News
Sharks on a Plane
To overcome functional extinction in Indonesian waters, global aquariums are airlifting zebra sharks back to the Pacific.
By Johnny Sturgeon
Inside an insulated FedEx package, sloshing around in a sealed sack of seawater at 30,000 feet, four shark eggs traveled from the U.S. to Indonesia last month. Each leathery capsule—affectionately nicknamed “mermaid’s purses”—held the embryo of a species so decimated by overfishing that conservationists have built a first-of-its-kind international rewilding pipeline to overcome functional extinction in Southeast Asian waters.