A 12+ year old female reef shark kept in an aquarium at the Atlantis Resort in The Bahamas managed to jump out of its tank and onto a nearby water slide. She slid down the slide and into the swimming pool, where she was subjected to the chlorinated pool water. The aquarium staff immediately put her back in her own tank in an attempt to resuscitate her, but it was too late. The Atlantis Resort does not keep their sharks in chlorinated water; they use filtered water from the Atlantic Ocean since it is more similar to the natural environment of these animals.

According to the hotel, the shark ended up in the swimming pool after jumping over a 1 foot high and 18 in wide sustaining structure. The event took place at around 9:30 in the morning when the resorts waterscape had not yet opened for guests, so no vacationers were swimming in the pool at the time.

The Atlantis aquarists believe “the shark was startled by an unusual circumstance that we have no way of defining completely”.

Several species of shark are capable of leaping out of the water and the exact reason or reasons behind this type of behaviour are yet not fully understood. The longest sustained series of breaches ever recorded was performed by a Humpback Whale who did 130 separate leaps in less than 90 minutes in the waters around the West Indies.