ATLANTA—Canada’s leading national animal law organization, Animal Justice, is calling on Georgia Aquarium to publicly commit to never breeding the two Canadian whales it recently received.
Balor, age 10, and Zephyr, age 7, arrived at Georgia Aquarium from Marineland, a shuttered Niagara Falls theme park and roadside zoo. Both were born in captivity—something that is now illegal in Canada.
That’s because the heartbreaking plight of Marineland’s whales and dolphins helped inspire Canadian lawmakers to pass groundbreaking legislation in 2019, not only banning whale and dolphin captivity but also outlawing their use in entertainment and breeding.
When the federal government blocked a proposed transfer to China’s Chimelong Ocean Kingdom last year because it wasn’t deemed in the whales’ best interest, Marineland threatened to kill all 30 remaining beluga whales. A seaside sanctuary, like the one under construction in Nova Scotia, could have offered many of these whales a genuine retirement.
But despite making millions exploiting these animals over decades, Marineland failed to plan for the whales’ future after the inevitable closure of the park, instead threatening to kill them once they were no longer profitable. As a result, relocation to accredited aquariums was likely the best outcome currently available for belugas healthy enough for transport.
However, the federal export permits allowing Marineland’s belugas to leave Canada were reportedly issued without conditions barring breeding—a decision that conflicts with the government’s past practices and its own export policy, which prohibits sending marine mammals to facilities that will breed them.
“Georgia Aquarium can prove this is purely a rescue, and not additionally a convenient way to increase the Aquarium’s breeding stock, by committing not to breed these animals,” said lawyer Kaitlyn Mitchell, director of legal advocacy at Animal Justice.
“Canada passed a law in 2019 to make sure these whales would be the last generation of belugas to endure captivity. We owe it to these whales to make sure that promise doesn’t end because they crossed the border,” Ms. Mitchell said.
“In the wild, belugas travel thousands of miles as they migrate across vast and complex habitats, and form deep social bonds in complex social networks—the kind of life no tank can replicate,” added Ms. Mitchell. “And if Georgia Aquarium doesn’t do the right thing, we hope that compassionate Georgians will urge their state representatives to follow in Canada’s footsteps and change the law to ensure these whales get the protections they deserve.”
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