Imagine this: you find a cool abandoned building to check out. There’s no around but you, so you decide to start poking around a little bit, exploring. The building in question used to be a wildlife park, but now, there are only remnants of the business that once was. All the animals once housed here are long gone.
Or so you think.
You come around the corner and in a split second, you’re face to face with none other than a shark.
Yes, a shark.
Once you have a second to process what’s going on, you realize: this shark is dead, suspended in a large glass tank. The only animal left behind as the wildlife park’s previous owners packed up and abandoned the grounds. So why this one? Why this one shark? What’s the story here?
Let’s delve in.
This shark is Rosie the Shark, and this is actually exactly how she was discovered, left behind after everyone else had long since cleared out. She was discovered by YouTuber “Lukie Mc”, given name Luke McPherson, who was an urban exploration YouTuber when urban exploration was still really big on the Internet. (Is urban ex still a big thing and I’m just hanging out in the wrong communities? Someone let me know.)
So Rosie was a resident of Wildlife Wonderland, a wildlife park in Australia. The park was shut down—allegedly for mistreating the aforementioned wildlife—and they basically just picked up and left, abandoning all the buildings and many of the materials associated with the park, creating a classic abandoned building situation. Perfect bait for a savvy urban explorer.
Unfortunately, one animal was left behind—Rosie. But it might not be exactly what you’re thinking. Rosie wasn’t alive at the time she was abandoned. In fact, Rosie died back in 1998, when she was caught in some tuna fishing nets. Two wildlife parks were interested in purchasing Rosie’s body for educational purposes, and when the first park in question backed out, Wildlife Wonderland ended up with her.
Another thing that makes this story crazy is that Rosie had a heck of a story even before she was abandoned and became YouTube famous for startling the hell out of an urban explorer. As Rosie’s body was initially being transported to Wildlife Wonderland, she was actually impounded by the government. A woman had recently gone missing in the area where Rosie was caught, and the police wanted to perform a necropsy on the shark’s body to make sure the missing woman wasn’t encased inside.
When the woman wasn’t found, Rosie’s body was returned to Wildlife Wonderland, where she was stuffed and placed into a tank of formaldehyde, where she would float and serve as an educational piece in their display for years until they fled the park, leaving poor Rosie behind, where she would continue to languish, suspended in her tank of formaldehyde, alone in the dark, until Luke stumbled upon her.
Clip Where Rosie is Discovered
Something about this story is so sad to me, and I know what you’re thinking—the shark was already dead. At this point, she was essentially just a corpse. And I know that. But to think of these park owners clearing everything about and basically looking at Rosie—this shark who was brought here for this to be her resting place after what was probably a gruesome death, let’s be serious—and decide she wasn’t important enough to take, or even to alert anyone to her presence, and they decide to just leave her there? It’s so sad. How do you make a choice like that? How do you decide she just isn’t important?
Granted, two things factor in here. One is that I’ve never been in a situation exactly like this, so I guess it’s difficult to tell what you would do if you were faced with such a difficult situation. And the other is, allegedly the park was shut down in the first place because the owners were mistreating the wildlife. So I have to imagine if they didn’t care for the animals that were still alive, they probably ranked an already dead animal much, much lower on the priority list. (Other sources report that the issue is the park was operating without the proper licenses, and they had to surrender all the live animals to the RSPCA and close down immediately.)
Poor Rosie.
But, the story takes a happier turn after Luke’s discovery. Rosie got YouTube famous. And if there’s one thing we’ve learned by 2021, it’s the power of the Internet. People just like me were outraged about Rosie’s abandonment, and managed to bring enough attention to her to cause a couple things to happen. The first thing that happened wasn’t so good—a lot of people went to visit Rosie once they knew where she was, and not all of them had the best of intentions. A lot of them were there just to mess around and ended up vandalizing the tank. They removed the top of the tank, broke the glass, and threw trash into Rosie’s resting place. Because, ya know. Humans are the worst. We’ve been over this.
The formaldehyde was already leaking out of the tank at dangerous and extremely toxic levels, but once people messed around in there, it leaked out at an even quicker rate, causing Rosie’s top fin to be exposed from the solution, and the fin decayed quickly.
I’m getting to the happy part, I promise.
Finally, a rescuer emerged in the form of Tom Kapitany, owner of Crystal World Exhibition Centre, also in Victoria, Australia. Kapitany took possession of the shark amongst cries to save Rosie. The current landlord of the property where Rosie was located told him he could have the body for free, as long as he could pay for the removal and transportation himself. Luckily, as a wealthy and successful entrepreneur/scientist, he could. By draining the toxic liquid from the tank and removing Rosie (tank and all) through the roof of the building via a crane, a crew was able to transport her to a new fur-ever (fin-ever?) home at Crystal World Exhibition Centre.
Now Rosie is on display at Crystal World while undergoing preservation efforts, so she can be viewed and restored simultaneously. Her tank was refilled with glycerol, a safer and less toxic alternative to formaldehyde. Workers keep an eye on Rosie around the clock and inject her body with glycerol as needed to help keep her preserved, especially the part of her fin that took on the most damage as the result of her abandonment and vandalism.
Rosie has found her new home and it seems like she has a really good team making sure that her body is preserved and used for education in the way that it was originally meant to be, rather than being left behind and forgotten about it or, possibly worse, completely destroyed for being a danger. Web sources indicate that there is currently a documentary being made all about Rosie and her life’s journey, and dammit, I will absolutely watch a doc about a dead shark. I really will. I will be at the front of the line for that, so I hope it comes out soon.
Rosie has become posthumously famous in the best way, and although her story has been a sad one, she really has been on a hell of a journey. She’s a little spooky, but in the best way, and I’m so glad her journey seems to have had a happier ending.
By the way, Crystal World, her new home, looks absolutely badass:
This seems like a much better spot to reside for an eternal resting place, and if I ever visit Australia, I’d love to go here and see this place—and of course, see Rosie.
What do y’all think? Do you totally love Rosie? Have you heard of her before? Do you think this story is spooky or sad or both? Is it weird that I’m this attached to what is essentially a corpse? I don’t know. Let me know in the comments! <3