In a controversial decision, Vancouver’s Park Board voted unanimously on Thursday to allow the Vancouver Aquarium to keep cetaceans but ordered an end to the breeding of most whales and dolphins.
The vote came at special meeting came after more than a hundred speakers–sometimes heatedly–expressed their views on the controversial program over the course of three park board meetings.
Many of the speakers called for a phasing out of the aquarium program that permits whales and dolphins to be kept in captivity.
The board stopped short of demanding the aquarium phase out its whale and dolphin program, but it did ask aquarium and park staff to investigate alternatives to the exhibition of cetaceans.
It also ordered that an oversight committee be created. The committee would be charged with ensuring the safety and well-being of cetaceans in captivity.
The chairman of the Park Board, Aaron Jasper, said he believed the board struck a balance between supporting the aquarium’s good work and continuing the discussion of the ethics of keeping the animals in captivity.
In May, the world-renowned conservationist Jane Goodall wrote a letter to the aquarium saying on-site cetacean breeding is “no longer defensible by science.”
The aquarium houses rescued animals that cannot be returned to the ocean or animals that were born in captivity, and among its current residents are two Pacific white-sided dolphins, two harbour porpoises and two belugas.
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