Why are there no great white sharks at the zoo?

Question

watching Shark Week :)

Answer 1

Great Whites don't do well in captivity.  They need to constantly swim forward to fill their gills with oxygen.  A few years ago someone managed to catch one alive and brought it to the San Francisco Aquarium.  I saw the news reports.   The S.F. Aquarium  has a big round tank called a 'fish roundabout' where fish can swim around against a current.  You can stand in the middle and watch them.  This is the only way they can keep certain kinds of big ocean-going fish.

I wanted to go down to see the shark but they let it go in just a few hours or days because it wasn't doing well.

I was just Googling to see if I could find a story about it, and I couldn't, but apparently they kept a great white at the Monterey Aquarium for four months!  I never heard about that!

Answer 2

It may be a size issue? I'm sure somewhere there probably has to be great whites in captivity... if they can put orcas in captivity, why not white sharks?