When Rosie the Great White shark first got caught up in a family's tuna-fishing net in 1997, she probably never thought she would go on a journey that spanned the oceans and took her onto dry land.
But that's exactly what happened to her when she became a famous tourist attraction at the Wildlife Wonderland theme park in Australia.
As per All That's Interesting, the incredible marine animal was transported to the park in a refrigerated truck, where she spent more than a decade in a "custom tank flooded with formaldehyde."
For those of you who might not be aware, formaldehyde is a colorless and odorless substance that can help to preserve the bodies of animals.
Rosie became the ultimate hot spot at the theme park before it ultimately shut down in 2012.
While you would assume that someone probably transported the shark carcass to another location where it could continue to be admired, unfortunately, it was left behind and forgotten until an urban explorer stumbled across it.
In 2018, Luke McPherson uploaded a video to his YouTube channel titled 'Abandoned Australian Wildlife Park. Decaying, left to rot' and since then, the clip has been viewed over 16 million times.
Check out Luke's video below (Rosie appears at around 18:00):
However, while the video was supposed to raise awareness about an issue, it instead invited vandals and hooligans into the abandoned property where they ended up graffitiing the tank as well as trying to throw things into the liquid.
When the tank eventually started leaking, local authorities were forced to release a statement warning people about the toxic fumes.
"The fumes were so bad you couldn’t last longer than a minute in that room, the formaldehyde must have been evaporating," McPherson said as per The Sun. "The tank was huge and in bad condition, with a rusting metal frame and smashed panels of glass and trash thrown inside. Once I got the light behind the tank I was like ‘wow, that’s creepy.'"
Then came the news that Rosie would be destroyed in order to stop the vandals' behavior, however, this sparked a social media movement to "Save Rosie" and eventually, the owner of the Crystal World and Prehistoric Journeys Exhibition Center, Tom Kapitany transported and re-displayed the animal himself.
And that's where she remains.
"It’s a remarkable thing, for starters with all the vandalism and everything that has happened to the actual wildlife park and to Rosie’s tank," said Shane McAlister, an employee at the exhibition center. "I had to go down there and do a patrol and make sure no delinquents were going to vandalize Rosie’s tank any further."
Rosie the Shark still remains a tourist attraction to this day and her official Facebook page has over 54,000 followers.
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