The Georgia Aquarium is asking a court to intervene on its behalf, after federal regulators denied a permit for it to import wild-captured beluga whales.
The aquarium filed suit Monday in federal court in Atlanta seeking a ruling to let it acquire 18 belugas captured in the Sakhalin-Amur region of the Sea of Okhotsk, off the east coast of Russia.
Caught by Russian collectors in the years 2006, 2010 and 2011, the snow-white cetaceans are being held at Russia’s Utrish Marine Mammal Research Station.
The Georgia Aquarium intended to bring the whales into the country to improve the genetic diversity of the captive population and ensure the species’ survival. The whales would have been housed at six facilities: the Shedd Aquarium in Chicago, Mystic Aquarium in Mystic, Conn.; SeaWorld parks in San Diego, San Antonio, and Orlando; and the Georgia Aquarium.
Last year, as directed by the Marine Mammal Protection Act, the Georgia Aquarium applied to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration for a permit to import the whales. It was turned down Aug. 5. Commenting on the decision, NOAA official Michael Payne said such an acquisition might increase the trade in wild-caught belugas and the Sea of Okhotsk beluga population could be in decline.
Connie Barclay, a spokesman for the NOAA National Marine Fisheries Service, said the agency only received the lawsuit late Monday afternoon and would withhold comment until it has had a chance to review the complaint.
During the past five years the Atlanta facility has spent more than $2 million sponsoring research into belugas in the Russian sea.
In the lawsuit, the aquarium questions NOAA’s methodology in calculating beluga populations. “To assert that the population of beluga whales in the Sakhalin-Amur area has been declining, Defendants manipulated the data,” the complaint says.
Scott Higley, the aquarium’s vice president of communications and external affairs, said “the law supports what we’re doing here. We interpret the agency’s decision as a violation” of the Marine Mammal Protection Act.
The act allows importing marine mammals under certain circumstances, with the goal of raising public awareness of the dangers facing these creatures and improving conservation efforts.
But the aquarium’s quest to bring more belugas into the U.S. provoked vigorous opposition from such groups as People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals and Whale and Dolphin Conservation.
“The permit will fuel international trade in belugas,” said WDC spokesman Courtney Vail earlier this year. “More will be captured, more will be transported thousands of miles, to sometimes substandard facilities.”
The lawsuit stated that the aquarium’s goal is the opposite. “…(O)ne purpose of the proposed import is to increase the breeding population of beluga whales held at accredited North American public display facilities such that no further permits for importation or collection will be sought by such facilities in the foreseeable future,” said the court filing.
There are four beluga whales in the Georgia Aquarium’s collection, and they have long been a visitor favorite.
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