Chalk it up as a learning experience…
Aquariums are the coolest wild animal displays and I will hear nothing else of it. Sure, there’s great moments in zoos, but nothing compares to the colors, sounds, and overall visuals of an aquarium.
One of the best aquariums in the northeastern part of the United States is the Adventure Aquarium in Camden, New Jersey. It originally opened in 1992 but public backlash forced major renovations and rebuilds, which culminated with a reopening in 2005. It is home to 8,500 animals in semi-aquatic, freshwater, and marine habitats and boasts over 2 million gallons of tank volume and 200,000 square feet of floor space. Over 800,000 people visit every year.
Well, on one fateful day back in 2018, a group of visitors got to witness one of the sea’s most vicious creatures in its natural state: A hunter.
One of the exhibits featured a number of sharks, fish, and stingrays, and while for the most part all these creatures play nicely together, things can happen when they’re cramped up in that small a space for that long a time.
The video begins with a hammerhead shark swimming around before suddenly grabbing onto a rays’ fin. For a second, no one realizes what has just happened until the shark swims by the viewing window and kids start reacting in amazement.
The shark stays right in the people’s view as it continues to swim around with the ray before really starting to gobble the poor thing down. After a few violent thrashes, a puff of blood appears and the two creatures go their separate ways, the shark swallowing a good chunk of the fin.
As the saying goes, the other sharks smelled blood in the water and soon the doomed ray was being attacked from every angle, each animal trying to get a piece of this dying ray.
While it’s certainly not what you’d expect to see at an aquarium, it’s a good lesson to the kids and reminder to adults that these are not docile pets; They’re creatures who survive in a kill or be killed world.
