The latest controversy surrounding the Niagara Falls, Ontario amusement park MarineLand has deepened. After being denied a permit to export 30 beluga whales to the Chimelong Ocean Kingdom Aquarium in China, the tourist attraction now says if Ottawa doesn’t help with cash, it may be forced to euthanize the whales.
When Canada’s Minister of Fisheries Joanne Thompson turned down the request to send the belugas to China, she said could not submit them to a continued life of exploitation and living in captivity for public entertainment.
“Holding these marine mammals for entertainment purposes is not in their best interest. We have to do better,” said Thompson. “And so the decision, and it was a difficult decision, but really at the center of the decision was the acknowledgement that we cannot perpetuate what we know is wrong.”
So if the whales are not sent to China, what happens next? MarineLand has been a controversial theme park. In the past six years, one killer whale and 19 belugas have died.
Ontario premier Doug Ford says he’s disappointed that Ottawa denied the permit.
“We can look at other areas that will take these whales. We don’t have to move all 30 in one shot, a couple here, a couple there,” Ford said. We want them to survive, and if they don’t, well the federal government has to answer on that one.”
MarineLand, late last week, made the situation more urgent, saying it was in critical financial shape, and unless Ottawa provided financial support it would have no choice but to euthanize the belugas.
In a letter to the Fisheries minister, the now-closed amusement park said there is no facility that could house the whales and a suitable ocean sanctuary does not exist.
“Within Canada, it’s no longer possible to keep whales in captivity. Historically the Vancouver Aquarium might have been an option, that’s not on the table any longer,” said Andrew Trites, professor and director of the University of British Columbia’s Marine Mammal Research Unit. “In terms of the decision that’s been made, there is nowhere within Canada to put them into another facility.”
Trites adds while the whales are exploited for public entertainment, they also provide education, so people can connect with marine life.
“The other piece beyond education, is research. And I think a lot of people overlook the fact that so much of what we know about marine mammals and what we still need to learn about marine mammals comes from being able to study them up close,” he said.
MarineLand says caring and maintaining the whales costs about $2 million a month, and since the park closed to the public late last summer, very little money is coming in.
Trites says euthanizing the whales should not even be an option.
“Really there are only two options if they are to remain in Canada. One is to turn MarineLand into a palliative care center,” he said. “But that’s going to mean investing even more money into the place and that’s not a good long-term thing to be doing. Another would be to see them going into an open ocean sanctuary of some sort.”
The federal government says it knows of a proposed $20 million whale sanctuary in Nova Scotia, but it is not yet operational.
“What we’re doing is netting off a hundred acres of water space in a leased area of 200 acres of water,” said Charles Vinick, executive director of the Whale Sanctuary Project. “So, that will be a space more than a hundred times larger than the largest facility in any marine park in the world. It gives them a natural environment. They can swim, they can dive, they can socialize. But it also gives them enough room to move away from other animals when they want to.”
Vinick says the project is not fully approved yet, but he’s working with community partners and the government to get it moving forward. He could offer no timeline of when that could happen.
Meanwhile, the fate of 30 beluga whales remains in limbo, and there’s no word yet whether the Ontario or the federal governments will help pick up the tab for their care.
