Canada relocates 30 beluga whales from shuttered Marineland park

Six beluga whales have begun leaving Marineland of Canada, a shuttered marine park in Niagara Falls, Ontario, in what observers have called the largest beluga relocation in Canadian history. The transfer has required specialized cold-water transport containers, trucks, planes and veterinary oversight, a logistical operation built to move the animals without exposing them to the kind of stress that can turn a rescue into another crisis.

Marineland closed to the public in 2024 and still had 30 beluga whales trapped on site. Canada’s Fisheries Minister Joanne Thompson approved the relocation plan after Marineland’s request to export the whales to China was denied, and federal officials said the animals could not remain at the park indefinitely. The first six whales were moved on July 20 and have been settling into new homes in the United States.

The approved destinations include accredited aquariums, among them Shedd Aquarium in Chicago and SeaWorld San Antonio. The whales are being distributed across facilities that can handle large marine mammals in cold-water systems, a sharp change from the closed park where they had spent roughly two years as Marineland’s future deteriorated.

The relocation also marks a turning point in the long fight over what should happen to whales kept in captivity once an attraction shuts down. Before Canada banned cetaceans in captivity in 2019, Marineland once held nearly 60 beluga whales and ran a successful breeding program. Since then, the park has become associated with multiple animal deaths and years of public controversy over the treatment of its marine mammals, turning the remaining belugas into a national test of welfare standards and enforcement.

For animal-welfare groups, aquarium operators and federal officials, the move has exposed how little public patience remains for keeping large, intelligent mammals in entertainment facilities when a park closes and no long-term plan exists. The approved transfers have averted the immediate possibility of euthanasia for the whales, but they have also underscored the end of an era for a park whose belugas once drew crowds and now required an emergency-scale rescue to leave.