We work to transform the way people relate to whales and dolphins by bringing an end to their exploitation and by creating authentic coastal sanctuaries, assisting with international marine mammal rescues, and advancing whale and dolphin science.

While there has been a sea change in public attitudes toward keeping these highly intelligent and socially complex animals in concrete tanks for the purposes of entertainment, there is still no possibility of retiring them since there’s nowhere for them to go. The sanctuary we are establishing in Nova Scotia will act as a proof of concept for many more to come.

A sanctuary is, by definition, a place where the wellbeing of the residents is always the priority. The four basic questions we ask about any facility that advertises itself as a sanctuary are:

• Does it engage in performances, demonstrations or displays?
• Are visitors allowed access to the animals for commercial purposes like rides, petting pools and up-close photos with the animals?
• Does it allow breeding?
• And overall, does it have any priorities other than the well-being of the animals?

If the answer to any of those questions is “Yes,” then it’s not an authentic sanctuary.

While we would like to see all captive animals returned to their native habitat, this is not always possible. In particular, whales who have been born in captivity and have never experienced life in the ocean with their family have never learned the skills they require to survive in the wild. They need lifetime care where they can thrive in a natural setting that’s as close as possible to what they would experience in the open ocean.

If injured, stranded or recently captured whales are brought to the sanctuary, they will be treated and assessed, and every effort will be made to release them.

Rescue work is a principal part of our Whale Aid programs. You can read more about them here.

An authentic sanctuary provides a valuable way to study cetaceans in a non-invasive and non-intrusive environment. Most studies in the open ocean are time and resource intensive. Wild whales and dolphins, for example, are constantly on the move and require dedicated research teams using complex tracking systems. Studies conducted on cetaceans in concrete tanks – where their physical, mental and emotional health are compromised – cannot easily be generalized to their counterparts in the ocean and are therefore of limited value. A sanctuary, by contrast, provides an opportunity to study whales in an environment that more closely resembles life in the ocean while being in a relatively accessible area.

You can check out our profile on GuideStar, which gives the Whale Sanctuary Project its Platinum Seal of Transparency. GuideStar is the world’s largest source of nonprofit information.

Our financial information is also available to the public on GuideStar through the IRS Form 990 that we submit to the U.S. government each year. The 990 report also includes a breakdown of our programs. (To view this information, you will need only to create a free login at GuideStar.)

After researching more than 130 locations in Washington State, British Columbia and Nova Scotia, the Whale Sanctuary Project selected Port Hilford Bay, Nova Scotia, as the best site to create a seaside sanctuary for whales being retired from entertainment parks. The sanctuary site is located on the ancestral lands of the Mi’kmaq people, a First Nations community. We are grateful for their ongoing consultation and support throughout the sanctuary development process.

Our original estimate was $12-15 million USD for the creation of the full sanctuary, most of which has already been raised and spent. As we continue to finalize our design plans and assess the costs of materials to implement these designs, we will adjust our estimates for the land-based facilities construction and installation of marine infrastructure, including the mile-long perimeter net.

We estimate the costs of whale care to be $1.5-2 million USD per year. This long-term care will be covered through endowments, sustaining donations, and other revenue-generating opportunities like educational materials and programs.

A coastal sanctuary is entirely different from a “sea cage” or even a sea pen captive facility. Sea pens are smaller structures that are suited to the temporary accommodation of whales and other marine mammals needing special care and/or veterinary treatment. The sanctuary we’re creating in Nova Scotia will have sea pen structures for routine veterinary evaluations, for newly arrived residents to acclimate before they are released into the main sanctuary area, and for any resident whales who need special care and/or treatment.

Orcas and belugas would be housed in separate areas of the sanctuary. With 100+ acres there is enough space to accommodate both species.

To maintain an authentic sanctuary environment, the sanctuary will be closed to the public and accessed only by those individuals involved in the whales’ care and the sanctuary site’s operations. Visitors will be able to view the whales from the other side of Port Hilford Bay.

We also plan to create a nearby Interpretation Centre, where visitors can learn more about the whales and the project with live video feeds from the site and with various other educational activities, tools and resources.

There was gold mining in this area of Nova Scotia from the 1880s to the 1930s. When we learned about its history in Port Hilford Bay, we consulted with experts and concluded that we should do a complete environmental site assessment to see whether any mitigation work is appropriate.

Three years of exhaustive testing and consultation with third-party experts determined that the water column is clean and free of contaminants and that the sanctuary will provide a safe and healthy habitat for its residents.

Heavy metals were found sequestered in the submerged soil in a small section of the bay, our third-party consultants have concluded that these do not pose any risk to the sanctuary’s future residents or the native flora and fauna. You can review the complete laboratory results – along with our third party reports – in this post.

Levels of heavy metals were also found in the soil on land at the site. This, too, is common at old gold mining sites throughout Nova Scotia, and there are standard procedures for mitigating any associated risks. With third-party consultants, we developed a formal Risk Assessment / Risk Management Plan, which delineates the steps we will take during the construction process to ensure long-term site safety (including, for example, capping the soils in question with gravel or concrete).

Whale sanctuaries are in their formative years and much of this work has been unprecedented. After selecting Port Hilford Bay in 2020 (after a two-year site search), we began a series of environmental studies intended to understand the bay and its suitability as a habitat for future whale residents. We have been as thorough and meticulous as possible in our work to conclude that the site will, indeed, represent a safe and healthy habitat for whales. Many of these studies were longitudinal in nature, and others required multiple levels of permitting and government approval to execute. Similarly, the government agencies to which we report had no precedents or protocols for the development of cetacean sanctuaries. And so this lengthy process is helping to pave the way for the many more sanctuaries that are needed across the globe in the coming years.

We expect to welcome the first whales approximately six to eight months from the start of construction at the site (both land-side and marine facilities). 

The site is closed to visitors. We encourage you to go to Port Hilford Beach, which has the best view of the bay and from which you can see the sanctuary waters to the southwest. The beach has free parking and is a 15-minute drive from the sanctuary’s Visitors & Operations Centre in Sherbrooke.

At the Visitors & Operations Centre, you can walk through an interactive exhibit of photos and videos about what life is like for whales in the barren tanks of marine entertainment parks and about how the sanctuary will give them a new life that is “back to nature.” Please check the local Facebook page for current opening hours. 

We are engaged in discussions with marine entertainment parks and aquariums that are open to working with us in a collaborative and cooperative relationship to prepare whales for transfer to sanctuary.

Whales are transported between captive facilities all the time and there are established protocols for doing this. Depending on geographical location, they can be transported in container baths by boat, road or plane. Although this can be quite stressful for the animals, care will be taken to make their travel as comfortable as possible.

The routine feeding will be with thawed frozen human grade fish. Orcas eat 45 kilograms and more of fish per day and belugas eat 18-25 kilos per day, and it is not possible for them to forage for that quantity within a sanctuary. Food must be provided, and whales coming from entertainment facilities will have been eating fish. Most whales coming from entertainment parks do not know that live fish are food and don’t know how to hunt for fish. They are used to a diet of thawed frozen fish and this will be their diet at the sanctuary.

No, they will not jump over the nets. Belugas do not jump and although technically an orca could jump over a net, they never do. Research indicates that they “see” a net as a barrier that goes up without limit because they do not see over it and they therefore do not think of it as something to go over. For our net we have a custom designed perimeter system from which the nets will be anchored to the seabed. The nets will act as a barrier that neither whales within the sanctuary nor any whales from outside the sanctuary can jump.

The net system is custom designed with mesh that is large enough for fish to swim through and small enough that the whales cannot get caught in it. The custom design and anchoring system keeps the net taut so that there is no billowing in tide changes, which also prevents animals from being caught in net.

Based on our environmental research of the sanctuary area and research with scientists, wildlife researchers and fishers throughout Nova Scotia, our sanctuary site has few species of concern that visit the area and the primary concern for animals who could get tangled in the net is for pinnipeds and turtles. We have outlined mitigation protocols for these species for preventing entanglement and will have 24/7 security around the nets.

Authentic sanctuaries don’t allow breeding because they do not want to be in the business of creating more captive animals. We don’t want there to be any captive animals anywhere – not even in sanctuaries. At a sanctuary, birth control methods can still allow sexual behavior, just as they do in humans.

(One thing that most people don’t know is that many captive dolphins and whales in marine parks are artificially inseminated.)

The sanctuary residents may come from a number of different facilities or different tanks. So, we need to understand the relationships of each resident before they come into the sanctuary. We will observe them closely from the beginning and see how they adjust and then make decisions about conflicts based on the experience of veterinarians and trainers. If need be, we can separate individuals either temporarily or permanently. The sanctuary configuration will allow us to have that flexibility. Ideally, we would like the sanctuary residents to form their own social group.

For whales who spend their lives in concrete tanks, aggression is common because of the level of stress they experience. And when aggression erupts, there is nowhere for them to go to get out of the way. The space they will have in a sanctuary environment will reduce the buildup of stress significantly.

Our staff, board and advisory group include experts in many areas related to cetaceans. For example, in 2018, the National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration invited the Whale Sanctuary Project, along with several other organizations, to join an emergency effort in the Pacific Northwest to try to save the life of the orca J-50, a starving four-year-old member of the endangered Southern Resident population. (While ultimately unsuccessful, it was a pioneering effort that has paved the way for future efforts of this kind.)

Our largest effort was our involvement in Whale Aid Russia, which involved 10 orcas and 87 beluga whales who had been captured illegally in the Sea of Okhotsk for sale to marine entertainment parks in China. The Russian government invited the Whale Sanctuary Project to bring a team to assist the government and Russian non-profits in assessing the condition of the whales and in advising and supporting their successful return to the ocean. It was the largest whale rescue project in history.

In 2021, at the request of the Sacred Lands Conservancy, an indigenous-led non-profit on the West Coast, expert members of the Whale Sanctuary Project team drafted and submitted a comprehensive operational plan to safely bring the orca Tokitae (generally known by her display name “Lolita”) from the Miami Seaquarium back to her home in the Salish Sea. This was a Whale Aid Project

The following year, at the request of the new owners of the Seaquarium, we assisted in the establishing of Friends of Toki, a new non-profit that was dedicated to returning Toki to her home in the Pacific Northwest. While members of the Whale Sanctuary team participated in the work of Friends of Toki, it was not a Whale Aid project and was neither managed nor funded by the Whale Sanctuary Project. Any time spent on it by Whale Sanctuary staff members was compensated by Friends of Toki donors.

Not necessarily. It depends upon what work you are doing. If you’re working in the area of animal health and behavior, a degree in biology, psychology, zoology, ecology, or veterinary science is important. But there will also be a need for many different skills and positions at the sanctuary, including public education and outreach, marine operations, security and general care and upkeep of the sanctuary.

If you are thinking of working at any facility that cares for animals, you should have a good background in science, along with some experience working in that area. This might include completing an internship or working in volunteer positions. Scientific training is important, but “on-the-ground” skills are needed as well.

Many scientists are using artificial intelligence (AI) to decode the sounds whales make so that we can learn more about how whales communicate with one another. AI can be helpful because it identifies patterns in sounds. 

Sanctuaries can play an important role in providing recordings of the whales as they encounter different features of the sanctuary under circumstances that more closely resemble life in the wild.

Marine parks depend upon ticket sales, so it’s not always in their interest to give the public a complete picture of the lives and welfare of dolphins and whales in captivity. For example, educating people to the true plight of these large, ocean-going animals being confined in small tanks is not conducive to having your audience feel good about watching them performing artificial behaviors that they’ve been trained to do.

At an authentic sanctuary, the only priority is the health and wellbeing of the whales themselves. So, there is complete freedom to educate the public about their lives, how they’re doing, and why they should have been living their lives in the open ocean with their families. Sanctuary education is fundamentally more authentic.

Capital funds for purchase of land and construction are held in a restricted account. These funds become available when we have completed the permitting process and when fundraising for construction is complete.

The daily operations of our work – including, for example, all the environmental assessments and studies – are funded by your donations: either one-time gifts, large or small, or sustaining monthly commitments of any size. In the future, operational funds will go toward the care of the whales and all the other work of running the sanctuary.

The Whale Sanctuary Project is designated by the IRS as a tax-deductible 501c3 charity in the United States.

Spread the word in every way you can. Many people do not even know that sanctuaries are possible for whales.

• Share our short film Whales Without Walls, It is a great way to tell the story of what this work is about and why the need for sanctuaries is so pressing;
• Share our social media posts, blog posts from the website and webinars from our Live Series; 
• Tell other people the stories of the whales currently in captivity.;
• Create your own unique fundraiser through Facebook, GoFundMe, or some enjoyable activity in your community;
• Learn about the science of how and why whales cannot thrive in impoverished captive environments;
• Here on the website, subscribe to our newsletter and donate to the creation of the sanctuary;
• If you have skills that you think would be of particular value, please contact us at info@whalesanctuary.org .

Thank you for being part of the Whale Sanctuary Project!