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Homeless Shark Finds Home At Sea Life Aquarium

BLOOMINGTON, Minn. (WCCO) -- A homeless shark found a new place to live Tuesday thanks to the Sea Life Aquarium at the Mall of America.

"She's really cute," said John Sullwold, aquarium spokesman. "She's kind of young only two years old. She'll grow to be about 10 feet long. Right now she's only about 2 feet."

The aquarium adopted the nurse shark after a Twin Cities restaurant went out of business. She lived in their tank and needed a new home.

"The aquarium has a vendor that gives us a lot of different animals in an ethical way," said Sullwold. "He called and said 'a local restaurant is closing and they have a shark.' We obviously didn't want the shark to be wasted or to go somewhere else. So we decided to gladly give it a great home."

The shark doesn't pose a threat to the other sharks or vice versa. Sea Life does have larger sharks like sand tigers. Sand tigers can get aggressive, but they shouldn't pose a threat to the nurse shark.

Sullwold said nurse sharks are typically calm and like to relax at the bottom of the tank floor.

"They're kind of like the lazy persons shark," said Sullwold.

The shark is grey and with dark stripes along its body. A few children walking by the tank said the shark looks like an eel except shorter.

"That is so cool," said 8-year-old Tim Volkov.

Sullwold said the shark will live long at the aquarium. It typically lives until the age of 25.

NewsRadio 830 WCCO's Edgar Linares Reports

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