A Touch of Courage : Remodeled Marine Lab Gives Hands-On Experience With Small Sharks to Dispel Some of Children’s Fears

Bob Potter knows that kids are interested in sharks. But he wants kids to learn that sharks are not interested in kids--at least not interested in taking a bite out of them.

“Sharks have an image problem,” says Potter, educational director of the Roundhouse Marine Studies Laboratory on the Manhattan Beach Pier, which now features a 2,200-gallon shark tank. “TV and movies have made sharks out to be monsters, but they’re really not that way at all. Out of 365 shark species, only about 20 are at all dangerous to humans. We want kids to understand that.”

So Potter and other workers at the marine lab, an educational facility that teaches marine science to schoolchildren, are giving kids an opportunity to get a little “hands on” experience with sharks. Every week school kids from throughout Los Angeles are allowed to touch sharks, and other marine animals, in the station’s touch tank, a small trough to which the sharks are transferred for short periods.

True, the sharks on display are not very big--about two feet long, tops. And most are members of such gentle species as angel sharks and horn sharks.

Still, the idea of touching a shark clearly appeals to kids.

“I touched a shark!” shrieked Ethan Davidoff, 7 1/2 (he insisted on the “ 1/2”), as he and about 50 other children from Kenter Canyon Elementary School in Brentwood attended a class at the marine lab. “I touched a shark!”

“I like the shark best,” said Dylan Byrne, also 7 1/2, after a session at the touch tank. And why? “Cause he’s dumb,” Dylan explained.

Not all of the kids were eager to lay hands on a shark. Although Potter says that “the girls are usually braver than the boys,” 6-year-old Christine Lopez was a little worried about her fingers.

“I’m afraid he’ll bite me,” she said.

The Roundhouse Marine Lab, which operates under the auspices of Oceanographic Teaching Stations, a nonprofit educational organization, was founded in 1980 with corporate grants and individual donations. Situated in the then-deteriorating roundhouse at the end of the 928-foot pier, the lab provided classes in marine biology to tens of thousands of schoolchildren.

The marine lab was temporarily relocated to El Segundo in 1990 while the pier underwent a $3.8-million renovation, which included a new roundhouse. The lab moved back into the roundhouse last August.

The new lab features six aquariums or tanks, including a surge tank that depicts tidal movement, a lobster tank that currently houses two 4-foot-long moray eels, a 10-foot-tall cylinder tank that illustrates marine life at various depths, and-- the piece de resistance-- the new shark tank.

“The shark tank is our biggest draw,” said Potter, 34, a Manhattan Beach resident. Potter designed the 15-by-4-by-6-foot tank, which cost $34,000 to build, $20,000 of it donated by Chevron. The tank can hold up to six sharks, along with some barracudas, a couple of halibut, a spider crab and other marine animals.

The sharks are donated by local fishermen who happen to catch them and bring them to the marine lab. As new recruits arrive, the shark stock is rotated and released back into the ocean, usually after spending a few months in the tank. The only creatures that spend their entire--and short--lives in the tank are the anchovies, sardines and smelt that constitute breakfast, lunch and dinner for the bigger fish.

Three-hour classes at the marine studies lab cost $135 for 35 to 40 students. Information: (310) 379-8117.