Training a great white shark?

Question

Assuming SeaWorld found a way to house great white sharks so that they live a long life, why couldn't they train it do the tricks orcas and dolphins do?

Is it because sharks are stupid, boring and mindless killing machines?

Answer 1

Whales and Sharks are very, very different animals.

Sharks have evolved over a longer period of time and are extremely specialized in their survival mechanisms.  Calling them stupid and mindless is pretty small minded approach to any animal.  They can do things you sure can't do and in some ways may hold the key to our own future survival; for example, sharks are nearly immune to cancer (occurrences of it are extremely rare).

Answer 2

They're fish. They don't respond well to training. They could train them, though - Over a long period of time. But in the end it's still a wild creature.

One born in captivity would be much easier to train.

Answer 3

Sharks are not stupid by any means, and there has been instances where some training methods have been successful, however, the shark would need to housed alone and since food is used as a reward for training, would most likely undergo some sort of deprivation in the process.

Second, sharks are not physically capable of performing the tricks Orcas and Dolphins perform.  They may be similar in size and shape, but physiologically speaking, they are worlds apart.  

Third, it's not necessarily a good idea to teach sharks, especially the great white, how to jump and capture their own prey in a captive setting.  These animals are dangerous enough, but they also like moving prey (if you ever saw how most sharks are fed in a captive setting you would realize this) and would much prefer a moving human to a lump of small fish.  

Not that training a dolphin or Orca is without it's own dangers, but all operant conditioning in these circumstances is a balance of probabilities (usually measured in the trainers head at any given time) and I would not enjoy the probabilities offered by the trained shark despite the fact I've worked with both sharks and cetaceans on many occassions.

Answer 4

To refer to a species that has out survived the dinosaurs stupid, boring, and/or mindless is rediculous in and of itself. Who is to say that they couldn't train a shark to do tricks? The problem with them doing all those little Flipper tricks would be that they don't have bones. Sharks can't swim backwards either..  Why would you want to see a top preditor doing tricks in a kiddie pool at Sea World anyway?