Orcas are gone, are sea lions next? Vancouver Aquarium struggles to keep green critics happy

VANCOUVER - Political correctness forced the Vancouver Aquarium to get rid of its last killer whale this year. Now the city's most popular tourist attraction is trying to reinvent itself with a $10-million project that stresses public education.

But can Kodiak, a three-and-a-half-year-old sea lion with hair-curling halitosis, ever hope to replace an orca that jumped, splashed and spit water on kids?

John Nightingale, executive director of the Vancouver Aquarium Marine Science Centre, acknowledges it is going to be tough to replace Bjossa, who was sold in April after years of controversy.

"There's two things wrong with sea lions," Mr. Nightingale said yesterday as he announced a new Wild Coast Exhibit to open June 29. "First, they do this: Awwwwwrgh! Which is kind of frightening. And then they have the worst case of seal breath in the world. I almost fainted the first time I got close to one."

Those weaknesses aside, Kodiak, a sleek, big-flippered, herring-gulping showoff is emerging as a new star attraction along with Whitewings, a Pacific white-sided dolphin that has played a supporting role at the aquarium in Stanley Park for 30 years.

The two mammals have emerged from the shadows because of the growing influence of the green movement, which for years has been protesting "the abuse" of animals in captivity.

In 1992, the City of Vancouver banned circuses that use wild animals. In 1993, people voted to close the Stanley Park Zoo, which featured polar bears, monkeys, seals, otters and penguins. The zoo has been bulldozed, landscaped and forgotten.

In 1996, the city's parks board passed a resolution forbidding the aquarium from capturing whales or dolphins from the wild.

In 1997, Roslyn Cassells, a Green party member of the Vancouver Parks Board, landlords to the aquarium, was dragged from the exhibition ring at the Cloverdale rodeo, shouting: "Rodeo is animal abuse!" and "They are hurting and killing animals in there!"

She describes the aquarium as "an awful place" where animals are exploited.

This spring, officially saying Bjossa needed companionship, but unofficially bowing to sustained attacks from Ms. Cassells and others, the aquarium shipped its last orca to SeaWorld, in San Diego.

Now critics are talking about the need to get rid of the last dolphin, the five belugas and all the other mammals in display tanks.

If the critics had their way, the Vancouver Aquarium would be reduced to a showcase for the sea sponge. Except that might lead to a Save The Sponge movement.

"The activists never give up," said Mr. Nightingale, who is scouring the world's aquariums for a Pacific dolphin to join Whitewings. He expects protests, but is determined to add a second dolphin.

"We're not running the aquarium for 10 or 12 people. We're running it for the one million visitors we get every year," he said. "There will always be critics, but you try to do what's responsible, for the animals, the environment and your visitors."

And you try to entertain.

"You need to get into people's heads and even their hearts," he says.

For nearly four decades, the Vancouver Aquarium revolved around the spectacular killer whales. Responding to prompts from trainers, the orcas stood on their heads, breached, slapped their huge flukes on the water and spit buckets of water on kids who dared to sit in the front row.

In 1998, sensing the shifting public mood, the Vancouver Aquarium began to change course. Public education became the theme. Tide pools emerged into which visitors could dip their hands to touch sea cucumbers.

A new pavilion featuring Pacific fish was opened in 1999; a salmon stream, linking the aquarium with nearby Coal Harbour, was completed last year; and now the Wild Coast Exhibit is adding a sea lion tank and a "touch pool." One artist's rendition shows a child feeding fish to a seal and Mr. Nightingale does not rule out the possibility of a "swim with the dolphins" tank.

He said projects over the next decade will push the cost of becoming a more sensitive, educational aquarium to about $10-million.

He believes it's worth it, and that Vancouver's top box-office draw can avoid the public censure that wiped out the Shriners' Circus when captive lions, tigers and elephants were banned.

"Our exit surveys show people are extremely happy with the experience they have here," he said.

But critics remain dissatisfied.

Annelise Sorg, of the Coalition For No Whales in Captivity, said there will be protests as long as there are captive dolphins and whales. "Is there any room for captive animals? I think not," she said yesterday. "To take a marine mammal away from their mother and families and place them in chlorinated water, in a concrete tank, and feed them dead fish ... is just asking for trouble.

"Animal rights activists don't want to see any animals in captivity."

She said her own position is not so drastic. Get rid of the dolphins and whales and her group will disband. "But I suspect another group would be formed," she said, "to protest captive sea lions." 

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