Marineland was all fun and games until the public began to realize what was actually happening. Photo: Marineland
Animal Justice, a Canadian organization made up of lawyers and advocates fighting for stronger legal protections for animals, released a scathing press release aimed at Marineland, the now-shuttered amusement park and zoo in Niagara Falls, Ontario.
It’s a sad story — for the animals kept at Marineland, anyway. For those uninitiated with the debacle, Marineland closed its doors back in 2024 after people stopped being interested in watching wild animals doing tricks for fish. Park operators faced allegations of animal cruelty, and after federal legislation banned the use of cetaceans for entertainment purposes, Marineland was left holding the bag and a bunch of animals with no place to go.
A team from the park met with Joanne Thompson, Minister of Fisheries, Oceans and the Canadian Coast Guard and let her know that if the federal government didn’t approve export permits to move 30 of Marineland’s beluga whales and four dolphins abroad, they would have to euthanize them. Thompson didn’t like the threat, saying that the locations Marineland wanted to move the animals — mostly orcas and belugas — to other parks that would treat the animals worse than they were treated at Marineland.
According to a database created by The Canadian Press, 20 whales — an orca and 19 belugas — have died at the Niagara Falls, Ontario, tourist attraction since 2019. When the place closed up, it wanted to send some of its whales to Chimelong Ocean Kingdom in China, but the Canadian government said no because that would likely mean they’d be sent to another awful little park where the animals would be stuck in tiny pools and forced to dance around for fish scraps while humans ogled them. That refusal, however, left Marineland in a bit of a bind: without any income from park visitors, there wasn’t enough money to care of the whales.
Now, though, Marineland is requesting $10 million to $20 million in a federal loan to move up to 30 belugas and four dolphins to aquariums across the U.S., a move that Animal Justice takes serious issue with.
“Marineland made a fortune keeping whales in squalid, depressing tanks and using them in cruel shows, and is sitting on hundreds of millions of dollars worth of property in Niagara Falls,” said Kaitlyn Mitchell, director of legal advocacy at Animal Justice. “The money it is asking for would be better directed toward the seaside sanctuary in Nova Scotia that is actually prepared to help whales live out the lives they deserve.”
Animal Justice asserts in the press release that Marineland needs to lie in the bed it made for itself.
“Instead of developing a serious plan for the whales’ future when Canada banned their captivity in 2019,” the release continues, “Marineland has put forward half-baked schemes, including a sale to a subpar aquarium in China that did not meet the legal standards set out in federal law, and even threatening to kill its 30 surviving beluga whales unless the federal government paid the defunct facility to care for the animals.”
Despite all that, however, the fact remains that there are a bunch of animals with no place to go. Many of them were either taken from the wild as calves or born in captivity, meaning they don’t have the necessary skills to survive in the wild. So what does Animal Justice want? Well, they’ve got a plan.
“Animal Justice is calling on the federal government to reject Marineland’s bailout request and take immediate steps to secure a lawful, humane outcome for the facility’s remaining animals, including transferring as many belugas as possible to established sanctuary efforts such as the Whale Sanctuary Project set to open in Port Hilford, Nova Scotia,” the advocates wrote. “The organization recently secured a U.S. $3 million donation to advance construction of its coastal sea pen and says it is moving forward with site development. Federal funds would be best spent supporting the sanctuary so that it can complete construction as soon as possible and provide dignified, long-term homes for belugas from Marineland.”
Mitchell takes particular issue with the use of taxpayer dollars to bail out a private company.
“Public funds should not be used to resolve a crisis created by a private company that chose profit over animal welfare for decades,” she explained. “Time and time again, Marineland has put the Fisheries Minister in a challenging position, threatening to kill these intelligent, social animals unless the government hands over millions of dollars to the theme park. This crisis is the product of decades of neglect and cruelty. Marineland’s continued attempts to extort taxpayers rather than take responsibility are reprehensible.”
