2 beluga whales settling in at Georgia Aquarium after trip from Canada
The Georgia Aquarium’s two newest beluga whales have quickly acclimated to their new home after a 12-hour flight from the shuttered Marineland aquatic park on the Canadian side of Niagara Falls, officials said.
The two males, 10-year-old Balor and 7-year-old Zephyr, arrived by cargo plane Thursday morning at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport, and by Friday morning were playing peacefully with the four existing female beluga whales already at the aquarium in front of the public.
“They are integrating already with the females,” Jason Jones, the aquarium’s senior curator of animal well-being, said in an interview with The Atlanta Journal-Constitution at the aquarium Friday. “We’re really happy.”
This rescue operation was part of a multipronged effort to move 30 beluga whales from Marineland, a once popular park that shuttered in 2024, to multiple locations including the Georgia Aquarium.
Other whales have been or will be moved to Chicago’s Shedd Aquarium; Oceanogràfic València in Spain; and SeaWorld facilities in San Diego and San Antonio.
To accommodate Balor and Zephyr, the Georgia Aquarium last month transferred Nunavik, a 16-year-old male beluga whale, to the Mystic Aquarium in Connecticut.
On Wednesday evening, Balor and Zephyr were placed in stretchers in special beluga whale transport boxes and taken by truck from Marineland to the Toronto Pearson International Airport. The Qatar Airways cargo plane then flew to Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport, where four of their whale brethren were delivered to Shedd Aquarium.
Balor and Zephyr then continued on the plane to Hartsfield-Jackson and were delivered by truck to the Georgia Aquarium by 7 a.m. Thursday morning.
“They were champs throughout the entire process,” Jones said.
Sequestered, Balor and Zephyr began slow swimming, then eating fish. The four female whales were soon communicating with them through a gate, so aquarium staff decided to allow the whales to intermingle Friday morning.
“Once they settled down, we saw lots of slow swimming, touching one another, exploring the habitat together,” Jones said. “I don’t think we could have asked for a better beginning.”
Balor and Zephyr both weigh about 1,100 pounds each and consume about 40 pounds of fish a day. During a feeding Friday afternoon, six trainers fed each of the six whales individually from buckets filled with herring, squid and capelin. All went smoothly.
Marineland, which opened in 1961, once drew more than 1 million visitors a year to the Niagara region and held more beluga whales than any other facility in the world. Canadians for decades could sing the jingle “Everyone Loves Marineland!”
But animal rights groups for years hammered the park for overcrowded conditions and beluga whale deaths. Over time, attendance suffered and the park closed in 2024, according to reporting from the CBC.
Marineland staff continued to care for about 30 whales after the park’s closure while management attempted to transfer them to a theme park in China. The Canadian government rejected that plan but with the financially strapped Marineland threatening to euthanize the whales, it accepted the current rescue effort that included the Georgia Aquarium.
Beluga whales have been a major draw for the Georgia Aquarium since it opened in 2005. The whales’ primary tank can be seen not just by regular visitors but in the ballroom where special events are frequently held. The aquarium, open 365 days a year, now draws 3 million visitors annually, comparable to the Atlanta Braves at Truist Park.
While designing the Georgia Aquarium, Home Depot co-founder Bernie Marcus and his wife, Billi, visited dozens of aquariums from around the world for inspiration. Billi was captivated by the “big white beautiful whales” at Marineland, Emily Howard, one of the architects who designed the Georgia Aquarium’s beluga whale exhibit, told the AJC last year when the aquarium was celebrating its 20th anniversary.
Animal rights groups like PETA and the Whale Sanctuary Project have opposed breeding beluga whales in captivity. Beluga whales in the wild swim vast distances and form complex social bonds.
“These captive whales live in very small, confined spaces with nothing to do but go round and round,” said Lori Marino, a neuroscientist and former Emory University senior lecturer who is founder and president of the Whale Sanctuary Project.
Canada, she noted, in 2019, banned whale and dolphin breeding for entertainment, but there are no restrictions in the United States.
Beluga whale males reach full sexual maturity between 8 to 15 years old, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Zephyr is 7; Balor is 10.
“There aren’t plans currently” to breed them, Jones said, noting that the focus now is to get them used to their new home.
“Our only priority is facilitating this unprecedented rescue safety,” an aquarium spokesperson added. “When breeding is ever considered for any animal ― whether it be for a beluga, a penguin or a shark ― it is always done responsibly, guided by animal welfare, science and accreditation standards.”
Of the four female whales at the aquarium, Shila (pronounced Shy-la) was born at the aquarium in 2020. The others, including her mom, Whisper, came from other aquariums or parks.
The Georgia Aquarium lost newborn belugas in 2012, 2015 and 2021.
Worldwide, there are about 300 beluga whales in captivity, mostly in China, according to Whale and Dolphin Conservation, a group established in 2005 to protect marine mammals. The group says there are about 150,000 wild beluga whales in the Arctic Ocean and claim captive beluga whales don’t live as long as those in the wild.
The nonprofit Whale Sanctuary Project is building a multimillion-dollar, 100-acre sanctuary enclosure in Port Hilford Bay in Nova Scotia, Canada, to hold formerly captive orcas or beluga whales, but the project is not complete and a lease with the government has not been finalized.
These types of sanctuaries are a new concept, Marino said, providing whales a much bigger space to roam and interact than a tank.
Marineland didn’t accept the sanctuary’s earlier offer to take some of its whales, citing issues with water quality and a lack of financial viability. Marino said the environmental issues have been addressed and her group had the finances to take care of the whales, even if the sanctuary wasn’t ready.
“I don’t think people who run facilities like Marineland want sanctuaries to come into being,” Marino said.