Four Beluga Whales Died Weeks After Being Rescued From a Defunct Marine Park in Canada. Were the Animals Too Sick to Be Moved?

They were among 30 whales transferred from the facility over the summer. It had faced multiple allegations of animal neglect and cruelty before closing in 2024

Sara Hashemi | Daily Correspondent

October 1, 2026 11:34 a.m.

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Four beluga whales that were rescued from a shuttered marine park in Canada died over the past couple of months after dramatic transfers to new homes in other countries.

The animals were among a group of 30 whales and four dolphins relocated over the summer from Marineland in Niagara Falls, Ontario, which closed in 2024. The park threatened to euthanize the animals last fall, claiming that it was running out of money to continue caring for them. As a result, an international operation moved them to facilities across the United States and Spain. But some of the animals seem to have had preexisting health problems and struggled to acclimate to their new environments.

Three of the whales—Osiris, Peekachu and Rain—died in August and September at the Shedd Aquarium in Chicago. Another one, Jelly Bean, died in September at Oceanogràfic València in Spain.

Post-mortem examinations of Rain and Peekachu found that the animals had chronic inflammatory disease in their gastrointestinal systems, which likely began long before they arrived at Shedd, according to a September 25 statement. Peekachu also had foreign objects, including bird feathers, sticks and large, porous rocks, in her stomach, which she probably ingested before the move. Rain appears to have eaten flecks of paint.

Shedd will conduct a similar analysis on Osiris in the coming days to better understand her death. She was a whale of “clinical concern” throughout her time at the aquarium, according to a September 21 statement.

“When Shedd was asked to help with this rescue, we understood that these animals arrived with significant vulnerabilities and that the outcome for every individual could not be guaranteed,” the aquarium wrote in the statement about Osiris. “That uncertainty does not lessen the heartbreak of Osiris’ loss, or our responsibility to examine it with scientific rigor and open-hearted transparency.”

Oceanogràfic València is also conducting a necropsy on Jelly Bean, as well as a female dolphin named Echo who died after being moved from Marineland, reports the New York Times’ Remy Tumin.

Animal rights advocates argue that more could have been done to prevent the cetaceans’ deaths. Experts should have been able to detect whether the whales were healthy enough for the transfers beforehand, says Camille Labchuk, executive director of the Canadian nonprofit Animal Justice, to Carly Thomas at the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation News.

Veterinarians and other specialists from the facilities that planned to welcome the whales visited Marineland earlier this year to assess the animals prior to their moves, Tumin reported for the Times in July. At the time, they were found to be in good health, said Todd Robeck, vice president for conservation and animal health at SeaWorld Parks and Entertainment, which took some of the animals.

Still, Marineland had been plagued with multiple allegations of cruelty and neglect. Labchuk tells CBC News that Animal Justice had spent years warning the federal and provincial governments about the park. “There should have been a lot more diligence years ago to get these whales into a healthier condition so … they could have survived the move without paying the price with their lives,” she says.

Her group and the Whale Sanctuary Project, which aims to create seaside sanctuaries for rescued cetaceans, are also concerned by the lack of a breeding commitment by the participating aquariums. In Canada, whales cannot be bred for non-research purposes.

“They’re basically saying, ‘Canada does not approve of keeping these animals in tanks for entertainment,’” says Lori Marino, founder and president of the Whale Sanctuary Project and an animal behavior researcher, to Finnegan Belleau at the Chicago Tribune. “And then they send them places where that’s exactly what’s going to happen.”

Still, Karisa Tang, the lead veterinarian and vice president of animal health at the Shedd Aquarium, says she doesn’t regret the decision to transfer the animals. “Their two choices in this case were to be given a chance at other facilities or to be euthanized,” she tells the Times. “Every whale was given the chance at another facility.”

Labchuk, however, is not as optimistic. “This was a slow-moving disaster that everybody saw coming,” she tells CBC News. “I’m still expecting more of these whales to die.”

Sara Hashemi is a science writer and fact-checker currently based in New York City. Her work has appeared in Sierra, The Body, Maisonneuve magazine and more.