The Shedd Aquarium on Friday morning released preliminary medical findings of the deaths of three beluga whales, two of which passed away after being transferred to Chicago from the shuttered Marineland Park in Niagara Falls, Ontario.
The findings from the Shedd come from a post-mortem necropsy investigation into the deaths of rescued belugas Peekachu and Rain and longtime Shedd resident Beethoven.
“Shedd veterinarians, working alongside external veterinary pathologists and academic clinical specialists, have identified significant, chronic gastrointestinal disease in Peekachu and Rain and age-associated health changes in Beethoven,” the Shedd said in a lengthy statement.
The statement added that the investigation may not lead to one definitive cause of death, and that the Shedd has found “no evidence of a shared infectious disease or common environmental factor connecting all three deaths.”
Rescued belugas has chronic inflammatory disease
According to the statement, microscopic examination found Peekachu, 23, and Rain, 20, to have chronic inflammatory disease within their gastrointestinal systems.
“The inflammation was found to be significant in Peekachu and severe in Rain,” the Shedd said.
Officials at the Shedd said it’s likely the disease had been present for an extended period, “potentially months or years.” The findings indicate the disease began before the whales arrived at the Shedd and compromised their health, “rendering them more vulnerable and sensitive.”
“These findings may not isolate every factor that have influenced their decline, but they do establish that an underlying chronic disease was present,” the Shedd said. “An animal’s condition can change quickly when the body is no longer able to compensate.”
The findings also showed foreign material inside Peekachu’s stomach, including bird feathers, sticks and large rocks, which the Shedd said Peekachu was believed to have ingested prior to her rescue.
The Shedd went on to say that each rescued beluga was screened for known communicable diseases prior to being transferred to Chicago.
Beethoven’s examination revealed different findings, the Shedd said. According to officials, the 34-year-old beluga had “several health changes associated with aging,” including changes impacting his cardiovascular system.
The statement did not provide any findings regarding the recent death of Osiris, the third beluga rescue to die. According to the Shedd, two other rescues, Secord and Caspian remain its “whales of greatest clinical concern.”
“Our teams continue to monitor them and the other rescued belugas around the clock,” the Shedd said.
The full statement from the Shedd can be found here.
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 whether the deaths were “isolated or related”
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.
Despite extensive efforts to ensure the well-being of the whales during transport and in their new home, the 3-million-gallon Abbott Oceanarium, some of the whales showed signs that their health was struggling.
“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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