For about three decades, beluga whales and bottlenose dolphins greeted more than a million annual visitors to Marineland of Canada. In the sprawling 162-hectare (400-acre) theme park, located a stone’s throw from the world-famous Niagara Falls in Ontario, Canada, dozens of cetaceans enthralled visitors — splashing, spyhopping and leaping in their concrete-lined tanks. Marineland’s peppy jingle, “Everyone loves Marineland,” evoked a happy place where love transcended species, and people and marine mammals shared joy. But what the cameras didn’t show was their lives after showtime. Twenty whales — 19 belugas (Delphinapterus leucas) and one killer whale (Orcinus orca) — died between 2019 and 2025. Multiple charges of animal abuse surfaced in the 2010s, though some were later withdrawn. And a 2021 animal welfare inspection found marine animals in distress due to poor water quality in their tanks. In late 2024, Ontario’s animal welfare inspectors said they had visited the park more than 200 times since 2020 for inspections and investigations. In 2018, Marineland’s owner died, and a year later, Canada passed the landmark Ending the Captivity of Whales and Dolphins Act, which banned the keeping, breeding and trading of cetaceans for entertainment. By then, movies such as Blackfish and Free Willy had changed the public perception of captive dolphins and whales. The lively jingle had turned sour in many people’s minds. In 2021, Marineland became Canada’s last remaining entertainment park with cetaceans. A beluga whale at SeaWorld in San Diego, California, in 2009. The species is native to the Arctic…This article was originally published on Mongabay

From Conservation news via This RSS Feed.