A 23-year-old beluga whale died at Chicago’s Shedd Aquarium just days after being rescued from a shuttered Canadian marine park.
Peekachu, a female beluga, died suddenly Tuesday evening as caretakers attempted to rehydrate her, the aquarium announced in a news release. She was one of eight whales moved from Marineland park in Ontario to the Chicago facility this summer — four in July and four more this month.
The Canadian government approved a plan in January to export Marineland’s remaining whales to the Shedd Aquarium and four other marine parks abroad. Marineland shut its doors in 2024, triggering an urgent effort to relocate its 30 beluga whales and four dolphins before they faced euthanasia.
Twenty whales — 19 belugas and one killer whale — have died at Marineland since 2019, according to provincial government data obtained through freedom-of-information laws and official statements.
The complex rescue operation involved hoisting the whales in custom-made slings and transporting them in temperature-controlled containers, aquarium officials previously said. Their behavior and health were monitored to the minute once they arrived in Chicago.
Peekachu was blind in one eye and had difficulty socializing with fellow whales, the aquarium disclosed in its announcement about her death.
The whale showed “early signs of progress” in the days following her transport, but blood samples taken Tuesday raised concerns that she was dehydrated. As aquarium attendants tried to revitalize her with food and medicine that evening, she died, according to the aquarium.
The Shedd Aquarium said it is committed to sharing a necropsy report of the whale “as soon as we have one.”
Marineland’s remaining whales and dolphins are slated to move to Georgia Aquarium in Atlanta, SeaWorld locations in San Antonio and San Diego, and Oceanografic Valencia in Spain.
In the viral moment that preceded this tragedy, Marineland’s closure in 2024 set off an international race against time to find homes for dozens of captive marine mammals. The Ontario park had become synonymous with controversy over animal welfare, with provincial records showing twenty whale deaths there since 2019 alone. The Canadian government’s January approval of export permits to five facilities across three countries represented a rare coordinated effort to prevent mass euthanasia of animals that could not be released into the wild.
The Shedd Aquarium’s summer operation marked one of the largest beluga rescue and relocation efforts in recent memory, with eight whales transported hundreds of miles from Ontario to Chicago in two separate groups.
The remaining Marineland whales are expected to complete their transfers to Georgia Aquarium, SeaWorld San Antonio, SeaWorld San Diego, and Oceanografic Valencia.