The BBC2 ‘Secrets of The Aquarium‘ series last year, highlighted the dedicated work of the National Marine Aquarium as we support vital conservation and look after incredible marine animals. An amazing 1 million of you watched per episode! We’re catching up with some of the stars of the show to see how they’re doing a year on. Here’s our first story catching up with Xav, Lead Biologist, as he talks about El Diablo, the Nurse Shark.
Can you talk about how El Diablo came to the National Marine Aquarium?
3 years ago El Diablo came to us in Plymouth from another aquarium where he wasn’t in the best environment. He was a naughty and boisterous Nurse Shark and there were some concerns between him and the other animals in the exhibit. The decision was made that this aquarium wasn’t the right place for him, which led him to join our huge Atlantic Ocean Exhibit, with the impressive move around the building and through the main office being captured in episode one!
How El Diablo is doing since the TV show that came out in 2023?
He’s settled in amazingly here at the NMA since he arrived in 2021. He’s made great exhibit mates and taken well to conditioning and training with our Husbandry team. He’s been an outstanding Ocean ambassador here for us at the National Marine Aquarium, which is the home of the Ocean Conservation Trust. He’s made great friends with our other male nurse shark, Junior. He still has some of his boisterous tendencies, however you can always see him playing around with others and interacting in a positive way.
What’s involved in El Diablo’s care?
Since his arrival, his care has mostly involved getting him target trained. The Husbandry team have done what’s called operant conditioning, where we’ve trained him to follow a target to get his food. We aim to build on this to encourage the sharks to swim into our acclimation exhibit and get them into a sling, just in case we need to do any treatments on them. This also acts as enrichment, whilst showing that sharks are natural and safe animals to work with.
Why was in important for us that El diablo settled into the exhibit?
It was important to us that El Diablo settled in well here at the NMA. This was kind of the last port of call for him. If he couldn’t find a suitable aquarium with suitable tank mates, sadly, the other option would have been a lot less positive.
How is Florence the Nurse Shark getting on?
In the documentary you saw that we gave Florence an ultrasound, one of our female Nurse Sharks. El Diablo and Florence did make an amazing pair, and we saw that she had viable eggs. However, despite the promising signs of reproductive health, Florence sadly passed away unexpectedly from natural causes, and we never saw baby Nurse Sharks. Fortunately, El Diablo remains healthy and fit in the Atlantic Ocean Exhibit.
Do you have any positive shark related news?
Since the TV show, when it comes to shark-related news. We’ve got a lovely male and female pair of Sandbar Sharks, Ollie and Brighton, and we’ve seen positive mating behaviour between them. We haven’t seen any babies yet, but fingers crossed!
What would you say to people who are afraid of sharks?
Those of you out there who fear sharks, I would say come to see them here at the National Marine Aquarium. You’ll see them being super calm and super relaxed as they interact with other animals in the exhibit. We dive with the sharks here, and they pose no danger to us. We’ve just got to respect their space, and they’ll respect ours.
Keep an eye on our socials and website to hear stories from more of your favourite Secrets of the Aquarium characters. 🤩
