Well actual wildlife biologist here is some actual wildlife biology for you. It is not that simple, some of these belugas have never even seen the wild. They never learned how to survive from their parents. Learning is vital for cetaceans they do not just instinctively know these things any more than humans do. Any failure will be used as an excuse for aquariums not to give up their animals. Maybe some of the wild born ones can be released at a later date, who knows.

Thank you for your comment. And ideally, indeed, we would want to be able to be place them in the wild. But that’s simply not workable for a beluga or other whale who was born in a concrete tank and has never even caught a fish in her life.

In the ocean, these highly social animals grow up as part of family, are taught survival skills by their mothers and other family members, and live their whole lives in a close family unit. But there are very few whales at entertainment parks who were born in the ocean, were captured at a young age, and have families whom we know about. In those cases, it’s just possible that they could be reunited. And if such were possible, we’d make every effort to do that. But for those who were born in a concrete tank, it’s not an option. To release them into the ocean would simply be a death sentence.

It’s similar to the situation for elephants, chimpanzees and other land animals who are retired from circuses. They can’t be just dropped off somewhere in Africa. They don’t have the survival skills. But they do amazingly well at authentic sanctuaries. And since belugas and other whales are, like chimpanzees and elephants, highly intelligent and social mammals with a complex sense of self, they suffer greatly spending their lives in concrete tanks in entertainment parks. The only way to end that suffering is to relocate them to a permanent seaside sanctuary, where they can receive the care they will always need while experiencing the ocean, interacting with a real environment, and being able to swim across a 40-hectare area that’s incomparably larger than anything they’ve known before.

Certainly, we can’t undo all the harm we’ve inflicted on cetaceans by keeping them in captivity, but by providing them with seaside sanctuaries, we can greatly improve their quality of life. That’s our goal, and it’s the least we can do for them.

Ethically and biologically it would be better send them to into the wild within their natural range and let them return into the food chain either as predator or prey. The wild is cruel but not as cruel as further captivity.

The Liverpool details are: Liverpool – Friday, Feb 1st, 6.30 pm. Astor Theatre, (Gorham Room) 219 Main Street.. We’ll look forward to seeing you there.