Jamie Schenk
Appearances
Big Time
Missing Helen: Part 1 | 10
Fish people are very, very different because they love their fish. But it's not like you get to go cuddle it and scratch it. There's an emotional connection, but there's not a lot of touching that happens like it would for, let's say, a parrot or a mammal. Bird people take bites like crazy. They're like, oh yeah, I totally bit my finger and I love you so much.
Big Time
Missing Helen: Part 1 | 10
The main mission at the time was how do we get her back? What do we need to prep? We didn't think we would get her back alive. That's really the truth. But we still prepped and made preparations.
Big Time
Missing Helen: Part 1 | 10
And while they searched the house... I'm just washing all this, and I'm just like, I just want my shark back. Like, you can take him away. I just want my shark.
Big Time
Missing Helen: Part 1 | 10
The whole back wall was covered with tanks and fish. So he was a hobbyist. He definitely had experience. He wasn't some newbie that never took care of fish before.
Big Time
Missing Helen: Part 1 | 10
So it was about a 400 gallon tank. It was large. However, the filtration system, it was like ran on something really small, like a canister filter or something like that. And in the center of it, he had some live rock and some faux coral.
Big Time
Missing Helen: Part 1 | 10
And then I saw Miss Helen. I was able to identify it. I couldn't believe she was alive. I really couldn't believe she was alive. I was like, oh my gosh, she's swimming. She's swimming. She's alive.
Big Time
Missing Helen: Part 1 | 10
I was like, man, she's a hardy little shark. And she had a strong will to survive.
Big Time
Missing Helen: Part 1 | 10
You know, I am grateful that he wasn't some newbie person that just grabbed her and had no idea what they were doing. Because if that was the case, then she probably wouldn't be with us. So we brought her back. Then we acclimated her to her QT pool. We had her in the back in quarantine because we wanted to monitor and make sure she was okay.
Big Time
Missing Helen: Part 1 | 10
The hype hadn't gone down and we had to brainstorm and come up with a plan. I'm like, hey, we can't just put her back. What if somebody tries to come in thinking they can do it again or something like that? Or just all the attention itself could be stressful for one individual animal. And that's when we came up with, okay, we're going to get more horn sharks and we're just going to put them in.
Big Time
Missing Helen: Part 1 | 10
a bunch of different random exhibits and one of the exhibits she'll be in. We don't release where Miss Helen is because after that incident, a lot of people was walking in to be like, where's Miss Helen? Where's Miss Helen? We're like, well, we don't know. She's here somewhere.
Big Time
Missing Helen: Part 1 | 10
What's unique about us? We make it possible so guests can come and touch and feed our octopus, touch and feed our stingrays. And a lot of our tanks are set up that way so that we can provide an experience for the guests to have an emotional attachment with that animal.
Big Time
Missing Helen: Part 1 | 10
I mean, you're dealing with life, right? So you never know who's going to be sick, who's going to do this, babies being born, new projects being completed, everything like that.
Big Time
Missing Helen: Part 1 | 10
So in the back, we have sanitization buckets. We have a bleach diluted bucket so we can sanitize our scrub brushes or anything that we put into the tanks so we're not cross-contaminating. So he took it and he dumped bleach into our system. And if you're familiar with aquariums, bleach kills fish. So it was kind of like, okay, this guy took our shark. He's also trying to crash one of our systems.
Big Time
Missing Helen: Part 1 | 10
You're kind of in a bit of a state of shark, a state of shock. Then it's like you're trying to take care of almost two things at one time. Then the staff members were on the phone with me. What do we do? What do we do?
Big Time
Missing Helen: Part 1 | 10
Basically, we did a large water change and we're able to put dechlorinators into the water really fast. So in the end, we actually had zero loss, which is amazing. And then at the same time, go hunt him down. So we were moving pretty fast.
Big Time
Missing Helen: Part 1 | 10
He came a couple weeks before, and that's how I recognized him on the cameras, because the whole situation was very unique and different and raised red flags.
Big Time
Missing Helen: Part 1 | 10
However... Well, Instant Oceans never come through. We just talk to them on the phone. The only vendors we have that come through on a regular basis would be vendors for our gift shop. So he shows up and he's like, we want to test your salt. And we think the salt is a bad batch and is going to hurt your fish, your livestock, whatever you have, blah, blah, blah. There was no company shirt, no card.
Big Time
Missing Helen: Part 1 | 10
We hadn't received an email or anything like that. And I was like, well, we haven't had any issues, so I think we're okay. And he kept pressing the matter and wanted to do a walkthrough.
Big Time
Missing Helen: Part 1 | 10
So we did do a walkthrough through the aquarium. Nothing serious, nothing outside of what a normal guest would be able to do.
Big Time
Missing Helen: Part 1 | 10
If he took a bamboo shark, it would have been a lot harder for us to identify because we have like hundreds of bamboos. And it would have been more difficult for me to identify.
Big Time
Missing Helen: Part 1 | 10
She was the only horn shark we had. I knew exactly which one she was. I knew her really well because I really wanted to care for a horn shark. They're one of my favorite species. They're very cute and they have great personalities.
Big Time
Missing Helen: Part 1 | 10
She was fairly young. She was a juvenile. She was really sweet. She was a polite eater. I just called her like a little lady because she was very patient and she wasn't just going to rush to the dinner plate.