Fungi may well be Dingle's most famous aquatic life form but the friendly dolphin is going to face some pretty mean competition over the coming months as Dingle Oceanworld becomes home to an impressive collection of sharks.
Although the new arrivals are not quite in the Jaws category - Robert Benchley's creation being a Giant White - the collection of Tiger Sharks and Brown Sharks from the US, and Blue Sharks from Irish waters, are sure to provide a huge attraction.
While getting the Blue Sharks to Dingle posed a few problems, bringing the Yanks to west Kerry was proving a mite more troublesome until the US Air Force saved the day.
Oceanworld director and Department of the Marine Fisheries Inspector, Kevin Flannery - the enthusiastic inspiration behind the project - explains that Oceanworld obtained the three Tigers and two Browns in Florida.
The predators were bought from Steve Casey, a vet in Vietnam, for $5,000 each some months ago, but the sharks have to be sedated for transportation and no airline would allow staff into the cargo hold to monitor them in flight.
"The only airline that would allow us in their holds with the sharks were El Al who fly into Amsterdam but we can only sedate the sharks for 48 hours and we couldn't get them from the States via Amsterdam to Kerry inside that time," explained Kevin.
With private air courier companies quoting prices of more than £120,000 to bring the five sharks to Ireland, it was beginning to look as though the Blue Sharks would be on their own in the spacious new 400,000 gallon tank in Dingle.
But the US Air Force came to the rescue and is now preparing for what is surely one of its most unusual missions - bringing musicians and sharks to Ireland .
"We wrote to US Ambassador Jean Kennedy Smith and she put us in contact with her military attache, Col Bill Torpey. He arranged for the sharks to be flown over in a US Air Force plane bringing a Navy Band to Ireland for July 4th celebrations," he said.
The C141 has plenty of spare capacity in its holds and the air force has no problem allowing the staff to monitor the sharks in their tanks during the flight.
"We have to get the sharks up from Florida to Andrews Air Base in Maryland and then they'll either fly them into Farranfore or Shannon and from there it's over road with them into Dingle before we wake them up," says Kevin.
Kevin reveals that Irish Blue Sharks have never before shared tanks with Tiger Sharks and Brown Sharks, but he's confident that given that they grow to around the same size - 7 feet - they are unlikely to eat one another.
"We're also putting in some Tope which are smaller and hopefully they won't be eaten - they should all be okay if they're properly fed but if any of them do start getting hungry, then it could turn into a blood bath," he admits.
Oceanworld previously had two baby Six Gill Sharks. When they arrived they were just three feet long but Six Gills - which live in deep water - grow to over 20 feet and Oceanworld was forced to release them because they became so voracious.
"In our first two years, we've had over 230,000 visitors," says Kevin "and we've consistently been in the top 10 visitor attractions in the country, but everybody wants to see sharks so these lads should really prove a huge draw especially for kids."
