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Freed from life as a pool hall shark
©Associated Press
January 21, 2003
KEY LARGO -- A 4-foot-long nurse shark named Snoopy, kept for three years in a suburban Detroit billiards bar aquarium, was freed in the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary on Monday.
Marine Mammal Conservancy director Rick Trout carefully cradled Snoopy as he slipped into the ocean above the City of Washington, a 100-year-old military shipwreck about 6 miles off Key Largo.
Trout kept control of the female shark, which sported a bright red identification tag on her front dorsal fin, until they reached the wreck and he let her swim free. Trout and other divers watched Snoopy for about 30 minutes to make sure she was okay.
Snoopy was about a foot long when she arrived at the Fifth Avenue Billiards in Novi, Mich., in 1999. She shared a 500-gallon aquarium with another shark and other fish. Snoopy flourished on a diet of calamari, shrimp and occasionally, other inhabitants.
But within the last eight months Snoopy grew too large for the tank, said manager Jeff Rospierski, and the bar staff began a quest to find her a new home. They eventually made contact with the conservancy.
"Nurse sharks belong here in the Florida Keys and pool sharks, the human kind, belong in Detroit," said Trout.
Snoopy spent 36 hours at his facility with volunteers helping the shark to get acclimated.
She's not the first nurse shark to be relocated from a Michigan tavern. Three-foot-long Amy was relocated to the Keys from a Pontiac bar last April.
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