TORONTO, Nov 27 \u2014 The remaining 30 captive belugas at Canada\u2019s Marineland have nothing to do but wait.<\/p>\n
The reportedly bankrupt former tourist attraction is closed to visitors, so the whales circle their decaying pools, while the park\u2019s owners \u2014 who issued a shocking threat to euthanize the belugas \u2014 spar with the government over what happens next.<\/p>\n
Marineland, near the famed Niagara Falls, was once a profitable theme park. Its catchy jingle, which builds to the tagline \u201cEveryone Loves Marineland,\u201d was a staple on Canadian television.<\/p>\n
But the park has been mired in controversy for years, and its eerily empty walkways were visible from outside during a visit earlier this month.<\/p>\n
Since 2019, 20 animals, including 19 belugas, have died at Marineland, according to a tally by the Canadian Press.<\/p>\n
The park has said all the deaths were from natural causes, but animal welfare officials from the province of Ontario have been investigating Marineland for five years and concerns about the park\u2019s water system have persisted.<\/p>\n
Having been raised in captivity, the whales likely would not survive in the wild.<\/p>\n
Marineland thought it had a solution last month, when it announced plans to export the belugas to the Chimelong Ocean Kingdom theme park in China.<\/p>\n
Canada\u2019s federal government blocked that idea, rejecting a solution it said perpetuated the whales\u2019 exploitation.<\/p>\n
Escalating the saga, Marineland announced it was \u201cfully indebted and rapidly running out of resources to provide adequate care for the whales.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cOur only options at this point are to either relocate the whales or face the devastating decision of euthanasia,\u201d a statement said.<\/p>\n
Marineland has refused AFP\u2019s repeated requests for comment about the possible next steps.<\/p>\n
\u2018Heinous\u2019\u00a0<\/p>\n
Phil Demers, a former Marineland trainer turned whistleblower, has worked to document alleged abuses at the park.<\/p>\n
The euthanasia threat is \u201cnot real,\u201d he told AFP.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s illegal. No one\u2019s going to ever participate in such a heinous thing,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Demers insisted the park is solely motivated by profit, and wants to sell the whales.<\/p>\n
Still, he said, Marineland\u2019s plan to move the belugas to another park, including possibly the one in China, was the only viable option.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a question of where and when, not if,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
A main obstacle is Canada\u2019s 2019 \u201cEnding the Captivity of Whales and Dolphins Act.\u201d<\/p>\n
The legislation, which made it illegal to hold certain marine mammals in captive, prevented the government from approving Marineland\u2019s China export plan.<\/p>\n
Marineland, like other similar parks, suffered falling revenues over broadening global resistance to attractions where captive mammals are trained to perform.<\/p>\n
Demers stressed there aren\u2019t many facilities in the world that can accommodate multiple belugas, and the Chinese facility, which has spent massively on enormous tanks, could work.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think the minister made a mistake in rejecting the export permits, but time will tell,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
A spokesman for Canada\u2019s fisheries minister, Joanne Thompson, told AFP \u201cCanada is open to considering other transfers or export permits,\u201d and new proposals \u201cwill be reviewed expeditiously.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2018I miss them so much\u2019\u00a0<\/p>\n
Kristy Burgess\u2019s first job at Marineland was as a waitress. After seeing a beluga being born, she studied and ultimately became a trainer at the park.<\/p>\n
She told AFP that while the whales were living in an \u201cabusive\u201d environment \u2014 with unclean facilities that are \u201cfalling apart\u201d \u2014 they are loved by the staff responsible for their care.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s a handful of whales, three in particular, that I constantly think about and wonder how they\u2019re doing,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cTwo of the other girls that I loved were really stubborn, but they were great for me,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n
\u201cI miss them so much.\u201d<\/p>\n
Burgess stressed the belugas need a decent home and Marineland was clearly not a solution.<\/p>\n
One option that has surfaced is a proposed whale sanctuary off Canada\u2019s Atlantic coast, in Nova Scotia province.<\/p>\n
The project is under discussion and no construction has started, leading some to dismiss it as an option for Marineland\u2019s belugas.<\/p>\n
The project\u2019s chief executive, Charles Vinick, said there needs to be a broader discussion about how to manage captive whales.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe parks have a difficult situation, their revenue is going down because the public is changing… yet they own the animals,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Marine mammals need options that \u201callow them to retire with grace, with dignity, and with an environment where they can thrive,\u201d he said. \u2014 AFP<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"TORONTO, Nov 27 \u2014 The remaining 30 captive belugas at Canada\u2019s Marineland have nothing to do but wait.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":161958,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[90423,90425,90426,61,60,90422,90424,82,90427,263],"class_list":{"0":"post-161957","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-wildlife","8":"tag-beluga-whales","9":"tag-chimelong-ocean-kingdom","10":"tag-ending-the-captivity-of-whales-and-dolphins-act","11":"tag-ie","12":"tag-ireland","13":"tag-marineland-canada","14":"tag-niagara-falls","15":"tag-science","16":"tag-whale-sanctuary-nova-scotia","17":"tag-wildlife"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/161957","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=161957"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/161957\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/161958"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=161957"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=161957"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=161957"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}