A fourth whale out of 30 rescued from a troubled Canadian marine park has died. It is the third rescued whale to die at Shedd Aquarium after being transferred there this summer for rehabilitation. A longtime resident beluga also died at the aquarium in recent weeks.
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In a blog post, the Shedd’s staff said Osiris, a 26-year-old female beluga, had been facing health challenges. On Friday, Jelly Bean died after being moved from Canada to Oceanogràfic Valencia in Spain.
The more than two dozen whales were evacuated from Marineland, a closed marine park in Niagara Falls, Ontario. According to a previous news release, Marineland’s caretakers had threatened to euthanize the belugas.
A total of 10 rescued whales arrived at the Shedd in the last few months, more than doubling the aquarium’s pod size.
The first rescued whale who died at the Shedd was 23-year-old Peekachu. On Sept. 2, 20-year-old female Rain died alongside 34-year-old male Beethoven — who had lived at the aquarium since 2014.
Osiris was one of the first four rescued whales the aquarium welcomed in mid-July. A second group, which included Peekachu and Rain, arrived nearly a month later. The final pair arrived Sept. 1.
“Each rescued beluga came to Shedd with a distinct life history and health needs that could not be fully understood before their arrival,” the blog post read.
Osiris was not as consistent an eater as some of the other whales, the Shedd said. But after fluids, medication and care, her appetite improved. And her “commanding personality” emerged as she engaged with the other rescued whales.
“Those were encouraging signs, but nutrition is only one measure of health, and in cases as complex as these, progress is rarely linear,” the aquarium said.
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On Monday morning, however, aquarium employees noticed changes in her behavior and breathing. Her condition quickly declined, and she died despite lifesaving efforts.
“Though Osiris was with us for far less time than we had hoped, her care was never measured by its length,” the aquarium said. “We are grateful to everyone who has followed her story, supported this collective rescue, and continued to hold these whales close as their care moves forward.”
Animal Justice, a Canadian animal law advocacy organization — which has criticized the country’s federal and provincial governments’ approach to the rescue of Marineland’s beluga whales — called Osiris’ death “yet another tragedy” that shows the relocation plan “lacked adequate regulatory scrutiny.”
“The narrative that there was no choice but to move these sensitive, highly intelligent animals within an irresponsibly short timeline is false,” said Camille Labchuk, a lawyer and the organization’s executive director, in a statement released Tuesday. “Rather than dealing with the complexities of a more patient, truly welfare-centred approach to relocating its whales, Marineland chose to wash its hands of its responsibility to them, potentially off-shoring a mass killing in the process. Our government failed to step up to protect the animals when they needed it most.”
Labchuck expressed frustration that “staff at the facilities where these whales ended up are left with the heart-wrenching task of just trying to keep them alive.”
The cause of Osiris’ death was not immediately known, and the aquarium said a necropsy will be carried out. Results from analyses related to the previous beluga deaths are still pending, according to the Shedd.
“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’s blog post said. “That uncertainty does not lessen the heartbreak of Osiris’s loss, or our responsibility to examine it with scientific rigor and open-hearted transparency.”
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Chicago Tribune’s Finnegan Belleau and Tess Kenny contributed.