OTTAWA, Ontario (AP) — The Marineland park close to Niagara Falls requested the Canadian authorities on Friday for emergency funding to feed and take care of its whales, saying euthanasia is in any other case imminent.
Fisheries Minister Joanne Thompson earlier this week denied Marineland’s request to export 30 belugas to Chimelong Ocean Kingdom, an aquarium in China. Thompson mentioned then the choice is in line with a 2019 regulation making it unlawful to make use of whales and dolphins in leisure exhibits or maintain them in captivity.
The vacationer attraction says Chimelong was the one choice for the belugas as no sanctuary that might assist exists and there’s no different marine park with sufficient room.
Marineland, in a letter to the federal government, says it’s absolutely indebted and rapidly operating out of cash, and has requested Thompson if she might help discover one other place to ship the whales.
The park says the one choice is to relocate the whales or else it is going to be pressured to euthanize them.
Twenty whales — one killer whale and 19 belugas — have died on the park since 2019, in line with a database created by The Canadian Press information company primarily based on inner data and official statements.
Thompson’s workplace didn’t instantly reply to a request for remark.
Marineland introduced it was on the market in early 2023 and closed to the general public in late summer time 2024. It didn’t open this 12 months because it seems to be to promote the park and the huge swath of land it owns close to Horseshoe Falls. No sale has but been introduced.
The regulation that banned whale captivity didn’t apply to the present inhabitants of captive whales at Marineland, however the park needed to adjust to one other a part of the regulation that forbade breeding.
