First Zebra Sharks Born Via Artificial Insemination Debut at Aquarium

The first zebra sharks born via artificial insemination made their groundbreaking debut at the Aquarium of the Pacific on Tuesday, according to reports.

Happily, the 10-month-old female pups are healthy and already showing exceptional promise, even swimming and hunting on their own, aquarium officials say. Staffers plan to watch and learn from these aquatic animals, and hopefully apply their research to conservation of this dwindling species in the wild.

"We are pushing the boundaries of knowledge. It's beneficial to the species as a whole," Perry Hampton, who works on the aquarium's animal husbandry team, told the Los Angeles Times.

Although this pair of zebra shark pups is a first, the Long Beach aquarium has had success in the past, artificially inseminating other shark species as well. For instance, bamboo sharks born through artificial insemination hatched for the first time a few years ago, noted aquarium veterinarian Lance Adams.

These zebra pups, now measuring nearly three feet long, were born by mother Fern, a 20-year-old zebra shark that has called the aquarium home since 1997. The process, from artificial insemination to delivery, took from September 2013 to March 2014.

However, aquarium officials did not announce the births until now because they wanted to ensure that the newborns would survive past thier first year.

Eventually, Adams said, the Aquarium of the Pacific plans to work with other facilities to create more diverse communities of zebra sharks.

"Zebra sharks can breed normally in institutions, but then they're all genetically related," he said. "The population in captivity becomes genetically very small. Assisted reproductive technology can allow, hopefully, for DNA from another shark elsewhere."

Zebra sharks (Stegostoma fasciatum) are of particular concern because the species is listed as "vulnerable to extinction" under the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List. Human activities, such as overfishing, habitat loss and pollution, are causing this population in the wild to rapidly decline, with over 100 million sharks killed each year.

If attempts of artificial insemination are successful at the Aquarium of the Pacific and other institutions alike, zebra sharks may be able to bounce back.

"If a certain breed became endangered, if we have a sustainable population in captivity, we can reintroduce it into the wild," Adams concluded.

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