Lions Mane Jellyfish don't photograph as well from the boat as they do in aquariums. I kind of went crazy photographing jellyfish at the two aquariums and puplished a popular jellyfish series. Apparently there are a lot of jellyfish fans out there as well.