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Vancouver Aquarium: Get Out of the Beluga Captivity Business!

Vancouver Aquarium: Get Out of the Beluga Captivity Business!

 
Tragedy is “business as usual” for the Vancouver Aquarium in Vancouver, Canada, a facility whose business is based on exploiting whales and dolphins by keeping them in captivity. The tragedy was magnified yesterday, with the death of a 29-year-old female beluga whale named Aurora, and her 21-year-old daughter Qila last Wednesday.

Her death has prompted city officials to call on the public to comment on whether the Vancouver Aquarium should be allowed to continue keeping whales in captivity.

Speaking about Qila’s death and the sickness of the remaining beluga, Aurora,  Vancouver Park Board chairwoman Sarah Kirby-Jung said that it, “sparked public debate…I think it’s important that we listen to the public and provide an opportunity to do that.”

 The Vancouver Aquarium, which earned the #9 spot on In Defense of Animals’ Ten Worst Tanks list, has seen three beluga whales die within three years of their births since 2005 alone. This facility also maintains whale-breeding relationships with for-profit companies: five belugas “owned” by Vancouver Aquarium are currently on breeding loans to SeaWorld and Georgia Aquarium facilities.

The questioning of cetacean captivity comes at a particularly awkward time for the Vancouver Aquarium as it plans to begin construction on a pool expansion as part of a $100 million improvement project. Construction is slated to begin in 2017.

Yet these questions must be asked, and it is hoped that the public participation will help to illuminate the reality of the situation to ever more people– that keeping cetaceans in captivity is cruel. CEO John Nightengale demonstrated his ignorance of this in a recent interview with CBC when he urged people, “not to think about belugas as if they were people, which I hear a lot. Like, ‘I couldn’t imagine living in a pool like that.’ Well, the beluga couldn’t imagine living in your living room either.” John is missing the point – it is not the living room furniture that is the problem – it is the lifetime of captivity, with the complete lack of freedom or privacy, that causes stress and early deaths. His implication that beluga whales are somehow satisfied with barren concrete tanks is tragic for the whales forced to suffer under his ignorance and insulting to anyone who knows anything about whales.

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