21 blacktips in Seoul, 17 sharks in Wrocław, 9 in Bournemouth. Will they return to Reda too?

After July's technical failure, the aquarium of Aquapark Reda, for years one of the most recognisable attractions on the Polish coast, stands empty. The question of its future remains open. It is worth recalling something easily forgotten in an emotional debate: keeping sharks in professional aquariums is an established practice worldwide, and nothing unusual in Poland either. Blacktip sharks have lived for years in Gdynia and Wrocław, the same species that swam in Reda can be found in oceanariums from the United Kingdom to South Korea and Australia, and the experience of these institutions shows clearly what conditions must be met for the predators to thrive.

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12 august 2026   |   08:40   |   Source: Gazeta Morska   |   Prepared by: Kamil Kusier   |   Print

fot. Aquapark Reda

The blacktip reef shark: a species vulnerable to extinction

Reda was home to blacktip reef sharks (Carcharhinus melanopterus) of the requiem shark family, one of the most distinctive sharks of the tropical Indo-Pacific reefs. It is a medium-sized species, growing to a maximum of around 180 centimetres and 24 kilograms, instantly recognisable by the contrasting black tips of its fins edged with a white border. In the wild it inhabits shallow coastal waters, lagoons, estuaries and reefs, usually down to 75 metres. It lives and hunts in groups, feeding mainly on schooling fish as well as cephalopods and crustaceans. It is precisely this attachment to shallow, warm waters and its social way of life that make it comparatively well suited to large display tanks.

The blacktip reef shark is viviparous: after a pregnancy of 10-11 months, the female typically gives birth to one to five pups measuring 33-52 centimetres. The young spend their first years in shallow coastal waters, hiding among mangrove roots from larger predators. This low fecundity and slow maturation have their dark side. The species is classified by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) as vulnerable to extinction: it falls victim to industrial fishing and bycatch, is caught for its fins, meat and skin, and the degradation of coral reefs driven by climate change is stripping it of habitat. Rebuilding depleted populations takes years, and systemic global conservation programmes for the species are lacking.

Since 2023, however, the entire requiem shark family has been listed in Appendix II of the CITES convention, meaning that international trade in these animals, including for aquariums, takes place exclusively legally, under control and with the required permits.

Bournemouth: nine blacktips in a tank the size of Reda's

The most telling comparison for Reda comes from the south coast of England. The Oceanarium in Bournemouth keeps a group of nine blacktip reef sharks in its largest tank, Shark Wreck Reef, with a capacity of 350,000 litres, almost identical to the tank in Reda, which holds 330,000 litres. The British institution has made the blacktips the centrepiece of the site: visitors can watch their feeding four times a week, and the centre runs an educational programme explaining that it is humans who have decimated the species' populations, hunted among other things for fins destined for Asian markets.

If nine blacktips have been thriving for years in Bournemouth in a tank of the same size class, it is hard to imagine better proof that infrastructure like Reda's, properly run, fully matches the standards in which the species is kept at respected Western European oceanariums.

From Seoul to Sydney: a mainstay of the world's oceanariums

The blacktip reef shark is among the most commonly kept sharks in public aquariums worldwide. Lotteworld Aquarium in Seoul houses a group of as many as 21 juvenile blacktips, described in peer-reviewed veterinary literature, showing that even large, young groups can be successfully managed under specialist care. The species is also on display at SEA LIFE oceanariums in Sydney, Melbourne and Brighton, the Seattle Aquarium in the United States and the National Zoo & Aquarium in Canberra, Australia.

World aquaristics has meanwhile recorded breeding breakthroughs in recent years. At Burgers' Zoo in the Netherlands in 2021, after years of attempts, a blacktip reef shark pup born in the aquarium was successfully reared, announced by the institution as a long-awaited breeding success. At SEA LIFE Sydney, November 2024 saw the birth of Archie, a grey nurse shark pup of a species critically endangered along Australia's east coast, while the older Murdoch, one of the few grey nurse sharks born in human care, serves there as an ambassador for shark conservation education. The direction the industry is heading in is clear: from pure display towards conservation breeding, building knowledge and a genetic reservoir for species faring ever worse in the wild.

Gdynia: seven species and documented births

Against this backdrop, Polish institutions have nothing to be ashamed of. The Gdynia Aquarium is home to seven species of sharks, from the small marbled catsharks and epaulette sharks to blacktip reef sharks. The institution has bred them for years, opens its breeding facilities to visitors during its regularly held Shark Week, and works consistently to break down the stereotype of the bloodthirsty beast straight out of Jaws. Gdynia's aquarists point out that species genuinely dangerous to humans account for barely a few percent of the hundreds living worldwide, compare the probability of a shark attack to the risk of being struck by lightning, and argue that sharks are not as frightening as in the films - they simply need to be better understood.

Gdynia also has to its credit something that remains a rarity in world aquaristics: documented shark births in captivity. From eggs laid by a pair of marbled catsharks living in the aquarium since 2009, successive young have hatched, reared in the breeding facilities and in time released into the display, while a young bamboo shark came into the world before visitors' very eyes. It is rare, but possible, and it is precisely this ability that matters far beyond a single institution. For species depleted in the wild by overfishing and lacking systemic conservation programmes, the knowledge of how to keep and breed them outside their natural environment may, over the coming decades, prove to be one of the tools for sustaining the species. Every centre that builds this knowledge is working towards a common account.

Wrocław: 17 sharks in the Mozambique Channel

Breeding on an even larger scale takes place at Wrocław's Afrykarium. The Mozambique Channel tank is home to 17 sharks of three species, including sandbar sharks more than two metres long and blacktip reef sharks. The animals can be admired from an 18-metre acrylic tunnel, and the zoo has gone a step further, even offering overnight stays in the tunnel, surrounded by sharks and rays. Wrocław's sharks have names - Bójka, Brawurka, Serce and Wampir - given for the character traits of individual animals, and their keepers recognise each of them. It is hard to imagine better proof that well-run husbandry is not an anonymous tank with an attraction, but daily, individualised care - to the point that the animals' sizes are given as estimates, because the keepers do not stress them with weighing or measuring.

Specialists also point to something counterintuitive: in a well-run aquarium, blacktips live longer than in the wild, up to 18 years, because they face no predators, overfishing or hunger. The conditions are a sufficiently large tank, a properly selected population and an experienced team.

Reda against world standards

The aquarium in Reda met these criteria: its tank, with a capacity of 330,000 litres and a depth of 4.5 metres, ranks among the largest in the country and matches in size the installations in which blacktip reef sharks live at respected Western oceanariums, Bournemouth foremost among them. It was fitted with biological filtration, aeration and water circulation systems, and lighting simulating the times of day and even the phases of the moon, while a team of experienced aquarists watched over the animals daily.

At its peak, the Reda aquarium was home to 12 blacktip reef sharks brought from Sri Lanka, accompanied by around 700 fish of various species forming, together with a coral reef, a slice of an underwater ecosystem. It could all be admired in several ways, including one offered by no other facility: through the transparent tunnel of a water slide running through the middle of the aquarium. Added to this was the Great Depth, a 2.2-metre diving pool with a transparent wall behind which the blacktips swam, allowing visitors to stand eye to eye with the sharks. These features made Reda a place recognised across Poland, drawing visitors from the furthest corners of the country.

July's failure, in which the animals died, concerned the technical part of the facility and resulted from an error during work with pool chemicals, not from the conditions in the aquarium itself. The facility is conducting an audit of its systems and animal safety procedures and has introduced additional safeguards.

The infrastructure, life-support systems and team remain in place. The experience of Gdynia, Wrocław and oceanariums from Bournemouth to Seoul shows that blacktip reef sharks can live long and healthy lives in aquariums, playing a role no nature film can replace: they educate, familiarise people with marine life and teach respect for animals that have survived on Earth for 400 million years, and which today fall victim to humans far more often than the other way round. One mistake, however dramatic in its consequences, should not erase the years of work of enthusiasts, animal lovers and good keepers who built this knowledge in Reda as well.

Will the underwater world return to Reda in its full glory? That decision has not yet been made.

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