Nurse hound shark Eleanor was snatched from the jaws of death by a restaurant owner and now graces the touch pool at the new aquarium in Qawra. Marvin Gauci, 34, spotted the shark at a fish shop in St Paul’s Bay three years ago when buying fish for his local restaurant, Tarragon.
He noticed that it was still breathing, so he asked the fishmonger to put it in his aquarium, but the fish floated belly up.
Mr Gauci quickly took it to his restaurant, where he has a large fish tank, and called a veterinarian, who told him to make a cut in its belly to release the air it swallowed while being taken out of the sea. When fish are pulled up they take in a lot of air, which can be let out through an incision in the air bladder.
Mr Gauci said the shark settled down in his tank and was eating from his hand a week later.
It has since grown by half a foot. Mr Gauci’s intention was to release it back in the sea once it recovered but he was worried it would not be able to survive.
So when he heard the aquarium was being built, he decided to donate it for conservation.
Yet Mr Gauci’s children – who named the shark Eleanor – pleaded with their father to put it back in the sea. They would stick papers with the words “save the shark” on the tank at his restaurant, he said.
In the touch pool at the national aquarium, Eleanor will be accompanied by cold water lobsters sourced from other local fish markets and species including meagre, damselfish and cleaver wrasse.
“I’m going to miss her. For the past three years she’s been feeding from my hand,” Mr Gauci said as he lifted Eleanor from the container used to transport her from his restaurant.
In a fish tank a few metres away, lobsters, which, like Eleanor, were saved from certain death at a supermarket last month, crawled around.
These spiny lobsters were doing well, aquarium curator Mike Hutchinson said, adding that two brought from local fish markets had cast off their old shell.
When lobsters shed their shell it was a sign that they were eating and growing well, he explained.
In another section of the aquarium, a three-week-old spotted cat shark wriggled around the tank hosting shark eggs brought from the Malta Aquaculture Research Centre in Fort San Luċjan, limits of Marsaxlokk, three months ago.
The nurse hound and small spotted-cat shark eggs from the centre are being conserved as part of a project by the Malta College of Arts, Science and Technology and Sharklab Malta. Mr Hutchinson noted the aquarium was already very popular, even though its official launch was three weeks away.
More than 2,000 fish will occupy the 26 tanks at the aquarium, which is still stocking up on different species. Its biggest tank hosts about 400, including eight black tip sharks, three horn sharks and six rays.
Mr Hutchinson noted that two residents – grey trigger fish – have laid eggs and if these hatched they would be the first of the species worldwide to hatch in an aquarium.