Post-mortem examinations of two former Marineland belugas show they were sick when they arrived at Chicago’s Shedd Aquarium last month.
Marineland had undertaken a huge relocation operation to move 30 belugas and four dolphins.
So far four Belugas and one dolphin have died and others remain on around-the-clock monitoring.
For months, Marineland had insisted it could no longer care for the animals, and if they were not allowed to be moved Marineland might have no choice but to euthanize them. Ottawa granted the export permits.
The transfers were to Chicago’s Shedd Aquarium, SeaWorld locations in San Antonio and San Diego, the Georgia Aquarium in Atlanta and Oceanografic in Valencia, Spain. A beluga that was sent to Spain died a couple of weeks ago. The latest to die was a 30-year-old dolphin, who was also relocated to Spain. Officials there say he had several medical issues and his condition deteriorated quickly, and he died overnight.
Meanwhile three belugas have died since coming to the Shedd Aquarium. A necropsy on two of them identified a chronic gastrointestinal disease, likely present for some time. Examinations on the female belugas also showed foreign objects in their stomachs — bird feathers, rocks and small flecks of paint — that Shedd says could not have been ingested at the Chicago facility.
Valeria Vergara, a marine mammal scientist with the Raincoast Conservation Foundation in British Columbia, said it’s likely the belugas were also stressed by the move.
"It’s really not surprising to me," Vergara said. "If you think about belugas and who they are; they are long-lived, extremely sociable, intelligent marine mammals that form long-term social bonds with others. So removing an animal from something that is an established social group and introducing that animal into an unfamiliar pod, into an unfamiliar pool, with unfamiliar caretakers is probably a very significant source of psychological stress and pressure."
Oceanografic in Valencia is also conducting necropsies on the beluga and the dolphin that died.
Camille Labchuk, the executive director of the group Animal Justice, said she’s concerned that foreign objects were found in some of the belugas' stomachs.
"This, to me, speaks to a long pattern of neglect at Marineland," Labchuk said. "This is something that we’ve known has been happening for a long time, which is very poor conditions at that facility. The fact that these belugas died so quickly after they got there is indicative of both their poor condition to start with, but also the very rushed transfer process."
A former trainer at Marineland and a controversial figure is Phil Demers, who left his job in 2012 citing allegations of unhealthy conditions at the park and the negligent treatment of animals.
"What I’m a little bit surprised at is that veterinarians would have allowed for compromised animals to be moved," Demers said. "At the end of the day, moving animals, inherently, doesn’t lead to them dying. But moving and stressing animals that are otherwise sick comes with that risk."
A statement from the federal fisheries minister said the preliminary necropsy findings reveal what’s described as an unacceptable neglect for the health and wellbeing of the animals.
Labchuk said Marineland must be held accountable for its past negligence.
"At this point, we’re calling on Animal Welfare Services to reopen any investigations that they possibly can into the health of these belugas and lay the charges against Marineland that should have been laid long ago," she said.
In a statement, Marineland called the deaths of the whales at the Shedd Aquarium extremely unfortunate and that the park is focused on supporting the ongoing care of the rehoused animals and improving their lives while an investigation continues.
Animal Justice said it questions whether the whales were healthy enough to be moved, and experts should have detected that beforehand.
