{"id":146368,"date":"2026-07-28T06:13:27","date_gmt":"2026-07-28T06:13:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/146368\/"},"modified":"2026-07-28T06:13:27","modified_gmt":"2026-07-28T06:13:27","slug":"inside-the-wild-rescue-mission-that-took-4-beluga-whales-to-chicago","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/146368\/","title":{"rendered":"Inside the Wild Rescue Mission That Took 4 Beluga Whales to Chicago"},"content":{"rendered":"

One of the most crucial parts of pulling off an unprecedented international plane ride for four beluga whales<\/a> is making sure they don\u2019t even realize that they\u2019re on a trip. \u201cThe goal is that they notice as little as possible,\u201d says Karisa Tang, the lead veterinarian and vice president of animal health at Chicago\u2019s Shedd Aquarium.<\/p>\n

Tang and Charlie Jacobsma, the Shedd\u2019s director of animal behavior and training, accompanied beluga whales Acadia, Lillooet, Osiris, and Sierra on the journey from their Niagara Falls enclosures to Toronto\u2019s Pearson Airport and to Chicago. Two additional belugas joined the flight on a chartered Boeing 777 freighter but were then transported to an aquarium in San Antonio.<\/p>\n

The whales had been living in Marineland of Niagara Falls, a notorious, long-running aquarium and amusement park<\/a> that went bankrupt after the death of its owners and closed to the public in 2024. As it ran out of money to care for the animals, the park had previously implored<\/a> the Canadian government for assistance. In 2025, Marineland announced that it had made the \u201cdevastating decision\u201d to consider euthanasia if it could not relocate the animals.<\/p>\n

\"Image<\/p>\n

Workers at Chicago\u2019s Shedd Aquarium use a sling to move a beluga whale.<\/p>\n

Photograph: Reuters<\/p>\n

At that point, the wider aquarium and marine biology world was already discussing what could be done; by January 2026, members of the rescue team were flying to Ontario to assess how they\u2019d transport the belugas. In June, Canada reached an agreement with Marineland to allow this rehoming process, in which animals may go to a consortium of aquariums in Georgia, San Diego, and Spain, in addition to the whales already transferred to Chicago and Texas institutions. It was an unprecedented mission. \u201cPeople have moved belugas before,\u201d Tang says. \u201cBut something of this scale had not been done.\u201d<\/p>\n

It all went about as smoothly as moving thousand-plus-pound water-dwelling mammals hundreds of miles could have gone: \u201cBeautiful, nice, slow takeoff and a nice easy landing,\u201d Jacobsma tells WIRED. The team was able to stay close to the whales, constantly monitoring them and \u201cpouring water on their backs, making sure that they were comfortable.\u201d<\/p>\n

A few days after the transport, on a sunny Friday afternoon, visitors to the Shedd\u2019s Oceanarium section are greeted with signs asking for quiet. \u201cPlease keep voices low,\u201d they read. \u201cHelp the rescued belugas acclimate to their new home.\u201d WIRED peeked into a secluded habitat, which is under round-the-clock surveillance by veterinarians and other marine life experts, where Acadia, Lillooet, Osiris, and Sierra are currently being kept out of sight of the public so their new stewards can focus on settling them into their new home.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"One of the most crucial parts of pulling off an unprecedented international plane ride for four beluga whales…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":146369,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[19453,10247,47616,17,8202,35393,431,29767,47617],"class_list":["post-146368","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-canada","tag-animal-behavior","tag-animals","tag-biology","tag-canada","tag-chicago","tag-marine-science","tag-science","tag-whales","tag-zoos"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/146368","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=146368"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/146368\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/146369"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=146368"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=146368"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=146368"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}