Important update - on May 15, the Vancouver Parks Board voted to ban cetacean captivity! Thank you for all your calls and emails to the Board supporting cetacean freedom.

On March 9, the Vancouver Parks Board made a decisive move and voted unanimously to draft an amendment that will prohibit the Vancouver Aquarium from displaying cetaceans in captivity. The Parks Board commissioners will soon vote on approving the measure that will effectively stop the aquarium from bringing in cetaceans for exhibition and entertainment, while also preventing the import of five beluga whales that it currently has loaned out on abusive “breeding loan” deals with SeaWorld and other commercial facilities. The commissioners deserve your thanks and require encouragement not to change their minds before the final vote, which will be sometime before May 15.

Whale and dolphin advocates have campaigned to end captivity at the Vancouver Aquarium for two decades. The deaths of 21-year-old Qila and her 30-year-old mother Aurora in November 2016 provided the opportunity for anti-captivity advocates to make another appeal to the Parks Board, which oversees the Aquarium’s lease on Stanley Park land. In a public hearing held on March 9 and 10 to hear four options from its staff regarding captivity, the board quickly decided to choose one that is designed to see the end of cetacean captivity altogether.

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