Georgia Aquarium will be getting two beluga whales from a shuttered theme park in Canada.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration this week approved an emergency request to move 28 whales still living at Marineland of Canada to the U.S.
The park in Niagara Falls, Ontario, closed in 2024 amid financial troubles and concerns over animal welfare.
The Shedd Aquarium in Chicago and two Sea World parks — in Texas and California — will get the bulk of whales. Two other whales will be going to an aquarium in Spain.
Biologist Naomi Rose of the Washington, D.C.-based Animal Welfare Institute said it’s good they’ll be getting care but their chances of survival during transport are against them.
“The odds of some of these animals dying during or very soon after transport are extremely high,” she said. “They are not well and transport is stressful for beluga whales.”
Georgia Aquarium said the transport could happen within weeks or months, as soon as veterinarians assess and release them.
Georgia Aquarium will be getting two young but sexually mature males—a 9-year-old named Balor and 6-year-old named Zephyr.
Rose said she encourages the aquarium not to breed them because they’re genetically predisposed to disease.
