The Current - What it will take to move Marineland's belugas

Episode Date: June 5, 2026

The federal government has greenlit a plan to move the belugas at the shuttered Niagara Falls theme park to aquariums in Spain and the United States. UBC marine mammal expert Andrew Trites explains what it will take to get the whales out of their pool, onto a plane and into new homes -- and why he thinks it's the best option.

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From CBC's Uncover, The Expert Witness. on CBC Listen or wherever you get your podcasts. This is a CBC podcast. Hello, I'm Matt Galloway, and this is the current podcast. 30 belugas at Marine Land may soon move to new homes. For nearly two years, these whales have been in limbo, confined to pools at the shuttered Niagara Falls Ontario theme park. Last fall, the federal government rejected a proposal to send the whales to a theme

Park in China, and that is when park owners threatened to euthanize the animals. Well, now, Ottawa has approved a plan to move the belugas to aquariums in Spain and the United States. How exactly do you do this? How do you go about moving a beluga whale to another country? Andrew Trites is director of the Marine Mammal Research Unit at the University of British Columbia. He's in Vancouver. Andrew, good morning. Good morning. Is this a good idea to move these belugas to these aquariums? Yes, I think it's a very positive outcome. It's going to ensure the blugas get continued care and it prevents euthanasia. Which is, I think, kind of the key thing, nobody wanted to see these animals killed. The question is, is why Ottawa said yes to this program, because these belugas are going

to go to five different aquariums, Spain, Atlanta, Chicago, and SeaWorlds in San Diego and San Antonio. There was a proposal to send these whales to an aquarium in China. but the federal government said no to that. Why do you think Ottawa approved this plan and not the one in China? I don't know. I know that the aquariums that they've chosen or they allow them to go to this time round, they are world-renowned aquariums. They have the facilities that care of the staff.

Perhaps there were some doubts before about what would ultimately happen to them. Or perhaps it was a question of choosing different options because clearly we couldn't just leave them there in marine land. that was not a solution. So in the end, I think perhaps it is the best ultimate outcome, and they will remain here in North America as well as in Spain. Should it have taken nearly two years to get to this point? To your point, you can't just leave them in the aquariums,

but they were there sitting in those tanks in marine land. Yeah, I think at the end of the day was about doing what's best for the animals. I'm surprised it has taken this long to come to a solution, but the day has come, although the day is yet to come. come because they're still here. How do you do this? How do you move a beluga whale? Well, it's a complex operation.

It isn't just a question of booking an airline ticket and showing up at the airport. It starts off first by getting the permits. And permits, number one, was having the permit for them to leave Canada. But number two is for them to enter the United States and Spain. And so I'm presuming they're still waiting for those documents to come through. And once it's all approved, you then require your team. But in the meanwhile, they will be training the belugas to get ready for this special trip,

which means they have to be desensitized. They're going to have to be trained to swim into a sling so they can ultimately be lifted out. There'll be health assessments. They need to figure out who is going to be paired with whom, who's going to travel together, which ones are going to stay together because we've got 30 belugas, and they're going to be broken up into different groups. So all these decisions have to go in and then once the day comes, it'll be a question of loading them, slinging them out using a big crane, and they'll be put into a specially padded transport crate, driven to an airport, loaded onto a cargo plane. They'll be accompanied by trainers and vets, everything will be designed to minimize stress on the animals, and flown to another airport and then driven once again to their new homes, where they'll be monitored.

monitored initially in quarantine because one wants to be sure they're not bringing any diseases. Their health is good and sound and before they're released to join other blucus that are at some of these institutions. It's a real operation. Lifting them out but putting them in another tank to put them on a plane to get them across the ocean. Exactly. Yeah. It takes a lot of people, a lot of coordination.

And key here, too, it's all about animal welfare and ensuring that everything goes as smoothly as possible. This is not the first rodeo per se. It's been done many times before to move belugas. So the people are there, they know how to do this. Even most recently, the ones in Spain,

they rescued two blugas from Ukraine. There were a danger due to the war. And so people are there, they know how to do it, and just a question of time and being given the green lights to move ahead and move forward. That was a remarkable story. There was this aquarium in

Harcive in Ukraine in 2024. There were bombs that were dropping nearby. The aquarium in Spain and U.S. aquariums helped rescue belugas move them out in these tanks to Moldova in this 12-hour kind of operation, which suggests that they know what they're doing when it comes to caring for the animals, but also moving them around. Yeah, exactly, exactly. And that has to be, you know, normally think about what's stressful for the animals, but this is doubly stressful because people too are put themselves at risk to carry that operation out.

You talked about desensitizing them. How stressful is a trip like this for these type of animals? I mean, there are people who don't like to fly. These are whales. So what do you do such that their well-being and their welfare is top of mind?

I think, well, number one, it just starts with training. Building a bond with people. The animals know their trainers, they know their voices, the sounds associated with it, being touched by them. And so all this sort of desensitizing training goes on regularly. And then the next step is to have them desensitized to be put into a sling so they can be lifted out. So it really is about building that trust with the animals. And then in terms of monitoring stress, they'll be monitoring things such as potentially heart rates, also respiration

rates. They'll be put into the especially padded transport crates where they're designed to sort of minimize sound. Light levels will be kept low. And so everything will be done to minimize stress. But undoubtedly, just as you and I feel sometimes perhaps flying, we too, a little bit of anxiety, what's going on. But often we are reassured by the people that are accompanying us. You know, there are a lot of people who have been very upset to see these whales trapped in pools in shuttered theme parks. And there are people who are upset to see Will. and theme parks that are open. Free willy, right?

That's the idea that people have, that the whales shouldn't be there. They should be let loose back into the wild. Is this, finally, is this option that we're talking about? Is it the best possible outcome for these belugas? It really is. You know, free willy, well, that ended very sadly. He died alone.

He was never accepted. It was a horrible death for him. He did not, he didn't achieve what people had wanted for him. At the end of the day, if we had released the Blugas into the wild, they lack their survival skills. They don't know how to hunt, how to avoid predators, and they would have died. And really, some would also risk sort of genetic contamination. These were animals were from Russia. They're not from Canadian waters.

They may transmit diseases to wild populations. There's just too many risks. Whereas in captivity, they're going to play this vital role. They will act as ambassadors for ocean conservation. They're going to inspire empathy. We can do research with them, or people that these aquariums can, to contribute knowledge needed to conserve animals in the wild. And ultimately, I think they'll be there and make people think about the Arctic

and care in ways that perhaps wouldn't if they didn't have an animal to empathize with. Andrew, good to talk to you again. Thank you very much. Thank you, too. Andrew Trites is Director of the Marine Mammal Research Unit at the University of British Columbia. he was in Vancouver. This has been the current podcast. You can hear our show Monday to Friday on CBC Radio 1 at 8.30 a.m.

At all time zones, or you can also listen online at cbc.ca.ca slash the current or on the CBC listen app or wherever you get your podcasts. My name is Matt Galloway. Thanks for listening. For more CBC podcasts, go to cbc.ca.ca slash podcasts.