Three shark pups, rescued as eggs, released into ocean in Malta

On Saturday, scuba divers released three 6-month-old nursehound sharks, raised from eggs by the Malta National Aquarium, onto the ocean floor off Malta.

As part of a conversation project — and with permission from vendors — Sharklab Malta rescued the eggs from the bodies of dead sharks being sold at local wholesale fish markets.

"Once successfully hatched, the Aquarium and Sharklab closely monitored the pups to help them grow in a healthy manner," Malta National Aquarium curator Mike Hutchison told Malta Today.

"Being top predators, the sharks are likely to survive in the wild."

"The fish market vendors have been extremely helpful in letting Sharklab Malta remove these egg cases from the female sharks," the aquarium wrote on its Facebook page.

"These eggs are then kept in a specialized system within the aquarium. The system is kept separate from all the other exhibits to stop cross contamination and the system is temperature controlled."

To ease their transition into the wild, conservationists transferred the shark pups from temperature-controlled buckets to sea-temperature containers before being handed off to scuba divers.

Four more shark pups were hatched at the aquarium last week. They, too, will be released into the wild after six months.

Nursehound sharks are bottom feeders and live on a diet of plankton and small crab meat. They pose no danger to humans. Humans, however, are quite the threat to them.

"They are marketed for food in several European countries and are said to be 'near threatened,' as their population reportedly has declined substantially from overfishing in the Mediterranean Sea. Hence the reason for conservation of the species," GrindTV reported.