Sharks and humans chow down together at Mote Marine

What are some of your top dinner dates? You know, Walt Disney, George Washington, MLK Jr.?

If sharks somehow made your list, then Mote Marine has the (almost) perfect event for you. It’s breakfast, not dinner, and it didn’t consist of polite conversation side-by-side, but on the morning of July 7, humans and sharks were fed during one of Mote Marine’s Breakfast with the Sharks events.

Families got to stroll around an open-air area of Mote while indulging in a breakfast buffet, with parents snapping photos as kids squealed when marine animals whirled past them in floor-to-ceiling tank windows.

The touch tanks with rays, horseshoe crabs, starfish and sea cucumbers were nearby the breakfast area and hard for the kids to stay away from.

“Let’s maybe save the touching for after breakfast, though,” Marine Science Educator Kayla Keyes cautioned the kids.

As folks walked around with muffins and coffee, Keyes pointed out some shark artifacts and explained that sharks have nearly and endless supply of teeth, losing some every time they feed. They have hundreds of backup teeth, which she pointed out on a mako shark’s jawbone as kids leaned up to get a good look at the sharp teeth. 

Once the humans had snacked enough — and deposited waste in compost, recycling and trash bins — Keyes fed the bonnethead sharks shrimp and krill for their breakfast, while the rays got silverside. After everyone got to eat, the event finished with a tour through the aquarium and a look at Molly the Mollusk, an ancient giant squid, before Keyes left the group to explore the aquarium on their own as it opened to the general public. 

If you’re dying to have your own breakfast with a shark, Mote has two more iterations of the event this year, one on Nov. 30 and one on Dec. 28. Admission to the aquarium is included with the event.