A year ago one of the belugas living in captivity at the Vancouver Aquarium gave birth to a baby girl named Nala. The Aquarium announced today that she has died, barely one year old.
According to the Aquarium's release:
Nala was taken to the BC Provincial Animal Health Centre last night where a full necropsy was performed overnight. "The preliminary results were a complete surprise," said Dr. Martin Haulena. "Nala appears to have had a unique pocket in her airway that contained three foreign bodies. The pocket had become inflamed resulting in obstruction to the airway and an accumulation of fluid in the lungs. This was unforeseeable. At this time we are unsure if the airway pocket, which has not been previously seen in the examination of other belugas, was congenital—we will be investigating further." (Source)
It is extremely sad that Nala had such a short life and tragic death.
Another great tragedy is that these highly intelligent animals are confined in tanks to live out their lives in captivity. In the name of "education" the Aquarium keeps these animals captive for the entertainment of its visitors.
There is nothing to be learned from the sad sight of wild animals kept in tanks. All it teaches our children is that the world exists for our pleasure and we can do what we want with all of the other residents of this planet. Considering the state of the world today, this is not only sad, it is irresponsible. Children need to be taught respect for the earth, compassion, and concern for all life.
[Photo: flickr user iwona_kellie]
Comments
In the name of education, they are kept there?
I respect your opinion, but all marine mammals in the Vancouver Aquarium are rescue animals, often young orphans. No healthy, successfully wild animal has been taken and put in the Vancouver Aquarium. Once an animal becomes dependant on human care (as is often the case with rescued animals), it cannot be rereleased into the wild. Whether you believe that they should be left to die in the wild or rescued and placed in an education and research centre, make sure you know what you're talking about.
Thank you for the article, it breaks my heart to hear about Nala. My condolences to the Aquarium staff, she will be missed :(
The baby beluga who died was not rescued from the wild - she was the product of the Vancouver Aquarium's captive breeding program.
There have been cases of rehabilitated whales and dolphins being released back into the wild. The fact of the matter is that the Vancouver Aquarium makes no effort to even work towards rehabilitation, but actually loans their whales to other facilities, such as SeaWorld, for breeding.
The Aquarium also has animals that were captured in the wild. In fact, "the Vancouver Aquarium was the first aquarium in the world to capture and display an orca" (Source: wikipedia). I'm pretty sure that Aurora and the other Orcas who are older than 15 or 16 were captured in the wild - since it was only in 1996 that the Vancouver Aquarium agreed to no longer capture wild animals.
The sad fact is that the Aquarium is not just providing a safe home for animals who have been injured, but are pro-actively working to build a captive population through breeding.
I don't know why images of dead babies and miscarriages come up when I think of the Vancouver Aquarium. Oh right, because it happens all the time. I agree Mel, it's noble of the Vancouver Aquarium to breed their prisoners. Anyone born locked up cannot miss being free. Brilliant.
Unfortunately, Mel, you've been misled as to the origin of the Vancouver Aquarium's marine mammals. If they claim that the mammals are orphans when they're brought there, it's because we've made them that way. Many animals that show up in aquariums (and zoos)--like dolphins--are obtained from the wild. The adult animals are killed for food or for skin or because they were defending their young, and the orphans are sold for thousands of dollars to places like the Vancouver Aquarium. Even John Nightingale, the president of VanAqua, admits that the dolphins are wild-caught, from a "fixed-net fishery" in Japan.
This is extremely sad news.
The Vancouver Aquarium is an aquatic circus that had misled the public about marine wildlife and their habitats. The orcas and others were not "happy" and were not "waving" at people. It was the environmental and animal rights organizations that showed people how to appreciate whales through films, landbased whale watching and more.
In 1964 the Vancouver Aquarium started the orca slave trade when they harpooned one to use as a model for a sculpture. When he failed to immediately die the aquariums thought they should try to keep them in captivity. Off the BC coast 68 orcas were captured and at least 14 died during the abusive captures. That led to the local orca populations becoming endangered.
The physical and psychological needs of these dolphins cannot be provided for in captivity. There are three belugas who were violently taken from the wild. The recent beluga death is the 36th death of a cetacean since 1964. It is time to stop the inhumane imprisonment. No more cetaceans
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