MARINELAND’S FINAL ACT

Why Canada Must Refuse a Bail-Out And Use This Moment to End Whale & Dolphin Captivity for Good

Over recent weeks, the world has watched in horror as Marineland, the once-celebrated marine park by Niagara Falls, has threatened to euthanise its 30 remaining beluga whales unless the Canadian government intervenes with emergency funding. This “ultimatum” is an insidious pressure tactic: a captive wildlife park asking for rescue from the very government whose job is to protect the wild, not prop up private entertainment ventures! Canada should respond not with a cheque, but with a new moral and legal precedent: no support, except for transferring these animals to a genuine, accredited sanctuary.

In fact, far from being a tragedy caused by market forces, Marineland’s collapse is the predictable outcome of decades of regulatory failure, public complacency and the illusion that we can “own” the sea. Canada, regrettably, could and should have acted much earlier. Now, the options are narrow but morally clear: no bailouts, immediate transition to sanctuary and decisive legislation to forbid whale and dolphin captivity forever.

The Unraveling of Marineland: What We Know

To grasp how we arrived here, we must first trace back through recent history:

• Marineland, for years, functioned as one of North America’s large marine mammal display centres, housing belugas, dolphins, orcas, seals and sea lions, in addition to a variety of land animals.

• In 2019, Canada passed the Ending the Captivity of Whales and Dolphins Act, banning the capture, sale, breeding and import of cetaceans. The law grandfathers existing animals in captivity but prohibits further expansion of such operations. This means that Marineland got to keep its marine animals.

• Since then, Marineland has been under intensifying scrutiny. Between 2019 and 2025, at least 20 cetaceans, 19 belugas and one orca, have died at the facility.

• The last orca, “Kiska,” died in 2023, effectively ending orca captivity in Canada.

• Marineland closed to the public in late summer 2024, and is now in the process of being sold or redeveloped, much like Marineland in Antibes, France, which closed its doors in January of this year - also leaving its remaining orcas in highly questionable circumstances.

• Its owners have claimed that they lack sufficient resources to maintain the remaining 30 belugas, and threatened euthanasia unless the federal government steps in.

• Marineland had also applied for export permits to send the whales to a commercial aquarium in China, Chimelong Ocean Kingdom, an application that was denied by the federal government in October 2025.

• The financing that Marineland has obtained as part of its restructuring is conditioned on “expeditious removal” of marine mammals from the property, yet finding suitable sanctuaries remains a daunting task. The Whale Sanctuary Project in Nova Scotia is nearing readiness, but capacity and regulatory permitting remain uncertain.

• Marineland’s transparency has been opaque: journalists allege roadblocks in accessing information, and Ontario’s Animal Welfare Services has been criticised for lack of public reporting.

The crisis we see now is not a sudden shock but the predictable tail-end of years of mismanagement, weak enforcement and ethical denial.

How Earlier Action Could Have Prevented This

If Canada had acted more decisively when signs of distress first emerged, much of this humanitarian and reputational peril might have been avoided. Here are key junctures that could have implemented or enforced as soon as the 2019 legislation was passed:

1. Stricter enforcement from day one: After the 2019 law passed, regulators should have initiated a robust transition plan and not merely allowed Marineland to limp on. Telegraphed deadlines and enforceable milestones could have forced the park to progressively reduce its cetacean burdens and plan for relocation well before collapse. Instead, Marineland continued acquiring new whales, retaining large populations and operating on a “business as usual” assumption.

2. Mandatory transition funds and oversight: When the 2019 law was enacted, a parallel fund should have been established (via public, philanthropic or industry contributions) to support approved sanctuaries and help facilities bearing legacy cetaceans with relocation costs. In that way, Marineland and others would not have been left to scramble when they could no longer sustain operations.

3. Early moratoria on expansion and reinforcement of penalties: Though breeding and acquisition were banned, oversight was lax. A moratorium on public exhibitions (or a soft phase-out) for high-stakes animals like whales could have been deployed sooner, backed by robust fines and criminal enforcement. Marineland should have been placed on a short leash, requiring periodic justification for continuing to harbour cetaceans based on strict welfare benchmarks.

4. Strategic planning for sanctuaries: Canada should already have had a mapped network of accredited sanctuaries (or committed funding) poised to accept transferred marine mammals. Instead, sanctuaries are racing to catch up, and Marineland is left holding the bill.

5. Public transparency and accountability: Governments and animal welfare agencies should have insisted on transparent reporting, monitoring of water quality, health metrics, independent audits, as a condition of licensure. Too often, internal claims by Marineland went unchecked, and investigations were opaque.

If Canada had doggedly insisted upon disposition plans, relocation contracts and phased reduction from 2019 onward, Marineland’s collapse would not be a catastrophe but a managed closing of a discredited era.

What Options Remain and Why a Bailout Is The Wrong Way To Go

Given that we are now in the terminal phase of Marineland’s life as a marine mammal exhibitor, what are the realistic routes forward?

Option A: Send the whales to a genuine sanctuary

This is not simple, but it is the only ethical option. The remaining belugas should be transferred, without further delay, to an accredited, high-welfare marine mammal sanctuary capable of providing large sea pens, environmental complexity, veterinary care and social groupings. The Nova Scotia site being developed by the Whale Sanctuary Project is currently the most plausible candidate.

That transition must be government-facilitated in terms of permitting, logistical support (cranes, transport vessels), and veterinary oversight, but it should not be a lifelong financial subsidy to Marineland. The government’s role should be as guarantor of welfare for the animals, not the financier of their captivity, nor the piggy bank that Marineland dips its hand into when things get tough.

Option B: Euthanasia… only if all alternatives fail after full assessment

Threatening to euthanise the belugas as a bargaining chip is unconscionable. However, if after exhaustive effort, no sanctuary placement is possible, a limited euthanasia, under veterinary supervision and only as a last resort for animals in irreparable suffering, might reluctantly be accepted. But, only after all other options are exhausted.

This should not be Marineland’s choice to wield as leverage.

Option C: Piecemeal rehoming to aquaria (not an ideal fallback)

Some whales could conceivably be transferred to rescue and rehabilitation centres or trusted aquaria in jurisdictions that guarantee no public performance or breeding and maintain rigorous welfare standards. But any such transfers must be tightly conditioned, transparent and ideally temporary before ultimate relocation to sanctuary. And Canada must resist Marineland’s attempt to export to commercial marine parks, precisely what the government has already refused in the Chimelong case… thankfully.

Why a Bailout is Unacceptable (and Dangerous)

There is no moral or legal justification for Canada to provide Marineland with financial lifelines. To do so would:

• Reward serial mismanagement and egg on future captive-animal operators who believe they too will be rescued if their business model collapses.

• Set a dangerous precedent: private operators gamble with wildlife and taxpayers pay the bill when things go wrong.

• Pervert the public’s trust in conservation and animal welfare: the government would become complicit in sustaining cruelty.

• Delay the inevitable; subsidising Marineland only postpones the reckoning, reducing the funds available for true sanctuaries and relocation logistics.

Free The Wild holds firm: Canadian authorities should not disburse any funds to Marineland beyond the narrow role of facilitating animal welfare (i.e. relocation assistance). No bridges, no extensions and absolutely no bailouts.

A Chance to Reset National and Global Norms

Canada is at a crossroads: with the Marineland collapse, it has the opportunity not merely to clean up one bad actor, but to rewrite the rules of how societies relate to captive marine mammals as a spectacle. Here’s what needs to happen next:

1. Immediate legislative reinforcement: Amend the 2019 Act to remove loopholes, increase penalties and explicitly mandate the timely relocation of all remaining cetaceans (and prohibit private proprietors from holding whales or dolphins under any future licence).

2. Substantial fines, criminal enforcement and closure orders: Operators caught in breach should face steep fines and criminal liability. Those who continue to house whales or dolphins contrary to law must be forced to close those exhibits immediately.

3. Sanctuary infrastructure and funding: The federal government (in partnership with provinces, philanthropy and NGOs) must commit to funding and scaling accredited sanctuaries, not as a subsidy to entertainment parks but as a public good, providing refuge to displaced marine mammals.

4. Public transparency, oversight and reporting: All marine mammal welfare operations in Canada (and the world, ideally) must be subjected to independent audits, public reporting, water and health metrics and regular unannounced inspections.

5. Education and cultural change: Support campaigns to shift public expectations: aquariums should reposition toward rescue, rehabilitation and marine conservation education, not live exhibitions of large cetaceans.

If Canada implements these measures, the Marineland debacle will become a turning point: the moment when one country said, “Never again.”

Boycott, Protest, Write.

This is not a distant issue. It bears directly on how we, as a species, choose to treat creatures far more intelligent, social and sentient than we often care to admit.

To all readers: PLEASE refuse to support aquariums or marine parks that keep whales or dolphins for entertainment. Do not buy tickets, do not endorse them. Use your voice, your wallet, your networks to shame captivity as obsolete, cruel and inconsistent with modern values.

To Canadian residents: write to your Member of Parliament, your provincial ministers responsible for fisheries, environment and wildlife and DEMAND no financial aid to Marineland, only strict enforcement, relocation funding to sanctuaries and a full ban on cetacean exhibitions. Urge them to turn this moment of crisis into a legacy of compassion, and reiterate that Marineland’s demise, as a private organisation, is not the tax-payer’s liability.

Let Canada send a message to the world: that whale and dolphin captivity is not a tolerated aberration, but an outlawed relic. Let this final act at Marineland be the opening chapter of a global movement toward sanctuary, not spectacle.

Thank you.

With resolve… and a little hope.

🧡

FTW