Taiwan: Didn't know shark was ill

When they were negotiating with Taiwan to get two more whale sharks, representatives of the Georgia Aquarium didn't tell the Taiwanese officials that Norton the whale shark was seriously ill, an employee of the nation's fisheries agency said Thursday.


An aquarium spokesman disputed that. The Taiwanese were "made aware" that Norton was receiving care, he said.

The aquarium, meantime, conducted a necropsy Wednesday on Norton, the second whale shark to die at the facility. It had not released any information about the procedure by late Thursday.

Word that Norton was dead spread Thursday through the Taiwan Fisheries Agency, which last month approved the exportation of two more whale sharks to the Georgia Aquarium.

Aquarium officials told the Taiwanese that Norton wasn't eating regularly, but that was all, said Wu Man-chuan, director of the resource management section.

"The Georgia Aquarium told us that another whale shark was not eating well, but they said it was not seriously sick," Wu said.

The aquarium euthanized the fish early Wednesday.

Another Taiwanese who worked on a committee that reviewed the aquarium's export proposals recalled similar communications with the aquarium. "We did not know the other whale shark [Norton] was sick," said Zhuang Shouzheng, an associate professor at National Taiwan Ocean University and a member of the export review committee.

The panel, Zhuang said, was "very cautious about granting the permit to export the last two whale sharks because the other whale shark [Ralph] had died."

The panel recommended that Taiwan approve the export of the two sharks, named Taroko and Yushan. They arrived in Georgia on June 1 and appear healthy.

Dave Santucci, the aquarium's director of public relations, said the Taiwanese agency knew Norton was not well. "Taiwanese fisheries management was made aware Norton required supplemental care," he said.

Norton's death was reminiscent of Ralph's. A male whale shark, Ralph glided to the bottom of the aquarium's Ocean Voyager exhibit Jan. 11 and died. A necropsy showed he had peritonitis, an inflammation of the abdominal cavity's lining.

The aquarium conducted an identical necropsy on Norton. The aquarium, Santucci said, would release details of that procedure when it had information to share. "It [the investigation] moves at the speed of science," he said.

Zhuang, meanwhile, said he was curious about the deaths. He has not seen a necropsy report on Ralph, Zhuang said, and he wants to know why Norton was sick.
source:www.ajc.com