I don't know how much room whale sharks need, but the tank they are in is the size of a stadium. My brother, who I went with, got to see all the behind-the-scenes stuff once and he told me the tank is so huge that they have to row out to the middle in boats just to feed the fish.
They also didn't appear to be in any way unhealthy. Quite the opposite.
I'm not in general a big fan of keeping animals in small enclosures, but it really was not a small enclosure.
The aquarium's website says the tank is 6.3 million gallons and ranges from 20 to 30 feet deep. That's fucking huge.
I appreciate all that, and I very much enjoyed that aquarium myself, but I just can't approve of keeping large, pelagic animals in captivity unless it's to try to rehabilitate them. These are animals that travel thousands of miles when they're out in a natural environment.
I totally get that. But I also think there is value in having people see those animals for themselves to understand why our natural world needs to be preserved. And, unfortunately, these whale sharks might be more likely to survive than the ones in the ocean the way climate change is going.