When Marineland Canada closed its doors in September 2024, near Niagara Falls, 30 Beluga whales were left in a limbo, facing an uncertain future with the park owners urging the Canadian government to take care of the whales, even threatening to kill them if the government didn't find a solution as the park owners are in financial crisis and can no longer take care of them.
Canada banned zoos of having whales in captivity in 2019, but the law wasn't retroactive so the park in Ontario continued having the whales, including one orca who died in 2023 after spending 12 years in solitude, until the park closed in September 2024 due to poor attendance. The belugas have been left there since, cramped in a small aquarium, and now it has been confirmed that they will be relocated to other aquariums.
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The decision has been taken after an emergency rescue by the US government, Canadian outlets report, which will see 13 belugas shipped to SeaWorld San Antonio, three to SeaWorld San Diego, ten to the Shedd Aquarium in Chicago and two to Georgia Aquarium. The other two could go to the Oceanogràfic València in Spain, which already houses four belugas, including two rescued from a zoo in Ukraine, and a calf born in 2016.
The decision has been criticised by animal welfare organisations. Animal Justice criticised that the solution has been been led by the United States, criticising years of inaction by the Canadian and Ontario government, and fear that, in the new zoos, outside the Canadian laws banning breeding, the animals may be forced to breed and continue to be exploited. "This generation of whales must be the last to suffer in tanks".
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The Whale Sanctuary Project said that "while this is a sad outcome, it will at least be preferable to the crowded and grossly sub-par conditions to which the whales have been subjected", lamenting that the Canadian law that banned zoos from breeding whales didn't provide a solution for the retirement of the whales, and urging the new zoos to be more transparent about the whales health and welfare, remembering that five years ago, five belugas were transferred from Marineland to the Mystic Aquarium in Connecticut, and three died shortly after.