Shark show entertains crowd

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Brendt Wallace, of Huron, stands in a cage designed for divers swimming with Great White Sharks Thursday morning at the Live Shark Experience during the South Dakota State Fair. (Chris Huber/Republic Photo)

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HURON — While the haunting sounds of the “Jaws” theme began to play, a panel rose to reveal four nurse sharks and a lemon shark swimming around in a 7,000-gallon tank. The crowd watched in awe as Philip Peters, a Netherlands native who now resides in Myakka City, Fla., swam with the sharks, danced with a shark named Loretta and put it on its back, thus placing it in a hypnotic trance.

Peters’ assistant, Rick Pefley, told the crowd that if Peters were to stick his hand inside the same opening on top where he would enter and the sharks receive their food, they might mistake his hand for a small piece of fish.

“Once Philip is inside this tank and sharks have seen he is not their natural prey, then they most likely will leave him alone,” Pefley said.

And they did.

Peters hosted the Live Shark Encounter, a new event at the South Dakota State Fair in Huron, on Thursday. More shark shows will be held at 10:15 a.m., 1:15 p.m. and 6 p.m. today and Monday, and at 10:15 a.m., 1:15 p.m., 3:30 p.m. and 6 p.m. Saturday and Sunday. The exhibit is located north of the Centennial Stage.

Peters, owner and operator of Haai Live Shark Experience, has been conducting live shark shows for 15 years. This year, he spent three months in Canada and traveled to Mexico, Hawaii and the Midwest, and even coastal states such as Florida.

“For instance, here, where are you going to see live sharks?” he said. “I thought it would be good to go to places where kids have never seen a shark.”

When Peters initially swims in the tank with a new set of sharks, they are afraid of him and swim away from him.

But after about three weeks, they become accustomed to him.

Peters tries to educate crowds that not all sharks are deadly. He chose to display nurse and lemon sharks because they perform well in captivity.

“It’s an animal that has been misunderstood for a long time,” he said. “Everybody thinks that sharks are just out to eat and attack people. That’s absolutely nonsense. (But) sometimes it does happen.”

During the show, Peters explained that lemon sharks will grow to 12 feet in length. They emit a yellow color when the sun hits them and are among the top-five most aggressive sharks in the world, he said.

Nurse sharks often lie on the ocean floor, because that is how they receive their oxygen, Peters said. That species is pretty docile, but they have a powerful bite with more than 5,000 pounds of pressure from their jaws.

Pefley told participants that if they enter waters with those sharks in their natural habitat, the sharks will most likely swim away. He advised swimmers to stay calm when they encounter the sharks.

Wessington Springs and Plankinton were among the schools that brought students to the fairgrounds for a field trip Thursday.

Wessington Springs brought kindergartners through thirdgraders as part of an educational experience that included the shark encounter, recycling and listening to South Dakota author Kari Kay, who wrote “Floppy Cat,” said Becky Bell-Krueger, firstgrade teacher.

“The shark encounter was one of the main hits they wanted to see,” she said. “When we pulled in our buses right here, there was a loud roar from the bus that they were going to get to see the sharks.”

Bell-Krueger said she thought her students learned a lot from the show, having spoken to the show operators beforehand.

“We looked at the sharks and how we can compare their teeth to our teeth,” she said.

Plankinton fifth-grader Lane Wesseling said it was cool to see the sharks in real life and see how the sharks would react to Peters.

Connor Spinar, 11, a Plankinton sixth-grader, received a shark tooth from Peters at the show. Spinar said he’d be scared to try to dance with a shark, but he admired the way Peters handled the ocean animals in the tank.

“He flipped the one that was about as big as him and flipped it over and was tickling it,” Spinar said.

It’s the enjoyment on children’s faces that gives Peters satisfaction.

“To them, it’s still a mystery,” he said.

Next to the speedway, families and other visitors could check out a wide array of unusual animals at the exotic animal petting zoo.

This is the fifth year that Kevin Vogel, owner of Vogel’s Exotic Animal Shows in Sanborn, Minn., has brought the zoo to the State Fair.

“It offers people of all ages a chance to interact with animals they might never, ever get to see,” he said. “You might see a kangaroo in a zoo, but you will never be allowed to pet it.”

Fairgoers could view such creatures as African pigmy goats, nilgai — a large antelope from India — kangaroos, brahmas and a couple scimitar horned oryx, a large antelope found in Africa and the Middle East.

Children could buy Cheerios or grain for 25 cents and feed the animals.

James Nussbaum, 8, of Garretson, fed several animals, including the spider monkeys and lemurs.

“They’re pretty nice. They like attention and Cheerios,” Nussbaum said.

Tags: our towns, state fair, news, huron, sharks, travel