Latest / How To Protect The Ocean / Marineland Beluga Whales: What Happens Next and Why This Decision Matters for Animal Welfare
Transcript
- 0:00Marineland belugas are set to leave Marineland finally.
- 0:04But where are they going to go?
- 0:06The government of Canada has allowed some export permits to be permitted if
- 0:11they go to this one particular country.
- 0:13We're gonna talk about that on today's episode of the How
- 0:15to Protect the Ocean Podcast.
- 0:16Let's start the show.
- 0:19Hey everybody.
- 0:20Welcome back to another exciting episode of the How to Protect the Ocean Podcast.
- 0:23I'm your host, Andrew Lewin, Marine biologist and science communicator
- 0:25here to tell you what's happening with the Ocean, how you can speak up for
- 0:29the ocean, and what you can do to live for a better ocean by taking action.
- 0:33On today's episode, we have a huge update in the Marineland beluga whale saga.
- 0:40Just to give you an update, there are 30 beluga whales that are left
- 0:44at Marineland Park in Niagara Falls.
- 0:47It's a Marine theme park that's been open since I can remember.
- 0:50The jingle that was played when I was a kid was, everyone loves Marineland.
- 0:55Sorry for that voice, but that's what the jingle was.
- 0:58And it's etched in my brain, but I'm gonna tell you something.
- 1:00Not everybody loved Marineland, including myself, especially when I became an adult.
- 1:04I got educated in it.
- 1:05I went to a show one time and I took my girlfriend who's now my wife,
- 1:08wanted to show her like what whales were like, not that she's never
- 1:11been to Marineland, but it was like a common thing that we would do.
- 1:13And I remember witnessing how badly the dolphins were treated.
- 1:17And there was a dolphin that came out of the gate, got clipped by the gate and
- 1:21started bleeding outta the blow hole.
- 1:23They continued with the show and allowing that dolphin to continue with
- 1:26the show instead of taking in the back.
- 1:28They said that the dolphin wanted to continue.
- 1:30Probably not.
- 1:31It was probably injured, but probably wanted the food that was given
- 1:33to them when they do each trick.
- 1:34Anyway, we know the saga of what's happened with marine mammal captivity.
- 1:39Blackfish came out, and even before that, there were advocates
- 1:41and activists that were staunchly against captivity of these whales.
- 1:44Not only beluga whales, but orcas.
- 1:46Marine mammals of all sorts.
- 1:48It's pretty much an experiment that we realize has not really gone well.
- 1:51You know, obviously people want to connect with animals.
- 1:53They can connect with these whales, see how smart they are by doing
- 1:55tricks and all that kind of stuff
- 1:57But the trade of orcas and marine mammals in captivity got outta hand
- 2:02and it got to a point where some trainers, some orca and dolphin
- 2:05trainers were killed over that time.
- 2:06You saw that in Blackfish.
- 2:07You saw that document in a lot of different places, and it's unfortunate
- 2:11that people had to pass away for us to realize that maybe this isn't a good idea.
- 2:15Blackfish came out, everything changed.
- 2:17Breeding stopped, show stopped.
- 2:18And because of that, even in Canada, they made laws where you can't do captivity.
- 2:23You can't have it.
- 2:24The Canadian government had a law that was called the Ending of the
- 2:28Captivity of Whale and Dolphins Act that was enacted in 2019.
- 2:31It banned the keeping of citations in captivity for entertainment.
- 2:35And then, so basically Marineland, which was an entertainment facility for
- 2:39animals was essentially kind of halted.
- 2:42They were grandfathered the whales that they had, but they
- 2:44couldn't keep any new whales.
- 2:45Now, if you know anything about the Marine theme parks, they make
- 2:48big money on trading or selling animals as well as breeding.
- 2:52So selling their sperms.
- 2:54They would have, you know, breeding money from it.
- 2:56They would get revenue from the breeding, And so the
- 2:58breeding programs were canceled.
- 2:59The captivity programs were canceled.
- 3:00And so then they weren't allowed to do any kind of show.
- 3:03So Marineland in essence just shut down because that was their big thing.
- 3:06Everybody loves Marineland and on that jingle on the video on the TV
- 3:10would show an orca just jumping up in the air and everybody being in
- 3:13awe how big and how far it could jump out of the water and into the air.
- 3:17That was done.
- 3:18And so, so was Marineland in and of itself.
- 3:20And so Marineland shut down a few years ago.
- 3:22It hasn't reopened, but unfortunately during this time, not just during the
- 3:26time where this act came in, the Ending of Captivity of Whale and Dolphins Act.
- 3:30It essentially there was a while for a long time, like I would say
- 3:33more than 20 years, there were allegations and proof that the animals
- 3:36weren't being treated properly.
- 3:38There was a huge advocate that came out that used to train a walrus at Marineland.
- 3:42He came out and said, Hey, the facilities are crap.
- 3:45The people who are doing the things are doing their best.
- 3:47They're trying to take care of these animals, but you
- 3:49know, the water quality's bad.
- 3:51The animals are not treated well.
- 3:52They're not fed properly.
- 3:53Not enough money is being put into their pools and their containers
- 3:56and their water quality and their food and everything like that.
- 3:58So allegations kept coming and coming and coming.
- 4:00Of course, advocates were ensuring that the Humane Society of Canada, the
- 4:04Ontario government, a lot of other, IO, which is I forget what it stands for.
- 4:08But essentially, you know, a lot of animal welfare groups came out and said,
- 4:11Hey, we need to make sure that these animals are being treated properly.
- 4:14There were a lot of fines that had to be paid over the years.
- 4:17And then when this act came in, it pretty much just shut down Marineland.
- 4:20It sucks to see a business like that go outta business.
- 4:23But when it's at the behest and at the consequence of treating
- 4:26animals poorly, then you kind of be like, it's no wonder that happens.
- 4:29Now since its shutdown, the property of Marineland is in
- 4:33big demand for development.
- 4:36Southern Ontario where Marineland is in Niagara Falls, it's prime
- 4:39land for housing development, golf courses, all that kind of stuff.
- 4:43So the Marineland company wants to sell the land so that they
- 4:47can get outta the business.
- 4:49The parents die that originally owned Marineland.
- 4:51The kids are like, we want out.
- 4:53We want nothing to do with this place.
- 4:54So Kiska was the orca.
- 4:55That orca passed away about a year and a half ago, a couple years ago.
- 4:59Now they have 30 beluga whales.
- 5:00They used to have over 50 beluga whales.
- 5:02And every time those beluga whales got transferred a number
- 5:04of years ago, the beluga whales, there were about 50 some odd.
- 5:07About four beluga whales were transferred over to the Mystic
- 5:11Aquarium in Connecticut.
- 5:12Now, normally Mystic Aquarium is very good.
- 5:14They were getting these belugas.
- 5:16But the problem was, there was concern over the health
- 5:18of the belugas in Marineland.
- 5:20And the way it was done.
- 5:21I remember doing an interview with Dr.
- 5:22Naomi Rose.
- 5:23She was saying that the way the transfer is done is very sketchy in that the
- 5:27veterinarians of Marineland and the veterinarians of Mystic Aquarium
- 5:30would look over the animals together and they would make a prognosis of
- 5:33yes, they're ready to be transferred.
- 5:35First of all, when they were about to transfer those
- 5:36animals, they switched them.
- 5:37It was supposed to be four original ones.
- 5:39They switched them to a different ones because those
- 5:41animals were not in good health.
- 5:43And so the ones that were transferred, one died as soon as it got there.
- 5:46And then two of them I think died later on.
- 5:48Maybe all three of them died later on.
- 5:49These animals are not well.
- 5:51They're not taken care of properly.
- 5:53The water quality's down.
- 5:54It's very expensive to look after a whale, and these whales were not treated well.
- 5:58And so we continue to see Marineland trying to get rid of these whales.
- 6:03Now there's 30 of these beluga whales.
- 6:05A lot of 'em have died off.
- 6:06Marineland's, like we want them out.
- 6:07Like we can't take care of them anymore.
- 6:09And if we don't get them out, we are going to euthanize them.
- 6:13Which is crazy to think about euthanizing these animals 'cause you
- 6:17can't pay enough to take care of them.
- 6:18And of course you're not getting any money 'cause it's closed down.
- 6:20You can't just euthanize animals.
- 6:21You have an ethical duty to take care of these animals.
- 6:24They under your care, you brought them in, you wanted money off of them.
- 6:27And now that you can't show them off or, you know, have people pet
- 6:30them or anything like that and you're not treating them well.
- 6:33You're just gonna say, we're just gonna euthanize 'em if we can't sell 'em off.
- 6:35About a year ago, they said, Hey, if we can't ship 'em off, we want a permit.
- 6:40'cause they need a permit.
- 6:41Now because of this new act.
- 6:42We want a permit to ship 'em off to a Marine theme park in China.
- 6:46Which China will have shows, they will breed them, they will make money off
- 6:50them, and they'll continue to do that.
- 6:51And we don't know what the standard is for the animal welfare in
- 6:56these Marine theme parks in China.
- 6:58We just don't know how they're being treated.
- 7:00It's not well known.
- 7:01There've been some visits, but really we just don't know.
- 7:04It's probably not good.
- 7:05If we couldn't do it well here in Canada,
- 7:07China's not known for their best animal rights from what I
- 7:10have heard and what I have seen.
- 7:12But you just never know.
- 7:14And we just don't know.
- 7:15And so we don't wanna take the chance.
- 7:16The government of Canada said no to those exports because they're like,
- 7:19why are we going to ban them here?
- 7:21So you can't use 'em for entertainment.
- 7:23You can't use 'em for breeding.
- 7:24And then ship 'em off to a place where you can use 'em for entertainment
- 7:26and you can use 'em for breeding.
- 7:28That kind of goes, it's really hypocritical of what we're trying to do.
- 7:30We're trying to protect these whales.
- 7:32There were two options.
- 7:34One of the options is to export them to another Marine theme park, somewhere
- 7:39else around the world that doesn't include Russia or China, where they use
- 7:42them for entertainment and breeding.
- 7:44France doesn't allow it.
- 7:46The US sometimes they allow it to transfer, but no new captures.
- 7:49So maybe the US or they can go to a sanctuary.
- 7:53We'll get to the sanctuary part in just a sec. I'm gonna make an entire
- 7:56video on the Whale Seaside sanctuary in Nova Scotia because there's a lot
- 8:00to know in there, and I'm still trying to get the full story around that.
- 8:03But then there's this other side of like, Hey, where else can it go?
- 8:06Can it go to the states?
- 8:07Can it go to somewhere else in Europe?
- 8:08We just don't know.
- 8:10We were on a bit of a hiatus in terms of exports and permits 'cause
- 8:13there were no permits issued.
- 8:14Marineland has come out over and over and over again.
- 8:17Hey, we are going to have to euthanize these animals if we can't get rid of them.
- 8:21They want to euthanize 'em 'cause they can't take care of them anymore.
- 8:23But they also wanna sell their land.
- 8:25So at this point there's a conflict of interest.
- 8:26They can make a lot of money by getting rid of them.
- 8:29Maybe get a little money in the aquariums that take 'em, or the theme parks that
- 8:32take 'em, that they'll pay for them.
- 8:33And/Or they can make a ton of money, a boatload of money
- 8:37selling the land for development.
- 8:39So there's a bit of a rush on this, and they're willing, it seems to kill these
- 8:43animals so that they can get that bag of money when they sell it to develop.
- 8:46At this point, the Canadian government said the Minister of Fisheries and
- 8:49Oceans met with Marineland officials and agreed in principle to an export plan.
- 8:54But the final permits still depend on Marineland, submitting detailed
- 8:58travel and care information, as well as veterinary assessments of
- 9:01each animal's fitness for transport.
- 9:03Here's where there's a possibility of them going.
- 9:06They will go to US Aquariums.
- 9:08And the potential recipients are the Shed Aquarium in Chicago,
- 9:12the Georgia Aquarium in Atlanta, Mystic Aquarium in Connecticut.
- 9:15I'll try that again.
- 9:16And SeaWorld at the various locations.
- 9:18None of these facilities have formally confirmed acceptance yet.
- 9:22And critics are warned by sending the belugas to other captive
- 9:25environments merely continues the cycle of captivity rather than offering
- 9:29them a retirement in a sanctuary.
- 9:31Again, we're gonna get to that sanctuary in just a moment lightly and briefly.
- 9:35In this episode, I'm gonna do a deeper dive later on as I'm doing
- 9:38research to do another narrative episode and seeing what goes on there.
- 9:42Okay, so here we go.
- 9:44Now we have this Marineland that's putting pressure on the government
- 9:47saying, we're gonna euthanize these animals if we can't get rid of them soon.
- 9:49We know that they wanna sell it off for development.
- 9:52So again, that's the part I don't understand.
- 9:54The government should just be like, screw you.
- 9:56You're the ones who wanted these animals.
- 9:58You're gonna have to take care of them.
- 9:59If you don't take care of them we find out you euthanize them, we're gonna
- 10:02put you in jail for animal cruelty.
- 10:04That's the way it should be.
- 10:06They should not be allowed to euthanize, and the government
- 10:08has always come out and said.
- 10:09There's no way they're gonna be able to euthanize 'em, but there's no way
- 10:11we'll give them permission to do so, and there'll be serious consequences if we do.
- 10:15Hopefully that means, I hope this never comes to fruition.
- 10:18I don't want these animals to die for no reason.
- 10:21They are sick.
- 10:22The only way they would be euthanized if they can't be moved, and if
- 10:25they're health is going downhill and we can't get them better.
- 10:28So here are the choices.
- 10:29It's either export them or.
- 10:30Right now Marineland wants to euthanize 'em, which I don't
- 10:33think is really an option.
- 10:34I don't think the government will allow that to happen.
- 10:36Now, sometimes these businesses will ask for forgiveness instead
- 10:40of asking for permission.
- 10:41So we don't know really what's gonna happen to these areas.
- 10:44So there's a lot of controversy around that.
- 10:46To me, it's just lack of responsibility for taking care of the animals that
- 10:51made you so much money over the years.
- 10:52It's just such a disrespect, and I think it's really where private industry gets
- 10:58a lot of criticism when it comes to these types of situations where animals are
- 11:03involved and they're making you money, and once they don't make you money,
- 11:05you want to kill them off.
- 11:06And I think that's really selfish of these business, if that's what they want
- 11:10to do, especially when they can make a boatload of money for development.
- 11:13So hopefully that's not even on the table, but that keeps coming out in the
- 11:16press maybe because the press likes to hear that and they like to put that in
- 11:19the headline and people will click on it.
- 11:21Who knows what's gonna happen.
- 11:22But regardless, there's gonna be an export at some point somewhere.
- 11:27Now, this is not just the only option.
- 11:29The other option is we export them to a sanctuary.
- 11:34Okay, so here's the Diddy on sanctuaries.
- 11:36Like, here's the information.
- 11:37Okay?
- 11:38I am gonna download some of the information.
- 11:39Sanctuaries are not a perfect thing.
- 11:42We hear the big sanctuary is the Whale Sea Sanctuary project that's in Port
- 11:45Hilfer Bay, Nova Scotia, or that is under development and has some permits to put
- 11:50in place, but they're not even close to handling belugas or any animals at this
- 11:54point 'cause there's no infrastructure.
- 11:56The Transport Canada and Department of Fisheries and Oceans Canada
- 11:59have not issued permits for that.
- 12:01The landowners, I think there's only one landowner that said it's okay to
- 12:04do it, but there's still four more landowners that said, Hey, if we give
- 12:08you permission to do this, we lose access to our harbor 'cause there's gonna be
- 12:11belugas in there 'cause there's also two belugas that they wanna put in there.
- 12:14And as well, we lose access to our land and our beautiful
- 12:17property that we paid so much for.
- 12:18There's a lot of controversy around there and there's people who are saying
- 12:22like, this should not be put in place.
- 12:23It's an American company that's holding onto it, or American organization.
- 12:27Some people are not liking what this American organization has done in
- 12:30the past within the whale captivity.
- 12:31Some people are saying that's all false and it's being blown outta proportion.
- 12:34I'm getting to the midst of that and I'll probably do a more detailed episode
- 12:38coming up shortly, within the next month or so on the whale sanctuary project.
- 12:43Want to go down the middle.
- 12:45I don't wanna say one or way or another trying to be like a scientist and
- 12:48try not to be as biased as possible.
- 12:50So, look.
- 12:51And this sanctuary, probably not the size for 30 belugas, maybe 10 at once,
- 12:55but we don't know if it'll all be able to handle it if it's operational.
- 12:59And then there's also two orcas that might be put in there as well from France.
- 13:02So we'll see what happens there.
- 13:04Now there is an existing international sanctuary called the Sea Life
- 13:08Trust Beluga Sanctuary in Iceland.
- 13:11Now, this is currently the only operating seaside sanctuary
- 13:14for belugas in the world.
- 13:16It is located off the coast.
- 13:18I'm gonna try and pronounce this.
- 13:19Vestmannaeyjar Something like that in Iceland.
- 13:22I apologize if I didn't pronounce that properly.
- 13:24I definitely didn't pronounce that properly.
- 13:26I apologize for that.
- 13:27And it's a home to two belugas, little gray and little white, living in
- 13:30a closed, natural bay environment.
- 13:33The facility designed for rehabilitation and extended care in seawater rather
- 13:37than traditional aquarium tank.
- 13:39The site shows that seaside sanctuaries can work for belugas, but it's not
- 13:43clear that it currently has the space or the plans to take a large
- 13:47group, like the ones in Marineland.
- 13:49So advocates, nonetheless, a site that is proof of concept and the
- 13:52true sanctuaries can be built.
- 13:54So the question here is if this is not big enough, can it be expanded for these
- 13:5830 belugas if they're able to even travel to Iceland to be able to do this?
- 14:03And it's in and of itself a chore to do.
- 14:06And then when I say chore, I mean that lightly.
- 14:08it is a huge, huge chore.
- 14:10I'm underrepresenting that.
- 14:11It's a big thing, especially if they're not doing well in the first place.
- 14:14They have to be at a certain health level before they can be transferred.
- 14:18So if we can make 'em bigger and they can be transferred, that would be great.
- 14:20We'll see how that works out.
- 14:22But other than that, other places have not been built.
- 14:24Like the Whale Sanctuary project in Nova Scotia has not been built.
- 14:27And there aren't any other areas that can be done at this point that I know of.
- 14:31If you know of any other place, let me know in the comments below, or go
- 14:36to speak up for blue.com/feedback and you can let me know what you think,
- 14:39either by voicemail or by writing it.
- 14:41So writing it down.
- 14:42I would love to know.
- 14:43There may be some other sanctuaries or retirement facilities in planning stages.
- 14:47Some done for bottle nose dolphins in the past.
- 14:50But really the only other one is probably the Whale Sanctuary project.
- 14:54And again, we just don't know if it's big enough or the area that you
- 14:57would have belugas at this point.
- 14:59There are belugas in the St. Lawrence River.
- 15:01It's an endangered population.
- 15:02I don't think you'd wanna put it there because it's around
- 15:04an endangered population.
- 15:05The genetics are different, so we probably don't wanna be doing it there.
- 15:08And some advocates are saying, Hey, why don't we just let
- 15:11them free and see what happens?
- 15:12If they're gonna die in the tank, why don't we just let them die
- 15:14at sea and see what happens.
- 15:16Now we've seen some.
- 15:17There's one beluga in Russia that is free and that has an impact, I guess.
- 15:23It comes up to boaters all the time, and you can throw a ball to it and
- 15:26it'll go fetch and it'll bring it back.
- 15:27But it is surviving out at sea.
- 15:30But you gotta remember, a lot of these belugas have never been to sea before.
- 15:33They've never been in the open ocean.
- 15:34They may not know how to eat on their own, hunt on their own.
- 15:38They may be required, have care, right?
- 15:41These belugas have been raised in captivity and have been fed by
- 15:45hand for a very, very long time.
- 15:47And so they may not be able to survive on their own and they may require that care.
- 15:52And to be honest, all of this is new.
- 15:55It's an experiment to release captive whales, especially those who have won,
- 15:59haven't been out in the Ocean ever.
- 16:02'cause they've been born in captivity or if they were in captivity and
- 16:05they were caught for a while.
- 16:06They haven't been back in a long time, which is usually the case
- 16:09for some of these older orcas.
- 16:11In this case with Marineland, we just don't even know if they're
- 16:13healthy enough to do anything with.
- 16:15So some advocates are saying, Hey, you know what?
- 16:17Why don't we just keep them here?
- 16:19Like, why don't we just keep 'em into Marineland, keep 'em like
- 16:21the best care possible until they eventually all pass away.
- 16:25It's sad no matter what you do.
- 16:27If you get them up and you move them down to the US, it's sad.
- 16:30If you export them to China, which is not gonna happen, it's sad
- 16:32because they're going into another entertainment and they're going into
- 16:35a breeding kind of life, and that's not one a life that we wanna see for
- 16:39these belugas or any captive whale.
- 16:41And then, you know, if they go to a sanctuary, they may die on the way there.
- 16:44They may not do well in there.
- 16:45Unfortunately we're in a situation where no answer is easy.
- 16:48There are hard opinions on every single side, including the ones who
- 16:53just want them to stay in Marineland, where they are, and just live out
- 16:57their last days being taken care of the best they possibly can.
- 17:00And that could be like, they could survive for another year.
- 17:02They could survive for another 10 years.
- 17:04We just don't know.
- 17:05And so it's not an easy answer no matter how we look at it.
- 17:09And so there's options out there.
- 17:11We'll see like which options come to fruition.
- 17:13And unfortunately, we're just gonna have to live with the
- 17:15consequences of those options, whether they're good and hopefully.
- 17:19They are good or whether they're bad, and that's just the way it's gonna have to go.
- 17:23But again, I would love to hear your opinion on this 'cause this is the
- 17:25beginning of a conversation that I would love for you to continue.
- 17:28Let me know in the comments below if you're watching this on YouTube.
- 17:31And again, if you're listening to this on your favorite podcast app, audio style.
- 17:34I love the audio.
- 17:35Go to speak up for blue.com/feedback and let me know what you think.
- 17:41You can either type it in there or leave me a voicemail.
- 17:42I would love to hear what you think.
- 17:45Let me know in the comments below or at speak up for blue.com/feedback.
- 17:49That's the episode for today.
- 17:51I wanna thank you so much for listening.
- 17:53I wanna thank you so much for trying to get more information on oceans
- 17:56and, you know, whale captivity and what's gonna happen with these whales.
- 18:00We're at a very interesting crossroads with what to do with
- 18:03these whales and I don't know if there's a good answer, to be honest.
- 18:05I really don't know, but I'd love to hear your opinion.
- 18:07Thank you so much for joining me on today's episode of the How
- 18:10to Protect the Ocean Podcast.
- 18:11I'm your host, Andrew Lewin from the True Nords Strong and Free.
- 18:14Have a great day.
- 18:14We'll talk to you next time and happy conservation.