SeaWorld Ancol Seaworld Jakarta

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The October event schedule at Ancol's Instagram account confirmed that the new addition to SWA is a "walking shark", though it's not specified which species but these are the possible candidates:
  • Hemiscyllium halmahera (Aqua World Ibaraki and SEA Aquarium/Singapore Oceanarium once kept this)
  • Hemiscyllium freycineti (The commonly known species from Raja Ampat, though no aquaria has kept this species before)
I assume these could potentialy be wild-caught, Ancol was very big on wild-caught back in the day so they still have the same experience on that front. So, wether or not a species has been kept by other facilities before is honestly not a really good measuring point because frankly any facilities can get most animals on the planet if they're willing and financially-able enough to want those (Can or cannot maintain them is the third question sadly).

Regardless, no matter the species, I'd still looking forward to see if they do get a hemiscylliidae. I tend to be a skeptic, so I still put into a consideration the chance that it could be the usual bamboo sharks, I mean, it just said "Hiu berjalan (Walking shark)", not even their scientific name :p (Which is a big ask for most Indonesian zoos and aquarias PR).
 
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The October event schedule at Ancol's Instagram account confirmed that the new addition to SWA is a "walking shark", though it's not specified which species but these are the possible candidates:
  • Hemiscyllium halmahera (Aqua World Ibaraki and SEA Aquarium/Singapore Oceanarium once kept this)
  • Hemiscyllium freycineti (The commonly known species from Raja Ampat, though no aquaria has kept this species before)

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Looks like my guess is right, It's Hemiscyllium halmahera!!
So far, my research on YouTube shows that several aquaria in Japan, Singapore and even some Western countries (US and Germany) has kept this species before. Apparently it has been kept as early as back in 2014, including by some private owners.

I'm glad that SWA will be the first Indonesian aquaria that houses this enigmatic species. Hopefully BXSea and JAQS will follow soon.
 

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Looks like my guess is right, It's Hemiscyllium halmahera!!
So far, my research on YouTube shows that several aquaria in Japan, Singapore and even some Western countries (US and Germany) has kept this species before. Apparently it has been kept as early as back in 2014, including by some private owners.

I'm glad that SWA will be the first Indonesian aquaria that houses this enigmatic species. Hopefully BXSea and JAQS will follow soon.
That's nice, I will have to wait for official footages :)

While it might be a true hemiscyllium, SeaWorld Ancol aren't exactly very accurate with their taxa.
 
That's nice, I will have to wait for official footages :)

While it might be a true hemiscyllium, SeaWorld Ancol aren't exactly very accurate with their taxa.

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They're putting the Halmahera carpet sharks in one of the touch pools?! This will not end well for such rarities... :(
Unless if they could enforce/encourage the visitors to not touch anything in this exhibit. I mean, BXSea has some open-topped exhibits that cannot be touched/interacted with at all.
 
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They're putting the Halmahera carpet sharks in one of the touch pools?! This will not end well for such rarities... :(
Unless if they could enforce/encourage the visitors to not touch anything in this exhibit. I mean, BXSea has some open-topped exhibits that cannot be touched/interacted with at all.
Eh, I need a bit more closeup. Have to wait for that.

I'm pretty sure this genus can survive open-topped tank, but I'm not very sure that they can handle touching. So I definitely have my own concern as well. I'll be so mad when they're no longer there in the next couple of months.
 
Eh, I need a bit more closeup. Have to wait for that.

I'm pretty sure this genus can survive open-topped tank, but I'm not very sure that they can handle touching. So I definitely have my own concern as well. I'll be so mad when they're no longer there in the next couple of months.

The last thing I don't wanna see is someone removing the poor shark out of the water just to see it "walking"

Honestly, the mangrove exhibit would've worked better for them than the touch pool
 
Good news!
The GPO has re-occupied its exhibit from 2011-2019, though back in 2015 it was empty (and only housed a lone unicornfish) and back in 2016 it housed several threadfin pompanos and a scribbled filefish. The only issue is the usage of the blue light that may be obstructive to some cameras.

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In other news, it appears that the Halmahera epaulette sharks has been placed into the former emperor snapper tank (that was once a dockside habitat exhibit back in the 2000s before the nautilus came)

Still better than being placed in the touch pool

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In other news, it appears that the Halmahera epaulette sharks has been placed into the former emperor snapper tank (that was once a dockside habitat exhibit back in the 2000s before the nautilus came)

Still better than being placed in the touch pool

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The single shark is housed there, 2 or more sharks still inhabit the touch pool.

This same footage was shown on the first week the species were put on-display.
 
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