Georgia Aquarium work halted briefly after beluga gets infection

A skin infection on one of its beluga whales forced Georgia Aquarium officials to briefly halt expansion of the world’s largest fish tank.

During routine checkups, aquarium veterinarians noticed Saturday that Natasha, one of the aquarium’s three beluga whales, had rash-like lesions the size of a pinhead on her dorsal ridge — or back.

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John Spink/jspink@ajc.com

Two of the Georgia Aquarium’s beluga whales died last year.

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“She had a very mild inflammatory infection,” said Greg Bossart, the aquarium’s chief veterinary officer. “They were very small. They weren’t very obvious.”

In trying to determine the cause, they noticed that the only environmental difference was the start of construction on the aquarium’s new dolphin facility, which will open in 2010, Bossart said. Construction was stopped as a precaution, while veterinarians treated Natasha.

The lesions were gone the next day, Bossart said, and construction was restarted. But officials reduced the noise level.

The aquarium often monitors sounds inside and outside of the water to make sure noise does not harm the fish, Bossart said. He said more than likely, the lesions were caused by a beluga’s normal physiological changes, especially since they disappeared so quickly.

But he said it’s better to err on the side of caution.

“Whether (the construction noise) had a thing to do with it, to be perfectly honest, I can’t tell,” he said. “My gut feeling is it probably didn’t.”

Two of the aquarium’s beluga whales died last year. Gasper, who had contracted a fatal bone disease in Mexico, where he was on display at an amusement park before coming to the aquarium, was euthanized in January 2007. Marina, a female beluga, died in December 2007. Aquarium officials said she’d begun swimming erratically, had stopped eating and had ulcers.