The cash-strapped Niagara Falls, Ont. tourist attraction Marineland says sending its 30 remaining beluga whales to a proposed sanctuary in Nova Scotia is not the answer.
Marineland has said it would have no choice but to euthanize the whales unless the Canadian government provided urgently needed financial help. But Ottawa, so far, has made it clear that the Belugas are the amusement park’s responsibility.
The crisis for the belugas began about a week ago after the federal government turned down a request for a permit so that Marineland could send the 30 belugas to an aquarium in China. Marineland then said it urgently needed money for the care and feeding of the whales, since it was quickly running out of cash.
The park closed to the public more than a year ago.
Neither the federal nor provincial governments have stepped up, each suggesting the other step in to help. And the marine park has said it would have no choice but to euthanize the whales.
Some have floated the idea of sending the whales to a proposed sanctuary in Nova Scotia.
“This is a bay that really can sustain a long-term engagement of these whales, and can sustain having a sanctuary in that environment that we can maintain safely,” said Charles Vinick, executive director of the Whale Sanctuary Project.
But property owners next to the proposed location don’t want the $20 million sanctuary. Marineland suggests that sanctuary is far from ideal, saying it’s not ready, too polluted, and alleges serious environmental issues including toxic arsenic on the floor of the site. Critics also claim there has been no progress in developing the site in five years.
At least one marine biologist also says a sanctuary may not be the solution. Javier Almunia says two whales at a sanctuary in Iceland are having trouble adjusting, and spend most of their time in a tank. And he says he could not guarantee the welfare of the animals in a sanctuary.
Some experts say these whales are so used to human contact, that may be what their continued survival depends on.
