“Rehoming animals is a delicate business at the best of times. Rehoming two whales on a new continent during a global pandemic is about as hard as it gets.”
“After being captured at a very young age off the coast of Russiaand spending years in a Chinese aquarium, the whales are about to get used to the freedom of an 8-acre sanctuary at Klettsvik Bay in Iceland.”
“‘It’s been quite the journey for these two,’ Audrey Padgett, the Beluga Whale Sanctuary’s general manager, told CNN on a video call in front of the belugas. ‘It hasn’t been easy, but it’s definitely been a labor of love.'”
Back in 2011, Little Grey and Little White were moved from a Russian research facility to the Changfeng Ocean World aquarium in Shanghai. The following year, the aquarium was bought by Merlin Entertainments, a company opposed to keeping whales and dolphins in captivity.
And so the idea of taking the whales back to the sea was born.
And so the idea of taking the whales back to the sea was born.
The belugas’ new home, run by the Sea Life Trust charity, is a much “larger, natural environment” with lots of potential benefits, Padgett said.”
View the whole story here: https://www.cnn.com/2020/08/10/europe/beluga-whale-journey-intl-scli/index.html