In this study, we endeavored to answer the following questions: (1.) How does air exposure affect the stress response? (2.) Do environmental and individual variables explain a significant amount of variation in this effect? (3.) Will air exposure affect release behavior and can levels of stress indicators predict release behavior? (4.) Does air exposure affect the propensity to display the nictitating membrane reflex (NMR)? Results revealed that lactate was significantly higher after 10 and 15 minutes of air exposure compared to baseline levels. Release behavior was poorer after 5, 10, and 15 minutes of air exposure compared to baseline and 15 minutes of air exposure resulted in complete impairment of the NMR. Data was collected from wild-captured blacktip sharks from the Gulf of Mexico in the Mississippi Sound. Lactate was measured in mmol/L, temperatures were measured in degrees Celcius, dissolved oxygen was measured in mg/L, glucose was measured in mg/dL, total length was measured in cm. Thermal gradient was calculated from the difference between the air and water temperatures. Id is an individual identification value assigned to each individual blacktip shark collected for this study.