Local furniture store bites off more than it can chew with pet shark

OVERLAND PARK, Kan. - Aaron Sprowl deals with denizens of the deep nearly every day.

As the displays curator of Kansas City’s SEALIFE Aquarium, finding fish is his job.

But even he was a bit surprised when he went to pick up the aquariums newest attraction today.

“This will be my first shark from a furniture store,” Sprowl said.

That's right - a furniture store.

For the past two years, a nurse shark has been the center of attention at Furniture Deals in Overland Park.

The store’s general manager, Colin Goodwin, says the shark seemed like a good idea at the time.

“I don’t think that we expected her to grow as quickly as she did,” Goodwin said.

The shark is alsmo four feet and expected to stretch to eight feet in the next year or so. Sprowl says it’s time it found a new home, and SEALIFE is the perfect place.

“It has a lot of area to swim around in, a lot of fish to interact with as well as a kind of natural environment,” he said.

Goodwin says everyone at the store is sad to see her go.

“It’s definitely something that everyone in the store has gotten used to,” he said.

After a short quarantine and time to get acclimated, she’ll meet her new roommates in about two weeks.