How long do fishies live? SC Ripley’s Aquarium highlights oldest residents at 25th anniversary

Gabby, the queen of the shark tank, rules Ripley’s Aquarium in Myrtle Beach with an iron flipper.

As she swims around, it seems she taunts the sharks, daring them to touch her, even as she takes bites out of their tails.

Gabby is a sea turtle.

A ruthless sea turtle, that is. There’s a reason why she’s the only sea turtle at the aquarium.

“She’s not scared of the sharks at all,” White said. Often, she’ll float near the surface, and as “she’s watching everything, many of the sand tiger sharks come up to look, and she will literally stare them down.”

Gabby is possibly the most notorious sea creature at the aquarium, and she’s been there almost from the start. She arrived in 1999, two years after the aquarium opened.

Twenty-three years after her rule at Ripley’s in Myrtle Beach began, the aquarium is celebrating its 25th anniversary.

Since 1997, Ripley’s Aquarium in Myrtle Beach has contributed to research and conservation of fish and wildlife of both species home to South Carolina and those around the globe. It opened an African penguin exhibit in 2020 and has helped breed the endangered species. And recently, one of its sand tiger sharks gave birth to a healthy pup, a rare occurrence in captivity. The births have helped grow the knowledge of both species.

When the aquarium first opened, it wasn’t entirely taken seriously by parts of the scientific world, said Stacia White, the aquarium’s director of husbandry. For one, the aquarium is owned by the for-profit Ripley’s Believe It or Not!, while most others around the world are nonprofits, focused solely on scientific and conservationist endeavors rather than making money.

There was also the fact that Ripley’s reputation was, well, for weird stuff, like the zombie horror attraction on Ocean Boulevard in Myrtle Beach.

“Ripley’s itself, a lot of people associate it with the Odditoriums,” White said. “When we did open the aquarium, that took a little bit for people to not come in and be like, ‘Where’s your two-headed sharks?’”

Over time, however, locals, tourists and, yes, the scientific community began to take the aquarium seriously. When aquariums and vet hospitals in the South Carolina Lowcountry don’t have room to treat sea turtles, for example, they will be sent to Myrtle Beach, with the trust that Ripley’s can properly care for them.

Being associated with Ripley’s is financially beneficial for the aquarium, considering the company is for-profit, White said. Anytime one of their animals needs help, even if it’s expensive, White said they can just do it, without a ton of paperwork that might be required otherwise.

Now, that “proper” reputation doesn’t mean Ripley’s isn’t a little silly. The aquarium is a whole lot more colorful than most others visitors might come across. The outdoors are splashed with the iconic Ripley’s green, and, of course, there’s life-size statues of divers with giant metal head coverings.

The aquarium also designs its exhibits with children and families particularly in mind, including placing exhibits lower to the ground and accessible for those shorter mammals who want to see everything that’s going on.

White said Ripley’s has also served a special role in the Myrtle Beach community. As the region’s first — and only — aquarium, it allows visitors to learn about the fish they are swimming with in the ocean, hopefully helping create a love of the ocean and the environment, White said.

“I just love the fact that a guest from the Midwest that isn’t even near an ocean, they might go to the ocean (in Myrtle Beach) and swim and have fun, but then they come here and get to see, ‘Oh this might have been what I was swimming around,’ and then get to learn the stories about those animals,” she said. “What we do best as aquariums and zoos is we put these animals in front of people so they can create connections ... and then in the future they’re going to be more apt to think, ‘I want to protect, I want to save these animals because I got to see one at the aquarium.’”

25 years of history

A lot has changed since the aquarium first opened. Many of the shops and restaurants surrounding it at Broadway at the Beach have closed and been replaced. The exhibits at the museum have changed, too, doubling from around 16 to 32 today.

But some things are the same.

Gabby has been at the aquarium for almost its entire existence, but she’s not alone.

The aquarium has a few sharks that have been there since the beginning: a sand tiger shark exquisitely named “Male 3” and the aquarium’s two nurse sharks. (The vast majority of fish at the aquarium do not have names because, apparently, that’s a scientific no-no.)

Male 3 stands out in particular, though, because of his age.

When the aquarium first got him, he was fully mature. They can’t know how old he actually is, but they estimate he’s in his 40s or 50s, easily twice the age most sand tiger sharks live to in the wild. His extended lifespan is thanks to the veterinary care offered at the aquarium and getting fed the most nutritious meals possible, White said.

The nurse sharks, on the other hand, were just babies when they arrived, able to fit in a human hand.

The aquarium has tried to make Male 3 and the rest of the sharks feel at home, building their tank as an old shipwreck, similar to real-life shipwrecks that sand tigers are used to congregating around in the wild, White said.

Male 3’s age is showing. Speed is not his forte. He spends most of his time slowly moving along, like a tourist on the beach.

A lot of the animals in the aquarium were actually caught by the aquarium’s staff offshore in the Myrtle Beach area, including many of the sharks. White said it allows them to ensure they know everything about how the animals were cared for from the second they were caught.

“We know that they were handled correctly from catch into our tanks,” she said.

Gabby’s personality and her stature — beloved many visitors to the aquarium — mean she commands a lot of the attention, though.

She weighs 300 pounds and loves to have the back of her shell scratched. And no, she’s not the biggest creature in the tank. There is a sand tiger shark that is about 9 feet long and weighs 400 pounds. Nevertheless, Gabby tries to steal their food anyway. As a result, she gets fed separately.

Many Ripley’s employees have their own stories about Gabby, and she’s a frequent topic of discussion among the aquarium’s visitors. (Gabby and the penguins, by the way, are the only animals that get named. Although, White did admit that plenty of the animals have secret nicknames among the staff.)

“She’s just got this big personality,” said Sean Boyd, the aquarium’s assistant director of husbandry. “Probably the biggest personality in the aquarium.”

When visitors walk in, it’s common for them to ask if Gabby is still there. And if they can’t find her in the tank, they ask where she is, if she’s OK and when she’ll be back.

Sand tiger shark Male 3 and Gabby are not the only animals that have been at Ripley’s since, or close to, the beginning.

Serving the aquarium from the start

There is also a mammal (human) that has been there since the aquarium opened.

Boyd has been there since the start. Back then, he was as student a Coastal Carolina University. Aquarium officials had done a presentation at the school, looking to attract applicants, but the “higher ups” also spent a lot of time at the Bowery, the bar in downtown Myrtle Beach where Boyd worked.

Boyd was quickly hooked, both by the chance to get to help teach children about the environment and by the animals he loved working with.

“We would dive every day in the main tank, and as you were diving, the kids would come through” the glass tunnels below, he said, “and you could just sit there and watch their expressions as they went through the aquarium.”

Asked if he ever expected to still be at Ripley’s Aquarium in Myrtle Beach 25 years later, Boyd noted that he tends to spend a lot of time wherever he goes. Even after he started at Ripley’s in 1997, he stayed on working at the Bowery, spending 10 years there total.

“I’ve had opportunities to leave. I just never did it,” Boyd said. The aquarium, “It’s just a nice place to be.”

And the aquarium probably is the place for him. Boyd’s favorite sea creature?

Gabby.

As Boyd said her name, White turned to him, laughing, with just one comment:

“She’s your spirit animal.”