Four shark pups which grew up in Brighton have upped sticks and moved to Blackpool.
The Black Tip Reef Sharks were among six born at Sea Life Brighton last March, and named after This Morning presenters – Philip, Holly, Eamon, Ruth, Gino and Josie- after Big Brother star Josie Gibson came to the aquarium to do a live report.
When they were born they each weighed about 700 grams and were about 50cm in length. They are each now about 7kg and 80cm long. Fully grown, they will be about 110cm to 120cm.
Ruth and Josie have now been sent to Weymouth and the other four – Phil, Holly, Eamonn and Gino – are being sent to Sea Life Blackpool, where they will live in a 70,000 litre tank.
Their parents will stay at Brighton.
Neil Harris, General Manager of Sea Life Brighton, said: “Our team have been caring for these six magnificent baby shark pups for just over a year now, through the pandemic and various lockdowns.
“To see them move on is both sad for us but also exciting and it is incredibly important to our wider breeding and conservation programmes within Sea Life and for the black tip reef shark species as a whole which is a ‘near threatened’ species.
“We still have Mummy and Daddy Shark here at Sea Life Brighton, along with six other adult black tip sharks within our main Day & Night Ocean tank that also features our two giant green sea turtles Gulliver and LuLu.
“We can’t wait for guests to be able to return and see them when we hope to reopen on May 17, the Government’s roadmap out of lockdown permitting.
“Myself and the whole team at Sea Life Brighton are so proud that we have been able to grow and look after these shark pups over the last year so that they are able to be moved to a new home which will further benefit the conservation work of this important species.”
Prison tranfer.