Baby beluga an instant favorite
VANCOUVER, B.C. – For now, they’re just calling her “the baby.”
The as-yet-unnamed newborn beluga whale at the Vancouver Aquarium was nursing and exploring its new home Wednesday, a day after its birth.
Her mother, Qila, was born at the aquarium in 1995.
“The chance to see two births, to see a calf that you saw born back in ‘95 actually give birth, was just phenomenal,” said Clint Wright, vice president of aquarium operations, who’s been working there for nearly two decades. “It’s just one of those once-in-a-lifetime opportunities.”
On Tuesday afternoon, a crowd of staff, volunteers and aquarium visitors cheered as the as-yet-unnamed calf wriggled from its mother’s womb and swam up to the surface to take its first breath.
“The calf was so strong and feisty and was just fantastic right from the get-go,” said Wright.
Qila was alone in the main beluga area during the birth, and her mother, Aurora, was in an adjacent pool separated by clear glass. Aurora has since been returned to the main pool.
Two other belugas, Imaq and Kavna, have been moved to another area to give the calf and mother space, and they’ll stay apart for at least the next several weeks.
Staff will be monitoring the calf around the clock for the next few months.
“They’ll watch nursing, watching to make sure that continues to progress well, watching the calf’s growth very, very closely, watching pretty much everything just to look for trends in behavior to make sure there’s no problems,” Wright said. “And then over the next few months, assuming everything goes well, we’ll be gradually introducing some of the other belugas.”
The aquarium hasn’t picked a name yet for the newest member of its pod.
Qila’s name – which is the first part of the Inuit word for beluga – was chosen by a 6-year-old boy as part of a name competition.
“I’m sure in a few weeks they will come up with some plan to name it, but at this point it’s just ‘the baby,’ ” he said. “I imagine there will probably be some opportunity for people to give their input.”
Lifeforce, a group opposed to the captivity of whales, called for a boycott.
“Lifeforce hopes to counteract the pro-captivity propaganda by a multimillion-dollar entertainment industry that will seek to capitalize on the recent birth of a beluga at the Vancouver Aquarium,” group founder Peter Hamilton said in a statement.
“Being born in captivity is a life sentence and is tantamount to locking a child in a room for their entire life,” the statement said.
There are now five belugas at the aquarium.
The aquarium obtained its first – Kavna – in 1976, seven years after the animal was captured in the frigid waters of the Hudson Bay off Churchill, Manitoba. Imaq and Kavna were captured in the same waters in the late 1980s, as was another male beluga, Nanuq, who has since been transferred from the Vancouver Aquarium to Sea World in San Antonio.
After Aurora was brought to the aquarium, the facility scrapped its direct-capture policy and decided to only accept whales and dolphins that had been injured or born in captivity.
Aurora gave birth to another whale, Tuvaq, in 2002, but it mysteriously died three years later.