A fourth beluga whale death at the Shedd Aquarium in a matter of weeks has sparked questions surrounding the famed aquarium’s rescue attempt.
Osiris, a 26-year-old beluga, became the latest to pass away after being transferred to Chicago from the failed Marineland Park in Niagara Falls, Ontario.
Her death marks the third whale from the rescue effort and the fourth beluga death at the Shedd since July.
So what exactly happened?
What happened to Osiris?
Osiris was part of a second group of whales brought to the Shedd in a massive international rescue effort that spanned multiple countries.
On its blog, the Shedd said Osiris was “a whale of clinical concern for our veterinary and animal care teams.”
“Each rescued beluga came to Shedd with a distinct life history and health needs that could not be fully understood before their arrival,” the post read. “Osiris experienced periods of meaningful progress, both nutritionally and socially, but her overall condition remained closely monitored.”
She was not a “consistent” eater and was more challenging to care for when it came to providing her an appropriate amount of calories, nutrients and electrolytes, the Shedd said.
“After receiving fluids, medication, and other supportive care, Osiris’s appetite improved, and she began eating more consistently. We also saw her commanding personality emerge and become more engaged with the other rescued whales,” the aquarium wrote. “Those were encouraging signs, but nutrition is only one measure of health, and in cases as complex as these, progress is rarely linear.”
One morning, Osiris’ behavior and respiratory patterns suddenly changed and she was moved to the aquarium’s medical habitat “so immediate care could be provided if needed.”
“Her condition declined rapidly, and Osiris passed away despite lifesaving efforts by our veterinary and animal care teams,” the Shedd wrote.
Details surrounding her exact cause of death remain unknown, however.
Like other whales that recently passed, a necropsy will be conducted to provide further analysis on her condition. But the results of that will take time.
How many whales have died so far?
Osiris became the third of 10 rescued whales to pass away in Chicago. A fourth beluga also died recently at the aquarium, but that whale was not part of the rescue and was a resident at the facility.
The first whale death was reported to be a 23-year-old female beluga named Peekachu.
Then came two more deaths, including Rain, a 20-year-old female beluga, and Beethoven, a 34-year-old male beluga that was part of the Shedd’s “resident pod.” Both passed away “despite immediate efforts by animal care and veterinary teams to provide lifesaving measures,” a spokesperson for the aquarium said.
A spokesperson for the Shedd said it was unclear if the passings were “isolated or related” and further testing would be needed to determine the causes of their deaths.
Despite extensive efforts to ensure the wellbeing of the whales during transport and in their new home — the 3-million-gallon Abbott Oceanarium — some of the whales showed signs their health was struggling.
Peekachu’s blood samples before her death raised concerns that she was “dehydrated and needed supportive care,” the aquarium said. She died while teams worked to give her medicine and fluids.
“These losses are hard, made more difficult by the fact that it will take time to get concrete answers about what led to their passings,” the aquarium said in a statement. “Necropsies, blood tests and additional exams are underway to help better understand what happened. Some answers may come quickly, while others may take more time to come into focus.”
In addition to the Chicago deaths, a whale named Jelly Bean also died “suddenly and unexpectedly” at Oceanogràfic de València in Spain, according to José Rafael Serra, a spokesperson for the facility. The whale “experienced feeding difficulties, prompting the veterinary team to intensify her monitoring,” despite periods of improvement, Serra said in an email.
Why were the whales rescued?
The belugas came from the Marineland park and zoo in Niagara Falls, Ontario, which announced in early 2023 that it was for sale and closed to the public in late summer 2024. Twenty whales — 19 belugas and one killer whale — had died at Marineland since 2019, according to provincial government data obtained through freedom of information laws and official statements.
The Canadian government signed off on a last-minute agreement to move its last captive whales out of the country earlier this year, saving them from euthanasia.
Four of the whales were transported to Shedd in late July, then four more in early August, and a final two on Sept. 1.
Had they not been transferred, the Canadian park’s owners had threatened to euthanize the belugas because it could not care for them.
A beluga whale sanctuary off the coast of Nova Scotia is still a year or more away from completion, and is not yet fully funded.
“Remember they said they would kill these whales if they didn’t get funding or some relief from the situation,” Dr. Lori Marino, president of the Whale Sanctuary Project, told NBC Chicago. “So they wanted these whales out of there no matter what.”
The Georgia Aquarium and SeaWorld locations in San Diego and San Antonio have also accepted whales from the Canadian park.
The two rescued whales at the Georgia Aquarium showed decreased appetites and were examined, but no issues were found, the aquarium said in a social media post Friday. The whales at SeaWorld are in “stable health,” according to AnneMarie Iturrizaga, a spokesperson for the company that owns the parks.
What else to know
Experts have said the rescue mission would be challenging — and getting them to Chicago was only part of the journey.
Beluga whales are particularly vulnerable to changes in their environment, like climate change, pollution and other sources of stress, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association. Beluga whales native to the Cook Inlet on Alaska’s coast are classified as an endangered species, and their population rapidly declined by nearly 80% from 1979 to 2018.
“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 Shedd Aquarium said in a statement.
Marino said the whales were in no condition to be transferred to the Shedd and other zoos, including one in Spain that also lost a beluga over the weekend.
“We are not saying that the Shedd or any of these aquariums did anything necessarily wrong. They are dealing with the situation where you had 30 sick whales,” Marino said.
Andrew Trites, the director of the University of British Columbia’s Marine Mammal Research Unit, said it was concerning that the four belugas had died “so shortly after arriving in their new homes.”
The belugas were in small, confined spaces on the flights out of Marineland, but that’s not out of the ordinary for them, Trites said. The whales often swim in narrow spaces between sheets of ice, and “should be reasonably well adapted to that sort of condition,” he said.
“Four animals have died so shortly after arriving in the new homes, and that’s what stands out to me as being surprising,” Trites said.
Melissa Matlow with World Animal Protection questioned the animals’ veterinary assessments prior to their transfer.
“What did it say? Should they have been transported at all?” she said. “Animals go through a lot when they are transported and it’s not worth it if they are not going to survive the outcome.”
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