Dubai: A new shark exhibit opened at The Dubai Mall on Thursday to give residents a chance to know more about these sea creatures that are being killed and finned by the millions every year.
The ‘Discovery Shark Week’ exhibit is a hybrid of digital technology and a living aquarium that features the “shark heroes” of Discovery Channel’s Shark Week show. The entrance to the exhibit is a computer-generated imagery (CGI) of a shark cage that divers use underwater to get close to sharks.
The interactive digital shark cage, which consists of LED screens, gives guests a chance to “be surrounded” by Great White sharks, but obviously only through CGIs. Guests may learn more about the shark’s biology using the information panels spread throughout the exhibit.
“The sharks you will see inside [the exhibit] represent the 100 million sharks that are finned every year. This is a practice that we need to stop. And we hope this exhibit delivers that message,” Paul Hamilton, general manager and curator of Dubai Aquarium and Underwater Zoo, said.
Sharks are targeted for their fins to be used in making high-end bowls of soup in the Far East. Shark finning is illegal in the UAE.
After the shark cage, guests can enter a 20-metre aquarium demi-tunnel, which houses Scalloped Hammerhead Sharks, Sandbar Whalers, Blacktip Reef Sharks, Bonnethead Sharks and Devil Rays, a close relative of Manta Ray.
LED screens line the opposite edge of the aquarium, which show other species of sharks featured in the Shark Week show. Guests can choose which shark species they want to “swim” with them with the LED background.
Joe Romeiro, naturalist and award-winning cinematographer from Shark Week, said the exhibit will help show the youth how beautiful sharks really are.
“So long as we have exhibits like this, we can always see sharks and think about sharks and know that 70 to 100 million sharks die every year — that’s three sharks every second. And if you don’t really keep an eye on these animals, they will go extinct in our lifetime.”
How to enter:
The Discovery Shark Week exhibit is part of the Dubai Aquarium and Underwater Zoo package. UAE residents may book their tickets online to get up to 30 to 50 per cent discount.
