Larry, a 3-foot-long tawny nurse shark, is in its new home today after a six-month campaign by Burbank resident Stephanie Field to move it from a local pet store.
His new digs are at the Birch Aquarium, a public aquarium and museum, at Scripps Institution of Oceanography in La Jolla, which is part of UC San Diego.
Assistant Curator Fernando Nosratpour picked up Larry on Tuesday at Millenium Pets store in Burbank.
“It went smoothly,” Nosratpour said, after Larry was transported from his aquarium to a tank of clean sea water in his truck. The assistant curator used a stretcher as long as the shark with pockets on both ends.
“It’s made of vinyl material, and it’s like a human stretcher. You can bring the bars together and lock him in so he doesn’t fall out,” Nosratpour said. “It keeps the eyes covered. When they are kept in the dark, they are calmer.”
Larry will be placed in quarantine for two weeks to make sure he is eating, acclimating to the chemistry of the natural seawater and free from internal parasites, he said.
“We don’t want to pass that on to the sharks we already have on display,” Nosratpour said.
The tawny nurse shark originates from northern Australia to the Indian and Pacific oceans almost to the Red Sea, he said, and can grow to 10 feet long.
The aquarium does receive offers to take nurse sharks after people purchase them without realizing how large they can get, he said. It’s really hard to find homes for them.
“Most public aquariums can’t take them anymore,” he said. “Pet stores can’t take them, and you can’t ship them back to where they are from. But people still buy them, and that’s a problem.”
Field first saw Larry in January when she and her 5-year-old daughter stopped by Scales ‘n’ Tails pet shop after a trip to McDonalds. She saw Larry in a tank and was taken aback by his cramped quarters, she said.
“Have you ever seen a dog chained to a tree, day after day, and it’s winter and it’s raining?” she said. “It was that same exact feeling. I swore to him I would get him out of there.”
Field said he seemed to be looking right into her eyes as if to say “help me,” she said.
