Thursday, June 14, 2007
News Norton the whale shark, RIP
Posted by Scott Freeman on Thu, Jun 14, 2007 at 9:13 PM
It is fascinating to see the highly different takes on the death of Norton, the second whale shark at the Georgia Aquarium to die in the past five months.
The AJC's take is based all on the question of whether whale sharks should be held in captivity. It takes the AJC 18 paragraphs to mention that the likely cause of death was the same that killed another whale shark at the aquarium:
Like Norton, Ralph was in the tank when the aquarium treated it with a pesticide to eliminate parasites. The aquarium has refused to say what chemical its workers used. Both fishes stopped eating sometime after the chemical had been applied; the aquarium started force-feeding them.A necropsy on Ralph showed that the 22-foot-long fish had died of peritonitis, an inflammation of the abdominal cavity's lining.
He also had perforations in his stomach, possibly caused by the force-feedings. His stomach, veterinarians noted, also appeared to have thin walls.
However, in the New York Time's article, the apparent connection was up front and center, in the third paragraph:
The exact cause of his illness is not yet known, said Ray Davis, the senior vice president for zoological operations.The shark had been swimming and eating poorly for months, a change in his health that seemed to coincide with the use of a chemical pesticide to treat his tank for an infestation of parasitic leeches, Mr. Davis said.
Another young whale shark named Ralph, who was also exposed to the treatments, died in January after he stopped swimming and could not be revived.
Both papers interviewed Lori Marino, a biologist at Emory University who studies whale biology. But the Times got the money quote from her, which, ironically enough, bolsters the AJC's main thesis:
“It’s appalling, of course ... We all knew something like this was going to happen. I wonder how many more animals have to die before they realize that this is not a viable exhibit for these animals.â€
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