Barry White songs used to encourage shark to mate in aquarium

I came across this article and it gave me a smile, so I thought I’d share… :wink:

Hopes were high when the aquarium introduced Zorro to fellow zebra shark Mazawabee on Valentine's Day this year. But despite being noted for his sexual advances to tank mates when he was at Sea Life in Belgium, he has not been doing as expected.

Aquarium chiefs have turned to the late soul singer - sometimes referred to as “The Walrus of Love” - and are playing Baby We Better Try To Get It Together and My First, My Last, My Everything.

If the singer’s tunes do not work, they are considering trying Marvin Gaye’s Let’s Get It On, Wet Wet Wet’s Love Is All Around, and Diana Ross and Lionel Richie’s Endless Love.

Other romantic tunes include Tom Jones’s It’s Not Unusual, Elvis Presley’s I Can’t Help Falling In Love With You and Righteous Brothers’ Unchained Melody complete the list.

“Zorro has something of a reputation as a ‘ladies’ shark’’ and as Mazawabee has been ‘single’ for a number of years now we really thought they would get together very quickly,” Paul Hale, the aquarium curator, said:

''But it’s been months since their first introduction and although there are certainly signs that Zorro has been making advances, we would really have expected some serious mating by now.

‘‘Research suggests that fish can not only hear music but can appreciate different tunes and melodies so we have decided to see if some good old fashioned love songs will get them in the mood!’’

Source; Daily Telegraph

This is very funny, too many images flash through my head of a suave male shark wearing a robe and smoking a pipe (underwater, I know), winking at the coy female shark fidgeting with her feather boa all to the tune of “Let’s get it on”. xD

But it looks like, at this point, the aquarium staff are desperately trying anything to get a successful mating - perhaps a bit of ritualistic thinking also, which is the door to pseudoscience. If there is a successful mating (cum hoc, ;D), will other marine care staff around the world just start to ape this process in hopes of their own success? What evidence is there that music has the same effect on non-human species? Particularly when we look at the song mentioned in the article “It’s not unusual” by Tom Jones, which, if you were not an English speaker, you might find very hard to recognise as a love song.

But I’m being too harsh on the story. It’s a bit of lighthearted fun. But I feel that the idea here is a seductive one that some people might take as factual and spread the story that scientists use lovesongs across the species boundary with real results. Argh, just stop being so critical (in the negative sense)! Just take it for the lighthearted fun that it is, James!

This is very funny, too many images flash through my head of a suave male shark wearing a robe and smoking a pipe (underwater, I know), winking at the coy female shark fidgeting with her feather boa all to the tune of "Let's get it on". xD
;D ;D ;D
But it looks like, at this point, the aquarium staff are desperately trying anything to get a successful mating...
Maybe they should try closing the curtains, I know I'd have a problem "performing" in public. ;D

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Calling Love Is All Around a Wet Wet Wet song is even less valid than calling Black Magic Woman a Santana song. It’s just not accurate.
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'Luthon64