A third rescued beluga whale has died at Chicago’s Shedd Aquarium, leaving seven survivors from a controversial Canadian relocation effort still under intensive care.
Osiris, 26, began showing abnormal behavior and respiratory patterns Monday morning at the Illinois facility, aquarium staff said in a statement. Her condition declined rapidly despite emergency intervention by veterinary and animal care teams, and she died the same day.
The female beluga had struggled since her July arrival from Marineland of Canada, a defunct Ontario aquarium and theme park that shuttered in 2024. “From the time she arrived, Osiris remained a whale of clinical concern for our veterinary and animal care teams,” the aquarium said.
She showed intermittent improvement during her months in Chicago. After receiving fluids, medications and other supportive care, she began interacting more with fellow rescued whales and displayed what staff called her “commanding personality.” She also made nutritional and social progress at times.
Yet Osiris never developed consistent eating habits compared to the other relocated animals, complicating her recovery from the start. “Nutrition is only one measure of health,” the aquarium noted.
Her death marks the fourth fatality among belugas rescued from Marineland. Two other whales, Peekachu and Rain, died earlier at Shedd after the same July transfer. A fourth rescued beluga, Jelly Roll, perished following relocation to Spain rather than Chicago.
Shedd took in 10 of the 30 belugas and four dolphins left stranded when Marineland closed, part of a scramble to prevent mass euthanasia of the animals. The Chicago facility has monitored the remaining whales’ health continuously since transport, describing the effort as “minute-by-minute” and now “day by day, hour by hour.”
The Ontario facility’s history adds context to the rescue’s urgency. Since 2019, 20 whales died at Marineland, according to provincial government data obtained through freedom of information requests and official statements. Belugas typically live 30 to 35 years in the wild, research indicates.
Osiris’s cause of death remains undetermined pending a full necropsy. The aquarium pledged to examine her loss with what it called “scientific rigor and open-hearted transparency.”
The rescue mission carried known risks from its inception. “When Shedd was asked to help with this rescue, we understood that these animals arrived with significant vulnerabilities and that the outcome for every individual could not be guaranteed,” the aquarium said.
That uncertainty, staff added, “does not lessen the heartbreak of Osiris’s loss.”
Her brief time in Chicago still mattered, the facility insisted: “Though Osiris was with us for far less time than we had hoped, her care was never measured by its length.”
