Whale of a show ends

VANCOUVER, B.C. - There was two, even three times the usual laughter and squeals as Bjossa frolicked yesterday. Well, as much as a 5,300-pound, 18-foot mammal can frolic.

Bjossa, the Vancouver Aquarium Marine Science Center's killer whale, entertained schoolchildren and families with her usual repertoire of arcs, dives and rolls. But among the laughter and squeals of kids were some murmurs of sadness:

"I'll miss her."

"I wish I could go where she's going."

Bjossa, the only orca in captivity in the Pacific Northwest, is leaving.

After three final shows today, the 23-year-old orca will be sent to SeaWorld San Diego, where she will enjoy more companionship. Bjossa, who arrived with her mate, Finna, from Iceland in 1980, hasn't had an orca companion since Finna died in 1997. And orcas are highly social creatures who need companionship.

"It's the best thing for her," said John Nightingale, president of the aquarium.

Saturday, Bjossa will be nudged toward a stretcher placed inside her pool. A crane will lift the stretcher, swing her around and place her inside a steel-and-fiberglass box filled with water. The box, on a flatbed truck, will then be driven to the airport, where the box will be loaded into a plane for the flight to San Diego.

Two to three times the usual crowds have been coming to say goodbye. About 15,900 came to the aquarium over the four-day Easter weekend. Her final shows are scheduled for today at 11 a.m., 2 p.m. and either 4 or 4:30 p.m.

"I'm going to miss Bjossa," said Jonathan Hutchinson, 5, of Vancouver, B.C., who comes with his family to the aquarium monthly and was bidding farewell to the whale yesterday. "But I'm glad she's leaving. She's going to have new friends."

The move is a significant event for an aquarium that has boasted one of the foremost killer-whale research programs on the West Coast, and was the first aquarium to have a live killer whale in captivity in 1965. And it's a symbolic move in British Columbia, where Greenpeace and much of the anti-whaling movement was founded.

The Vancouver Aquarium commissioned a search for a killer whale in 1964, resulting in the capture of Moby Doll, who survived only three months while being housed in Vancouver Harbour. Since then, the aquarium has had seven killer whales, including Finna and Bjossa and their three calves who died.

After Finna, an 11,000-pound orca, died of pneumonia, Nightingale spent years searching for a companion for Bjossa. He pledged that the aquarium wouldn't capture a wild orca, and the Vancouver Park Board forbid the facility from keeping any killer whale captured after 1996. He went around the country and the world, pleading with those with a captive orca. "We tried buying them, borrowing them, leasing them, (proposing a) breeding loan," Nightingale said. "No go."

There are only about 50 captive orcas in the world. About 100 killer whales were captured in the 1970s, but many of those died because of a lack of knowledge about whale health and nutrition. The number has stabilized in the 1990s, and no orca has been captured since the early 1990s.

In the United States, captive orcas are at the three SeaWorld parks in San Diego, San Antonio and Orlando, and the Miami Seaquarium. In Canada, after Bjossa's move, only Marineland of Niagara Falls, south of Toronto, will house a killer whale.

Demand is high for captive orcas. Nightingale said sea parks around the world, including new ones in Europe and South America, would love to have killer whales in their shows. Orcas, he says, are the star attractions of aquariums.

"They're exceedingly rare," Nightingale said. "The folks that have them value them highly" and weren't willing to part with them. After two years of searching, "we realized, as gut-wrenching as it was, we had to ask: Are we going to do what's right for Bjossa?"

The Vancouver Aquarium decided to give the whale to SeaWorld, where she would receive the "best care" and have the "biggest pool system," Nightingale said.

He said the aquarium has received offers of payment from sea parks in other countries. Though exact figures were never discussed, the value of a captive orca on the open market, Nightingale said, ranges from $1 million to $2 million.

Though anti-whaling activists have spent years protesting Bjossa's captivity, the move isn't a victory for them.

"We are opposed to Bjossa being moved from one tank to another," said Annelise Sorg, director and founder of the Vancouver, B.C.-based Coalition for No Whales in Captivity. "Bjossa should've been sent home to Iceland, like Keiko," referring to the captive orca from Oregon released into the wild a few years ago.

Nightingale thinks it's "highly questionable" whether a whale that has been in captivity for two decades would survive in the wild," he said. Furthermore, he says, the Keiko experiment has not yet proven successful. And Bjossa, who has open tooth sockets, needs her teeth cleaned each day to prevent jaw infection, he said.

Sorg thinks the Vancouver Aquarium is trying to pass the buck on Bjossa, not wanting the "old, sick, cranky whale" to die in Canada, she said. At SeaWorld, she contends, Bjossa will be used only for artificial insemination.

Not so, said Bob Tucker, spokesman at SeaWorld San Diego, who said Bjossa, like all of the park's killer whales, will take part in the shows. Whether Bjossa will be used for breeding can only be decided after assessing the whale's health and other factors, Tucker said.

In any event, this marks a turning point for the museum.

Though it will continue its research on orcas, instead of focusing visitor interest on killer whales the aquarium will specialize in the ecosystem of the "wild outer coast" in the area.

Other dolphins, seals, shorebirds and fish may be found to keep company with White Wings, a Pacific white-sided dolphin who has been Bjossa's pool companion.

Bjossa's pool will be rebuilt into a more interactive exhibition space. Visitors will walk across a new bridge to a "research station" where they can measure starfish and partake of other hands-on activities, Nightingale said.

A stage also will be built, with rotating exhibits such as submarines and issue-oriented displays.

Said Nightingale: "It's a start of a new chapter." 

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