PITTSBURGH -- Starting this weekend, visitors to the
Pittsburgh Zoo and PPG Aquarium have a chance to swim with the sharks.
Zoo visitors won't actually be getting into the water, but will still be able to get up close and personal with sand tiger sharks, thanks to a new 40-foot underwater tunnel.
Sand tiger sharks can be found in the warm waters of Australia, South Africa and the southeastern U.S. While the sharks may look menacing, zookeepers said they're not aggressive.
"I'm used to swimming with them all the time. I just love these guys, these are my favorites," said the zoo's aquatic life curator, Alan Marshall. "Sharks really aren't as dangerous as people make them out. I mean they certainly have the capacity to really cause a really bad day for you. But they're generally not aggressive at all, especially these guys."
Eight sharks are featured in the new Water's Edge exhibit at the zoo. A grand opening on Friday featured island music and beach volleyball, and scuba divers swam with the sharks in the tank.
"They eat mostly fish. Different types of fish is their primary diet," said Marshall. "But they'll also eat things like stingrays, crayfish, lobsters, squid, things like that."
Marshall said the zoo hopes the exhibit will serve an educational purpose as well as an entertaining one.
"We talk about people getting bitten by sharks. But there's maybe one or two people a year killed by sharks. Whereas humans are killing over 70 million of them every year. And with their slow reproductive rate, they're disappearing fast," Marshall said.
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