Kyivans are concerned about Big John, a roughly two-meter long sand tiger shark being kept in an aquarium in the capital’s newest megamall.
The appearance of new malls in Kyiv usually generates buzz among the city’s shoppers. But with Ocean Plaza, Kyiv’s latest big mall, it is much more complicated. Two months after opening in November 2012, the place has become known as an alleged shark abuser.
In early January conservationists from Zemlyane group accused Ocean Plaza of keeping Big John in abusive conditions. In turn, the mall says the sand shark feels fine.
The impressive aquarium has drawn huge crowds to the mall. Five sharks were delivered in early December, soon after the opening. Four of them are rather small and swim comfortably in the circular 300-cubic-meter body of water.
But the fate of the fifth, Big John, has aroused the public’s attention. Along with activists, ordinary mall visitors have expressed concern in social media, raising doubts that the huge fish is comfortable in an aquarium where it hardly can turn around.
“It obviously doesn’t feel good in that small aquarium,” says Viktoria Svitlova from Zemlyane group. “The shark’s snout is scratched, because it rubs the corals when it turns.”
Svitlova coordinated a small rally consisting of several dozen people who came to Ocean Plaza in the morning of Jan. 12 to protest animal cruelty. In response, the protesters were promised a meeting with the mall’s management.
“They promised to call, and we’re still waiting,” said Svitlova on Jan. 14. “We demand that either the mall’s aquarium be enlarged or the shark is given another place with a bigger aquarium.”
According to a statement issued by the mall’s management, the aquarium is big enough to hold fish up to 2.5 meters in length. The statement also said the wounds seen on the shark’s nose were caused during transportation.
“For big (shark) species it takes about two months to get used to a new place, and it’s only been a month for our sharks,” reads the statement.
It also noted that sand tiger sharks don’t swim much, preferring to hover inside underwater caves hunting for weak or wounded fish.
The mall says Big John was caught in the ocean at a very young age and was bred in captivity. Big sharks can live in aquariums for 8-10 years, but Big John is unlikely to stay in Kyiv for so long. The shark will move to another aquarium in Europe, according to a statement made by Aqua Logo, the Russian company that created and is maintaining the aquarium at Ocean Plaza mall.
“This is not appropriate,” Peter Newman, director of the Marine Centre aquarium manufacturer in the UK said when asked about keeping a two-meter-long shark in a tank that size.
“If you consider that it has difficulty in swimming naturally then it’a not in an appropriate environment. In the UK the owners would be prosecuted.”
According to Igor Sheremetiev, an author of several books on aquarium fish, conditions for the shark at Ocean Plaza are acceptable and won’t cause death or illness for the fish.
“If the shark can turn around – and it does – then it’s fine,” he told the Kyiv Post.
“If you put a man in a one-meter cage, he probably won’t die of it. But is that a life?” doubts Svitlova.
If Ocean Plaza ignores the demands, protesters are going to call on Kyivans to boycott it as a shopping destination.
Kyiv Post staff writer Olga Rudenko can be reached at [email protected].
