It is with great sadness that I inform you of the death of Jess, our largest ragged-tooth shark.
Jess was removed from the I&J Predator Exhibit on Thursday, 6 November, for a routine ultrasonic tag implant before her planned release in a month’s time. The procedure went well and she was reintroduced into the I&J Predator Exhibit, where she recovered under aquarist Kevin Spiby’s watchful eye. On Sunday afternoon, during the dive feed, she even came to the divers for a good look.
On the afternoon of Monday, 10 November, however, she was found disorientated, buoyant and stuck under the ledge below the sloping window. Our divers tried to move her, air escaped her mouth and she became very heavy, moving to the bottom of the exhibit. She was clearly in need of help and was removed from the display into a large portable pool, and put on oxygen. Our resident vet, Dr Georgina Cole, kept an eye on her and investigated possible treatments.
Jess was breathing strongly, but she was heavy, looked a little bloated, and wasn’t swimming. She passed a large amount of foul-smelling material during the night, which we had hoped would start her recovery. Unfortunately, her condition deteriorated rapidly over the next two days and she was found dead on the morning of Thursday, 13 November.
Dr Cole performed an autopsy on Thursday afternoon and discovered the rotten remains of a large yellowtail in her stomach. Jess had obviously caught and eaten one of the live yellowtails in the I&J Predator Exhibit, but we were unaware that she had eaten shortly before we took her out for the tagging procedure. The sharks normally go through a fasting period before any procedures are carried out. We did not feed Jess on the Sunday prior to her being taken out of the exhibit, but, unbeknown to us, she had helped herself to one of the very large living yellowtails. We estimate that this fish was in the region of about 20kg.
It appears that her digestive system did not start up again after the anaesthetic and tagging procedure, even though she appeared to have recovered fully in the three days following her reintroduction into the exhibit. Unfortunately she failed to digest or regurgitate the huge yellowtail in her stomach and, as a result, it rotted internally, causing her death.
Jess came to us in 2007, after being collected off the beach at Sea Vale, about 30 kilometres south of East London. Roy Martin, the official ‘’tagger’’ for Bayworld in Port Elizabeth who regularly assists us with catching sharks, caught her, so we gave Roy the honour of naming her. He named her after one of his daughters, Jessica.
