GLOBE AND MAIL
By WILLIAM MBAHO
Friday, July 15, 2005 Page S3

Beluga prepares for move to San Diego

VANCOUVER -- Auntie Allua, as she is affectionately known by her caretakers, is off to SeaWorld in San Diego as soon as transportation can be organized for her 850-kilogram frame to get there.
The 21-year-old beluga whale is expected to be flown from Vancouver to San Diego in the next seven to 14 days, a Vancouver Aquarium official said yesterday.

"She's so big that we have to make special arrangements to get her to the airport, on a plane and then to SeaWorld," said John Nightingale, president of the Vancouver Aquarium.

He said the three-metre-long mammal, captured at Churchill, Man., in 1985, will leave on a breeding loan to SeaWorld San Diego.

The intention is to mate her and a 36-year-old beluga named Ferdinand, which SeaWorld San Diego acquired last year from the Duisberg Zoo in Germany, Mr. Nightingale said.

He said conditions for Allua's breeding loan include retaining ownership of the beluga and the right to recall her at any time.

"Allua's been here since 1985, and she hasn't gotten pregnant," Mr. Nightingale said. "It's in her best interests to have a calf of her own and in our interests to maintain our captive marine mammal population."

In addition to Allua, the Vancouver Aquarium has three female belugas and two male.

Mr. Nightingale said Allua had helped another of the aquarium's belugas, Aurora, nurse her calves Qila and Tuvaq.

"Our captive marine mammal population are dwindling," Mr. Nightingale said. "We want to continue to have them here for display, interpretation and education."

Annelise Sorg, director of the Vancouver-based Coalition for No Whales in Captivity, criticized Allua's move as unnecessary, unsurprising and part of a trade between the aquarium and SeaWorld.

"The Vancouver Aquarium is trading Allua for a Pacific white-sided dolphin," Ms. Sorg said yesterday. "The U.S. government recently received an application to export a dolphin from SeaWorld, and the aquarium here has one and would like more."

But Mr. Nightingale said no arrangement was made with SeaWorld San Diego to exchange Allua for another marine mammal.

Bjossa the killer whale was the most recent live marine mammal sent from the Vancouver Aquarium to SeaWorld San Diego and that was in 2001. He died from a chronic lung infection six months after his arrival.

Nanuq was the last beluga sent to the San Diego SeaWorld, in 1997, on a breeding loan from the Vancouver Aquarium. He lives at the San Antonio SeaWorld.

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