Shafts of sunlight angle into glistening turquoise water. Four beluga whales, in near-synchronized perfection, glide by, eyeing the cluster of visitors on the other side of a huge picture window.
One of those visitors is Karisa Tang, Shedd Aquarium’s vice president of animal health. Tang’s hand goes to her chest at the approach of these most graceful creatures — even though she’s seen Acadia, Lillooet, Osiris, and Sierra countless times before.
“That’s stunning in the sunlight,” Tang says during a visit by the Sun-Times to the aquarium Thursday morning in an area — for the time being — closed to the public.
Two more Shedd scientists huddle nearby, eyes glued to computer screens as they monitor the health of the new arrivals.
So far, says Tang, the signs look good for the whales, which arrived just before dawn Tuesday from the now-shuttered Marineland, a once-popular tourist attraction in Niagara Falls, Ontario.
“We are seeing them foraging, engaging with the habitat, being curious, exploring together. … In the previous 48 hours, we’ve seen some really positive signs,” Tang said.
The new arrivals, all females and ranging in age from 21 to 27 (middle-aged in whale years), are for now being kept separate from Shedd’s other eight belugas. Different habitats of the 3-million-gallon Abbott Oceanarium are separated by metal gates.
“We are trying to introduce as few new things every day as possible,” Tang said. “Everything is going to be gradual — from what habitat they are in to how they are being fed to how they are interacting with people.”
For the record, their diet includes “restaurant quality” fish, squid and clams.
It’s probably fair to say that this week, the whales have had as much excitement as they can handle. On Monday, Shedd, Marineland and other marine mammal experts guided the belugas out of a partially drained pool and into cloth slings, before hoisting them into water-filled steel containers. The containers were then loaded into trucks bound for Toronto Pearson Airport, where a Qatar Airways Cargo Boeing 777 flew them to Chicago.
The flight took about an hour, said Tang, who was on board the wide-body jet. Imagine a first-class ticket with everything offered but a window seat. Staff ladled water onto exposed skin and offered soothing words to the six behemoths — the heaviest of the Chicago-bound whales weighing 2,400 pounds. Two more belugas on the same flight went on to SeaWorld in San Antonio. Staff monitored breathing rates and animal behavior. The pilots were careful to avoid steep takeoffs and landings, Tang said.
The belugas were given medications (stuffed into raw fish) to settle their nerves, Tang said.
“Just like you might give your dog or cat anti-anxiety medication prior to the Fourth of July. This isn’t something that happens in [the whales’] lives every day,” she said.
Tang said she’s been aboard aircraft for other marine mammal transports, but never before with animals quite as large as belugas.
“Absolutely wild,” she said of the experience.
But no turbulence, she added.
“As we arrived at Shedd, the sun was just peeking out,” she said.
The whales were then wheeled into the aquarium on special carts, then lowered into the water.
The beluga rescue is controversial, particularly in Canada, where animal rights activists have for years been sounding the alarm about what they say is the mistreatment of animals at Marineland, which first opened in 1961. And those same activists say, among other things, that exporting whales out of the country isn’t the answer and may actually be a violation of a 2019 Canadian law intended to end the breeding and keeping of whales in captivity.
Shedd officials haven’t ruled out breeding the Marineland belugas at some point, but they say that the current focus is on acclimatizing the new arrivals to their new habitat.
A whale sanctuary off the coast of Nova Scotia — something animal rights activists say they hope to open in the next year or so — isn’t a realistic option, Tang said.
“There is no sea pen that exists that provides the standards of care necessary to care for these whales,” she said. “That conversation has been going on for years and it has still yet to materialize.”