Zookeepers, visitors mourn death of shark at Point Defiance Zoo & Aquarium
When Kent resident Angiee Lalum thinks of her wedding day, she recalls his toothy grin and the odd, camel-like lump around his dorsal fin.
Lalum was marrying a man named Jason in June 2019, but she says the shark named Sammy stole the show at their wedding at Point Defiance Zoo & Aquarium.
Sammy the sand tiger shark, a longtime fixture of Tacoma’s zoo and a memorable part of many Pierce County families’ visits to the Outer Reef Habitat in the aquarium, was euthanized Friday. He was estimated to be 38.
Aquarium curator Chris Spaulding said the shark’s health had been declining for several days, and the fish was placed in an isolation tank so veterinarians could check its health. Spaulding said the shark’s condition continued to worsen, and the team made the decision to euthanize.
The median life expectancy for sand shark tigers in captivity is 21 years, according to a Sunday Facebook post from the zoo announcing the shark’s death. Sammy, who has been with the aquarium since before it opened in 1989, far surpassed that. He was the only sand tiger shark the aquarium had.
Followers mourned Sammy’s death with hundreds of comments.
“A gentle shark, may he RIP,” one commenter wrote.
Lalum, 40, said she remembers Sammy swimming nearby while people dined and danced to oldies and R&B music after her and her husband’s wedding ceremony.
“It touched our hearts to know how many other people he touched just by hanging out,” she said. “We’re definitely going to miss him.”
Sammy was brought to Tacoma from the East Coast where he was caught by a fisherman, Spaulding said. He said that for years Sammy was the face of the aquarium on brochures and advertising materials.
“He always was the one that everyone sort of had that gasp like — ‘Whoa, look at that,’ — because he was so uniquely different from the others where you could see his long, spindly shark teeth,” Spaulding said.
Despite the teeth, Sammy was one of the most docile sharks in the exhibit, Spaulding said. He said Sammy helped teach many visitors about shark conservation. Some were children when they came face-to-face with the shark, but some still remember that first meeting.
University Place resident Matt Patterson, 22, said he was 4 or 5 years old when he went to the zoo with his family for the first time and saw Sammy up close. He said he remembers Sammy’s frightening appearance as well as his gentle demeanor.
Visiting the zoo was something Patterson’s family often did during the summer. During their visits over the years, Patterson said Sammy was always his favorite. Now, Patterson is a master’s student at Seattle Pacific University studying education. He said Sammy helped him see that sharks were not as scary as they appeared in movies and on TV.
Sammy will no longer be there to cruise slowly by the glass just feet away from small visitors, but aquarium curator Spaulding said information gleaned from the shark’s necropsy might be used to aid the ongoing husbandry of sharks at the aquarium
“He lives on, to a certain degree,” Spaulding said.
