Sunday, January 17, 1999
Shark expert living her dream
Aquarium prepares for May opening
BY TERRY FLYNN
The Cincinnati Enquirer
NEWPORT — As senior aquatic biologist and shark expert for Oceanic Adventures Newport Aquarium, Linda Hanna brings with her six years of invaluable experience at Baltimore's aquarium.
“The aquarium field is still very new,” she said as she started another day of preparing for the Newport Aquarium's May opening. “We will try to incorporate some of the things we learn from other aquariums, and in some cases we will come up with better ways of doing things. We're always learning, and there are a lot of areas being explored.”
Special slings
She laughed as she held up small, handmade models of the 8-foot-long slings she and the staff will use to move sharks from holding tanks to aquarium exhibit areas, and to remove the animals when treatment is necessary. Smaller slings will carry rays.
The slings, looking not unlike battlefield stretchers, will be made of a special soft vinyl material with slots on each side where carrying poles can be inserted. They will be manufactured by Street and Stream Custom Interiors of Batavia.
“We had slings like this when I worked at the Baltimore aquarium, and they made moving the sharks and rays much easier and safer,” Ms. Hanna said. “I found the company that is making the slings in the phone book. I drew up some plans and made these little models for the people at the shop in Batavia. They laughed a lot.”
Ms. Hanna, 28, said she began to dream of working with fish, particularly sharks and rays, when she was in the sixth grade and drew a detail picture of sea animals for a class project. “I knew then that this was what I wanted to do, and I pursued it,” she said.
She expects to spend a lot of time with the sharks and rays that will be arriving in late February or early March. That means a lot of time in the 380,000-gallon shark tank.
“Initially, a lot of what I'll be doing is cleaning algae from the tank windows,” she said with a grin. “I'll handle most of the feeding, developing the feeding techniques for the sharks in their new environment. At times, sharks may go for a month without eating when they are moved.”
Overseeing the move
She'll direct the movement of the sharks from other aquariums to the Newport site. She said up to 75 percent of the sharks will come from other aquariums.
“We'll probably get the nurse sharks and some other sharks from institutions where they have been raised,” said Ms. Hanna, a Maryland native and graduate of the University of Maryland-College Park. “I'll be driving to Richmond, Va., soon to look at some nurse sharks at an aquarium there.”
Some sharks, particularly tiger sharks and sand bar sharks, will be captured in the wild, as will many rays.
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