People are waking up to the fact that taking a whale and putting it in a glass jar is just about as cruel as it gets
\nPhil Demers, former Marineland employee<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Those who manage the park, home to the last captive whales in Canada, have repeatedly defended its treatment of the belugas and the standard of the facilities, arguing that the string of deaths reflects the \u201ccircle of life\u201d.<\/p>\n
But views about marine parks appear to be changing. Covertly filmed footage of whales and dolphins in captivity has shifted public opinion against them, some activists believe. This month a French marine park, also called Marineland, closed down. Visitor numbers had fallen from a peak of 1.2 million a year to just 425,000 over the past decade.<\/p>\n
Many activists see an increasingly sceptical public as a vindication of their decades-long fight to end the captivity of large marine mammals, and some have seized on the recent deaths at Marineland in Ontario to redouble their efforts.<\/p>\n
\u201cPeople are waking up to the fact that \u2026 putting [a whale] in a glass jar is just about as cruel as it gets,\u201d says Phil Demers, who worked for 12 years as a senior trainer at Canada\u2019s Marineland.<\/p>\n In 2023, the last remaining orca, Kiska, died at the marine park and since then activists have focused on the world\u2019s largest captive beluga population. Thirty-one of the animals remain at Marineland.<\/p>\n Demers believes that because the park faces an uncertain future, the animals may need to be relocated. \u201cAs it stands, there are no viable sanctuaries and nothing that\u2019s realistically on the horizon,\u201d he claims.<\/p>\n For years, Canadian media outlets have investigated the park and journalists probing beluga deaths say it is impossible to get a clear sense of why so many whales have died in such a short period of time. They claim to have been stymied by numerous roadblocks, including the newly formed Animal Welfare Services (AWS), the province\u2019s investigative body, which has become a \u201cblack box\u201d when it comes to sharing information with the public, says Liam Casey, a reporter with the Canadian Press. \u201cThe province says it won\u2019t talk over fears of screwing up their investigations,\u201d he claims.<\/p>\n AWS opened an investigation into Marineland in 2020 and in the following year, as part of its investigation into the park, it declared that all marine mammals in the park were in distress due to poor water quality and ordered Marineland to fix the issue. Marineland appealed against the order and denied the animals were in distress, but the aquarium later dropped its appeal and brought the water up to standard.<\/p>\n Then in a rare interview, published last month, the head of AWS, Melanie Milczynski, told the Canadian Press that the marine mammal deaths at Marineland did not appear to be related to water problems. She also said provincial inspectors had visited the park more than 200 times since 2020. Recognising that much of the confusion around what was happening at Marineland was being fuelled by AWS\u2019s silence, she also said: \u201cWe\u2019re looking to be a little bit more proactive in telling our story and sharing the work that we do.\u201d<\/p>\n The Guardian requested interviews with both Milczynski and Ontario\u2019s solicitor general, whose department is responsible for animal welfare across the province, but did not receive a response. Marineland did not reply to a request for comment on the inspections.<\/p>\n Asked to comment on the beluga deaths, Marineland said the whales \u201creceive far better healthcare and around-the-clock attention than any human in the UK, or anywhere else\u201d, and that the park, which was inspected \u201cdozens\u201d of times a year, had specialists that \u201ccare for the animals when they are sick and every effort to save them is made\u201d.<\/p>\n Marineland said that for decades, \u201canimal rights activist have sought to equate any animal death with alleged \u2018abuse\u2019 by the facility caring for the animals\u201d which was \u201ceffective as propaganda\u201d for those groups to fundraise.<\/p>\n \u201cThere are dozens of whales at Marineland of various ages and individual conditions. Whales, like humans and even family pets, die of natural causes all the time \u2026 Alleging some kind of \u2018problem\u2019 without any facts whatsoever simply because whales have died is expected and predictable as propaganda, but it is not \u2018reporting\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n In response to the company\u2019s statement that readers would be left \u201cmisinformed and uninformed\u201d, the Guardian requested a tour of the facility, which is still closed for the season. The company did not respond to the request.<\/p>\n The park\u2019s future operations have been clouded by a federal law passed in 2019 and a provincial law passed in 2015 that ban the sale, breeding and captivity of whales. The effect of the ban means that while Marineland\u2019s existing cetacean population can remain at the park, no new whales can be acquired.<\/p>\n The deaths of its founder, John Holer, in 2018 and his wife, Marie, in 2024 have also cast the park\u2019s operations into uncertainty. While it opened last year to the public, its operating season was shortened, fewer rides were open and some animal exhibits were shut. Management of the park has said publicly it is actively looking for a buyer.<\/p>\n \u201cI really believe the laws passed against whale captivity, both at the federal level and by the province of Ontario, are a direct result of the public seeing whales at places like Marineland,\u201d says Camille Labchuk, a lawyer and director at Animal Justice Canada. \u201cBut despite these laws being passed, very little has actually changed on the ground. There aren\u2019t many options for [these belugas].\u201d<\/p>\n