{"id":583234,"date":"2026-08-04T20:06:18","date_gmt":"2026-08-04T20:06:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/583234\/"},"modified":"2026-08-04T20:06:18","modified_gmt":"2026-08-04T20:06:18","slug":"more-belugas-from-marineland-in-niagara-falls-ont-head-to-new-home-in-u-s","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/583234\/","title":{"rendered":"More belugas from Marineland in Niagara Falls, Ont., head to new home in U.S."},"content":{"rendered":"

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Seven more whales are on the move from Marineland, headed to a new home at an aquarium in the United States.<\/p>\n

Marineland says in a statement that it has begun the second phase of its whale relocation plan, just weeks after successfully transferring six belugas to Shedd Aquarium in Chicago and SeaWorld in San Antonio.<\/p>\n

It says the whales getting shipped Monday \u2014 female belugas named Xena, Gemini, Skyla, Meeka, Eve, Neva and Calypso \u2014 are all going to SeaWorld’s San Antonio location.<\/p>\n

The park says the health, safety and well-being of the whales remain its top priority throughout the journey.<\/p>\n

One of Marineland’s advisers has called the series of moves, a process involving custom slings, dozens of people and ongoing international collaboration, “unprecedented.”<\/p>\n

\"BelugaDefault Caption: Beluga whale ‘Frankie’ is transported by a group of experts from Marineland and several U.S. aquariums onto a truck via a sling at Marineland in Niagara Falls, Ont. on Monday, July 20, 2026. (Carlos Osorio\/The Canadian Press)<\/p>\n

Marineland has been closed to the public since 2024 as it looks to sell the park and its sprawling property a short distance from the famous Horseshoe Falls at Niagara Falls, Ont.<\/p>\n

The park has said it is running out of money and can no longer care for the whales.<\/p>\n

The shuttered tourist attraction previously tried to ship its complement of belugas and dolphins to an aquarium in China, but the plan was blocked by the federal fisheries minister.<\/p>\n

Not long after, Marineland captured international attention when it threatened to euthanize all of its belugas if it didn’t obtain emergency funding.<\/p>\n

The park ended up striking a deal with a consortium of U.S. and Spanish aquariums, which worked out a plan to move the whales.<\/p>\n

The first batch of whales was moved on July 20.<\/p>\n

Before then, Marineland had 30 belugas and four dolphins, the largest complement of captive belugas in the world as well as Canada’s last remaining captive whales and dolphins.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Listen to this article Estimated 2 minutes The audio version of this article is generated by AI-based technology.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":583235,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[61,60,82,263],"class_list":["post-583234","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wildlife","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-science","tag-wildlife"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/583234","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=583234"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/583234\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/583235"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=583234"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=583234"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=583234"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}