Unlike I suppose how most people feel, other than Steve Irwin, the Crocodile Hunter, whom I had always fervently hoped to meet, I love our apex predators.  We NEED them.  They have all been demonized for millennia and some are only now just beginning to be appreciated for the vital roles they play within our ecosystems.  If you have ever read one of my blogs you will know we live with wolf hybrids.  Blue sharks inhabit the deep waters of the world’s temperate and tropical oceans and have been referred to as the “wolves of the sea” because of their tendency to roam the Atlantic in groups.  I saw several different species of sharks thriving at Atlantis but I am not sure if they had blue sharks.  What I did see was a double-sided supercool “Mayan Temple Shark Lagoon.”  Down below visitors can walk right up and see them up-close and a Japanese photographer was so taken with the images of our tiny child juxtaposed with the enormous sharks he asked if he could take pictures of her with them and then send them to us.  He was so kind that we agreed.  You could see our four-year-old reaching up to the creatures as they swam languidly over and around her.  It was both a mighty and a humbling experience.  Paul Watson, a Canadian marine wildlife conservation and environmental activist, said:

“The shark is the apex predator in the sea.  Sharks have molded evolution for 450 million years.  All fish species that are prey to the sharks have had their behavior, their speed, their camouflage, their defense mechanisms molded by the shark.”

It was a real thrill to come so close to the wolf of the seas’ beauty, strength, and greatness.