Signed in as:
filler@godaddy.com
Please Donate Now
All donors and patrons are automatically entered into our monthly draw for a chance to spend a week at sea as part of our crew.
South Coast Fjord Sanctuary (near Burgeo, NL)
Broughton Archipelago B.C. (Thompson/Bond Sound, BC))
Mingan Archipelago, Québec (Gulf of St. Lawrence)
Mingan Archipelago, Québec (Gulf of St. Lawrence)
Broughton Archipelago B.C. (Thompson/Bond Sound, BC))
Mingan Archipelago, Québec (Gulf of St. Lawrence)
Broughton Archipelago B.C. (Thompson/Bond Sound, BC))
Broughton Archipelago B.C. (Thompson/Bond Sound, BC))
Broughton Archipelago B.C. (Thompson/Bond Sound, BC))
How We Got Here:
A Brief History of Marineland and Its Belugas
Marineland opened in 1961 in Niagara Falls, Ontario — not as a theme park, but as a small roadside attraction called Marine Wonderland and Animal Farm, founded by John Holer, a Slovenian immigrant and entrepreneur. Holer envisioned it as a place where families could get close to animals they would never otherwise encounter.
Through the 1970s and 1980s, Marineland grew rapidly. The whale stadium was built. The park’s signature song “Everyone Loves Marineland” played across Ontario radio.
For many children — myself included — Marineland was the first time we looked into the eye of a whale and felt the world change a little.
But behind the nostalgia, the world was shifting.
The Age of Captivity
When Marineland expanded, captivity was still seen as education. It was believed whales could inspire public love for oceans. And for a time, that was true.
But we learned.
The science evolved.
Public ethics evolved.
Understanding deepened.
By the 1990s and 2000s, global research began to show that cetaceans — whales, dolphins, belugas — are not simply animals, but highly social, culturally transmitted, emotionally intelligent beings. They form lifelong bonds, dialects, memory maps, grief practices, even humour.
The tanks stayed the same size.
The science did not.
The Turning Point
Reports of animal welfare concerns accumulated over time — from former trainers, veterinarians, government inspectors, and journalists.
Public trust began to fracture.
Canada’s conscience shifted.
In 2019, after years of pressure from scientists, Indigenous leaders, former trainers, NGOs, and the public, the federal government passed Bill S-203, effectively banning the breeding and display of cetaceans in captivity.
Suddenly, Marineland was no longer a park.
It became a holding place for animals who could not legally leave, and could not be released.
No one wrote a plan for what comes next.
And so the whales — especially the belugas, most of whom were born at Marineland — have existed in a kind of legal and moral limbo.
The Current Crisis
Today, Marineland houses:
- ~30 beluga whales
- 4 bottlenose dolphins
These animals cannot survive in the wild.
Their immune systems, social learning patterns, and foraging instincts were shaped in tanks, not seas.
Exportation was recently blocked by the federal government — closing the door to foreign transfer.
The park has signaled financial instability.
Concerns about veterinary care have resurfaced repeatedly.
The result is a historic moral responsibility:
We cannot leave the whales where they are.
We cannot release them into the wild.
And one sanctuary — even when completed — only has space for a fraction of them.
Which is how we got here.
To this moment.
To this chance.
The Opportunity in Front of Us
We now stand at a crossroads Canada has never faced before:
Do we let these whales fade quietly into the past?
Or do we build a future that honours what they are — and what they have meant to us?
This is where the three-sanctuary solution comes in.
Not as protest.
Not as punishment.
But as responsibility.
Because if Marineland was the story of how we loved the ocean without knowing how,
then the sanctuaries are the story of how we love the ocean differently now.
The Past Is Written.
The Future Is Not.
And we have one last chance to write it well.
