Sharks

The great white shark has left the building. After an eventful six months on display, a young female great white shark that set survival records in captivity while luring hordes of visitors to the Monterey Bay Aquarium was released Thursday in waters south of the facility. The shark, outfitted with an electronic data tag that will track her movements for the next month, wore out her welcome by following nature's course.

Jamie Langenbrunner and David Perron scored in a 45-second span in the third period, and the St. Louis Blues woke up in time to put away the San Jose Sharks, 3-1, and wrap up the first-round Western Conference series in five games Saturday night. Joe Thornton scored in the final minute of the second period for San Jose, and the visiting Sharks were seemingly in control before the flurry that ended their season. Brian Elliott made 26 saves, and Andy McDonald ended all doubt with an empty-net goal in the final minute.

Vikas Chinnan stood over a tank at the world's largest aquarium, peering down at the world's largest fish species. He was wondering what it would be like to jump in and frolic beside the whale sharks. The creature approached, eerily quiet. It was longer than a Ford Expedition, impossibly elegant as it banked into a turn at the tank's edge, flexing its gray, massive, mottled form into a parabola of living flesh.

The Kings will open the Stanley Cup playoffs with games Wednesday and Friday at Vancouver and will play host to the Canucks at Staples Center on April 15 and 18, the NHL announced Sunday. Should the best-of-seven series go to a fifth game at Vancouver's Rogers Arena, there would be three days between Games 4 and 5. That is probably because of other events in both buildings, highlighting the difficulty of finding open dates in arenas like Staples Center that are in near-constant use. Three playoff series will start Wednesday, four will start Thursday and one - Florida vs. New Jersey - will open Friday.

When tracking down the tantalizing smell of prey, a shark relies mostly on which nostril first detects the scent rather than on the strength of the odor, a study has found. The findings, published online Thursday in the journal Current Biology, suggest that sharks with more widely spaced nares may be better able to judge the location of their prey. Scientists had long thought that the concentration of the smell determined how a shark would react. "People have always just kind of had this idea that it was concentration.

San Jose defenseman Dan Boyle scored the lone goal in a shootout, and Evgeni Nabokov stopped all three Columbus shooters to give the Sharks their sixth straight win, a 3-2 victory over the Blue Jackets on Wednesday night. Nabokov made 26 saves in regulation and overtime, then stopped attempts by Nikita Filatov, Anton Stralman and Rick Nash in the tiebreaker. Joe Thornton scored and Dany Heatley had a power-play goal for San Jose. The Sharks have won eight of their last nine games.

Eight sharks have died in one month in a tank at the Pittsburgh Zoo & PPG Aquarium. Six bonnethead sharks and two black-tip reef sharks died between Sept. 30 and Oct. 31. Two sharks were killed by another shark and two died of bacterial infections they might have acquired before they were brought to the aquarium. Tests on the others are being conducted, but officials believe deworming medication might be the culprit.

Regarding "Shark Safari" (Weekend Escape, June 7), which described an adventure in which people could get into an "open top" shark cage that would then be partially submerged in the water to view blue sharks, up close: This idea of exposing the public to sharks "in their natural habitat" is a fraud and a potentially dangerous one at that. In the first place, they toss chum into the water to attract the sharks and work them into an unnatural feeding frenzy. Would we go to Yosemite, roll down our car window and feed the bears?

Tiger shark. A voracious predator known for traveling the world's oceans and consuming everything in its way: smaller sharks, boat cushions, license plates, copper wire, shipwrecked sailors. But on a recent Tuesday, the new 5-foot-long tiger shark at the Aquarium of the Pacific in Long Beach refused to even acknowledge a chunk of restaurant-grade ahi tuna dangled in front of its broad snout. That worried Assistant Curator Steve Blair, whose duties include trying to keep one of the few tigers sharks in captivity in the United States as comfortable, healthy and stress-free as possible.

Sharks feeding on a dead 40-foot finback whale forced police Friday to close all town beaches in this eastern Long Island resort community.

SAN JOSE -- The Kings got out of San Jose and declined to glance back Saturday night, not dwelling on blown third-period leads against the Sharks and the absence of intensity at crucial junctures. They squandered two-goal leads twice in three days against the Sharks, once in Los Angeles and the other at HP Pavilion in a 3-2 overtime loss to San Jose in the regular-season finale. Their slide in the standings means a first-round playoff series against the league's No. 1 team, the Canucks.

— Loudly, and predictably, the chants of "Beat L.A., Beat L.A.," reverberated through HP Pavilion at the start of the Kings-Sharks game Saturday night. What? No chants of "Seventh seed, seventh seed?" That was the prevailing issue at stake, one of the few remaining elements of suspense in what was the final game of the NHL's regular season. The Kings were within a period of securing the seventh spot in the Western Conference, but squandered a two-goal lead in the third period, losing, 3-2, to the Sharks in overtime.

When: 7:30. Where: HP Pavilion. On the air: TV: Channel 13; Radio: 1150. Records: Kings 40-27-14, Sharks 42-29-10 Record vs. Sharks: 2-1-2. Update: The Kings clinched a playoff spot not long before they took the ice Thursday and that knowledge ended up taking the edge off all those weeks of desperation. "It was a little bit of a deflater," Kings defenseman Rob Scuderi. "Because you had that attitude that you are on edge, you are on edge the whole time and then the score comes in and, maybe subconsciously, you take your foot off the gas a little bit. I can only speak for myself.

This was not exactly Ryane Clowe, Mr. Stealth. The Kings saw the Sharks forward reach over the bench with his stick to illegally play the puck, disrupting a rush led by Kings center Jarret Stoll with about 2:40 remaining in regulation. They saw it. As did the stunned and angered Kings fans at Staples Center. TV picked up on it immediately One problem: The on-ice officials were in the distinct minority and didn't see it. "I don't know how you miss it," Kings captain Dustin Brown said.

Players are always searching for that extra tool, an extra edge, and Sharks forward Ryane Clowe might have flicked on the light bulb in the league by reaching over the bench with his stick to illegally play the puck against the Kings. Not only did he disrupt the Kings' rush late in regulation, but also Clowe got away with it, unseen by the referees Thursday night at Staples Center. "It was pretty effective. I'm thinking about using it myself," said Kings defenseman Rob Scuderi , joking in his usual dry manner.

Nothing has come easily for the Kings this season, and their battle will continue to Saturday's season finale. Their 6-5 shootout loss to the San Jose Sharks Thursday night at Staples Center was a strange ending to a bizarre game. They knew before the opening faceoff that they had clinched a playoff spot thanks to Dallas' loss at Nashville, but their aim was to win the Pacific Division title and secure home-ice advantage. They looked well on their way to that after taking leads of 3-1 and 4-3 -- and pulling even at 5-5 with 3:21 left in the third period on Justin Williams' second goal of the game -- but they were derailed when they couldn't beat Sharks goaltender Antti Niemi in the shootout and Jonathan Quick yielded a shootout goal to Joe Pavelski.

Ocean swimmers are being warned of the possible presence of sharks after a gray whale carcass was spotted tangled in a kelp bed just beyond the surf line. The young whale is believed to have been killed by killer whales, which feed on the migrating mammals off the Monterey coast in April and May, wildlife officials said. Capitola lifeguards are keeping an eye out for great white sharks that may come into the area to feed on the carcass.

The ocean off Orange County is home to a number of deep-water shark species, including the great white, hammerhead and thresher. The most common species, however, are the blue and the mako. Blue Shark (Prionace Glauca) The most numerous sharks in local waters based on sightings and captures. Present year-round. Rarely seen near shore. No estimates of population. Long slender body, typically five to six feet long, but reported as large as 12 feet. Most in the area are under 150 pounds.