Sharks born in Brighton and named after This Morning presenters are moved to new home

Six were born at SEA LIFE Brighton during the first lockdown in March 2020, with the other two now at SEA LIFE Weymouth. They are now just over a year old.

All six were named after This Morning presenters after Big Brother star Josie Gibson came to SEA LIFE Brighton to do a live This Morning segment when they were babies. They are called Philip, Holly, Eamon, Ruth, Gino and Josie.

Neil Harris, general manager of SEA LIFE Brighton, said: “Our team have been caring for these six magnificent baby shark pups for just over a year now, through the pandemic and various lockdowns.

“To see them move on is both sad for us but also exciting and it is incredibly important to our wider breeding and conservation programmes within SEA LIFE and for the black tip reef shark species as a whole which is a ‘near threatened’ species.

“We still have Mummy and Daddy Shark here at SEA LIFE Brighton, along with six other adult black tip sharks within our main day and night ocean tank that also features our two giant green sea turtles Gulliver and LuLu.

"We can’t wait for guests to be able to return and see them when we hope to reopen on May 17, the Government’s roadmap out of lockdown permitting.

“Myself and the whole team at SEA LIFE Brighton are so proud that we have been able to grow and look after these shark pups over the last year so that they are able to be moved to a new home which will further benefit the conservation work of this important species.”

When the shark pups were born they each weighed about 700 grams and were about 50cm in length whereas now they are each about 7kg and 80cm long.

However, they are not yet full size, reaching adulthood when they are about six years old. At that point they will be full grown and about 110-120 cm.

They eat squid, mackerel, sprat, king prawns.

SEA LIFE Brighton hopes to reopen on May 17 as part of the next stage of the Government’s roadmap out of lockdown.