Fresh Loaf

Creative Loafing’s countdown of Atlanta’s 11 Least Influential People is a tribute to women, men and fish everywhere struggling to meet the challenges of life in a modern American city.

The top five will be revealed in the next print edition of Creative Loafing, which hits newsstands on Thursday, Nov. 8.

No. 8 — Taroko and Yushan

Bottled for our amusement

(photo by Joeff Davis)

Taiwan’s government will soon ban the export of whale sharks, the world’s largest fish.

“Thanks for nothing, jerks,” says Taroko. “And this helps me how?”

Taroko is upset because he, along with fellow whale shark Yushan, was sold by Taiwan to the Georgia Aquarium in June — after the export ban was announced but before it took effect.

The pair replaced the aquarium’s original whale shark duo, Ralph and Norton, both of whom died this year after less than two years in the aquarium’s captivity.

“Last year, everything was copacetic. I was freestylin’ in the Philippine Sea and inhaling fresh mackerel like a fat guy at Red Lobster,” Taroko says. “Now I do laps in a glass box waiting to die.”

“Hey, Bernie Marcus,” he says, addressing the Georgia Aquarium’s founder and benefactor, “what did I ever do to you?”

Yushan is no less frustrated at the turn his life has taken.

“It’s not healthy for us to be in captivity,” Yushan says. “My only hope is that the aquarium learned from the mistakes that killed Ralph and Norton.”

“Ask around. Aquariums just aren’t very healthy for large sea creatures like Yushan and me,” Taroko says. “Back in the day, I could dive 3,000 feet down into the ocean just for fun. If I tried that now, I’d bruise my head on a third grader from Lawrenceville.”

Both fish say they’re resigned to their fate. They know they’re never going to swim in the ocean again.

Their only request in their final months, they say, is for people to stop telling them how great it is to be in the Georgia Aquarium.

“Bernie Marcus compared the aquarium to the Ritz-Carlton,” Taroko says. “I’ve never stayed there, but I’m pretty sure the Ritz doesn’t use nets to find room guests.”

“They keep telling me how lucky I am that I live in a 6 million gallon aquarium,” Yushan interjects. “Hey, dickheads, I used to live in a 177 sextillion gallon aquarium. It’s called the Pacific Ocean.”

Visit Fresh Loaf on Tuesday morning for No. 7 on our countdown of Atlanta’s 11 Least Influential People.

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Gifts we haven’t yet seen at the Georgia Aquarium gift shop:

• Whale-shark-skin boots and purses
• Rub-a-Dub-in-a-Tub: Anti-bacterial, anti-whale-shark aquarium-cleansing kit
• Uncle Bernie’s Beluga Caviar
• Home Depot’s Do-It-Yourself Supersized Sushi Roller
• “Daddy, Why’s That Big Fishy Swimming Upside-down?” and Other Children’s Poems of Loss
• Michael Vick’s Fightin’ Fish Tipsheet
• How to Get Rid of Whale Sharks in Your Basement in 30 Days or Your Money Back
• Fresh lemons

Any other suggestions?

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It is fascinating to see the highly different takes on the death of Norton, the second whale shark at the Georgia Aquarium to die in the past five months.

The AJC’s take is based all on the question of whether whale sharks should be held in captivity. It takes the AJC 18 paragraphs to mention that the likely cause of death was the same that killed another whale shark at the aquarium:

Like Norton, Ralph was in the tank when the aquarium treated it with a pesticide to eliminate parasites. The aquarium has refused to say what chemical its workers used. Both fishes stopped eating sometime after the chemical had been applied; the aquarium started force-feeding them.

A necropsy on Ralph showed that the 22-foot-long fish had died of peritonitis, an inflammation of the abdominal cavity’s lining.

He also had perforations in his stomach, possibly caused by the force-feedings. His stomach, veterinarians noted, also appeared to have thin walls.

However, in the New York Time’s article, the apparent connection was up front and center, in the third paragraph:

The exact cause of his illness is not yet known, said Ray Davis, the senior vice president for zoological operations.

The shark had been swimming and eating poorly for months, a change in his health that seemed to coincide with the use of a chemical pesticide to treat his tank for an infestation of parasitic leeches, Mr. Davis said.

Another young whale shark named Ralph, who was also exposed to the treatments, died in January after he stopped swimming and could not be revived.

Both papers interviewed Lori Marino, a biologist at Emory University who studies whale biology. But the Times got the money quote from her, which, ironically enough, bolsters the AJC’s main thesis:

“It’s appalling, of course … We all knew something like this was going to happen. I wonder how many more animals have to die before they realize that this is not a viable exhibit for these animals.”

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Even with its staff decimated and morale reportedly at a miserable low, the AJC proves in today’s edition that when it sets its mind to it, it can still do meaningful journalism. Today’s story on the death of Ralph the whale shark and the illness of Norton the whale shark by Mark Davis and Craig Simon is a fine piece of journalism. The money quote:

Until his death, Ralph the whale shark got regular force-feedings from his handlers at the Georgia Aquarium, a practice most aquariums with whale sharks avoid.

He lived in a tank whose waters were treated with a chemical that may have curbed his appetite, and which may be impeding the appetite of another shark in the display.

He came to America despite concerns that the director of Taiwan’s national aquarium says he voiced when he questioned the wisdom of moving a whale shark so far from its native waters. Georgia Aquarium officials dispute that the Taiwan official expressed such concerns.

It is a thought-provoking article and a black eye for the Georgia Aquarium, which appears to have adopted the policy of nondisclosure — it won’t release the autopsy on Ralph and won’t even reveal what chemical it used to treat the whale-shark tank. That’s the wrong approach to take and, frankly, gives the aquarium the appearance of guilt.

PR media experts will tell you that in times like this, companies should adopt the spirit of full disclosure, let the chips fall where they will and accept full responsibility for what went wrong.

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