Hundreds of Pittsburgh area activists and citizens held a candlelight vigil at the PPG Aquarium at the Pittsburgh Zoo to protest recently leaked e-mails that seem to prove what many animal rights groups, death penalty opponents and zoo patrons have feared all along. The aquarium has been acting, since its inception, as a sort of "salt water death row" for the zoo and aquarium industry.

Earlier this month ten black-tip reef sharks and one puffer fish died after untreated water was cycled back into the aquarium's largest tank. The aquarium has blamed human error on what it publicly calls a "tragedy."

But pressure has been mounting for the aquarium to explain why so many animals, 23 sharks plus many others, have died in its care since it opened in 2000. The leaked e-mails, which were made public by an animal rights group over the weekend, make clear that the aquarium at the Pittsburgh Zoo has been operating as a death penalty location since it's opening as a way to help the financially struggling city.

"It's the only thing that explains all of the execution style deaths of so many animals," says death penalty opponent Jeff Smith. "We always suspected there was a punishment system in the zoological world, we just couldn't prove it before. Now we can."

In an effort to keep only the most interesting and well behaved fish, the nation's larger and more prominent aquariums often export their troublemakers to smaller market aquariums, referred to in the industry as "holding tanks." These aquariums are typically run like prisons with high turnover rates, small confinement areas, and corrupt guards.

While the existence of these "holding tanks" has always been a "known secret" in the zoological world, the validation that one of these,

On a brighter note, the aquarium gift shop will be introducing a new item this year: "Floaty" the black tip reef shark plush toy!

the aquarium in Pittsburgh, is actually a death camp where fish are taken to await their demise, has shaken the community and the industry.

Barbara Baker, president and CEO of the Pittsburgh Zoo, says she won't dignify the charges with a response. "It's irresponsible and unpatriotic for people to suggest that we charge a fee to larger aquariums to dispose of their unwanted specimens."

But one e-mail from Baker herself reads, in part: "Ten black-tip sharks? Two million. Half up front."

When confronted with this, Baker addressed the issue directly, "Yup, just plain unpatriotic and bad for the region to be throwing around such rumors." She then climbed into her brand new BMW M3 Convertible with vanity plates that read FISHN8TOR and drove off.

"This is terrible," said a masked protester from the University of Pittsburgh, "All this time we've been attributing the deaths of these magnificent creatures to human error, and now we know it was a conscious decision by the management of the zoo. Well, I guess that's still human error. Just a different kind of human error. The kind where you think through all your options and make the wrong choice anyway. Like when I started going out with Brad again last semester. God, now that was human error."

Some critics question why just black-tip reef sharks were killed.

"It's obvious that these sharks were targeted because of their color," says local activist Aquarium X. "In fact, these aren't the first black-tip sharks that have been executed in this aquarium. Have any great whites been murdered here? No. And while we're on the subject, what exactly is so great about white?"

While that question may remain unanswered, aquarium management may have to ask itself another question: Will area residents continue to fund and support the large scale killing of fish all year round, or just during lent like usual?