A leopard shark named Mali is the first to hatch at the Misool Resort in southern Raja Ampat, Indonesia, as part of a marine rewilding effort.
Mali was hatched at the private island resort in partnership with ReShark, a network of conservation organizations and aquariums dedicated to recovering shark and ray species.
“This project was formed to recover an endangered marine animal and is a world-first, and especially welcome in Raja Ampat, where leopard sharks were largely extirpated by intensive shark finning prior to the establishment of the Misool Marine Reserve and the network of Raja Ampat Marine Park Areas,” the Misool Foundation, the charity arm of the resort, said in a statement. “Without ReShark, leopard sharks will not return to Raja Ampat in our lifetime.”
A video shared by ReShark and Misool shows Malis egg before she hatched. The egg was laid in an aquarium, using breeding stock from the Eastern Indonesian-Oceania subpopulation. It was then shipped to Indonesia, where Misools team cared for it in a specially built nursery.
After 137 days, the egg hatched on Jan. 17. Mali was born with black and white stripes, but her color pattern changed to brown about a week after birth. Since then, she has continued growing and is already eating live snails, keepers said.
Once she weighs enough, Mali will be moved to Misools Rewilding Hub, a sea pen where she can learn to forage and feed in the natural environment. Once she has the skills and is large enough to avoid being preyed upon, she will be tagged and released into the Misool Marine Reserve.
A second leopard shark, named Shannon, was born in February, and is sharing a tank with Mali.
