During my travels I visited an Aquarium. I am not usually a fan of seeing any animal in captivity but my curiosity about seeing whales there was too strong. This is my own account of what I saw and felt during my visit.
I had a look around at all the different animals, including a couple of dolphins that still lived in the park. They looked a little lonely and I was a bit upset about them being in a concrete home instead of in the ocean.
On I went to the Beluga enclosure. I had never seen Beluga, except on TV but I had read up about them and I was very excited to look at these unique and special whales up close.
I went into the auditorium. There were concrete seats in a half circle, going down to the pool which was in the centre.
I walked down the gangway to the pool and spotted my first Beluga. These whales are also known as the Ghost Whale and I guessed at first that this was because they are pure white. They have quite a bulbous head and their whole bodies looked like they were made of lots of blubber that seemed to ripple as they moved. There were five animals here, in the same enclosure and they were very quiet. I noticed this the most because I had read that beluga Whales were one of the most chatty of all the whales. Normally they talk to each other a lot in the wild. This group was silent in an eerie kind of way. They slowly swam around their tiny tank and they looked positively bored. The whale nearest to me, at the edge of the pool looked me right in the eye and it was a look of sadness and loneliness. It cut me to my core I must admit.
I went below the auditorium, where there was a massive glass screen that showed the whales swimming underwater. I went right up to it and stood and stared at the whales for a long time. This was when I confirmed exactly why they are called the Ghost Whale. As they swam by, looking at me with a mixture of curiosity and perhaps a call for rescue, their bodies rippled so much that they reminded me of ‘Casper’ the ghost, from the movies. They have a distinctive shape and the way it moves so freely makes them different to any other whale I have seen. They are beautiful creatures, with the most heavenly of faces. Their mouths were formed to make it look like they were permanently smiling but I knew it was not for the reasons they should have been.
15 minutes later, the ‘show’ was announced to be starting and I came back up to the main stage to see what what was happening beforehand. I saw a massive change in the whale’s attitudes. They started to move faster, make more noises and looked a little more excited to be there. People started to fill the auditorium and we were asked to take our seats. I decided to stand at the top, right at the back and up high so that I could see exactly what was going on.
I was wearing my sunglasses because it was quite sunny on that day. What I did not know was that I would be so pleased I had them on, to hide the utter sorrow that I felt for these ‘performing pets’.
The reason the Belugas started to talk quickly became very obvious. It was feeding time and they must have been so hungry. They did not just get given the food though, oh no. They had to put on an energetic show in order for them to receive their prizes.
So they did jumps, twists, turns and interactions with their humans whilst everyone clapped and cheered them on. All except for me. I spent the entire time wiping my tears away that had escaped under my sunglasses. I felt so sad for these whales, so sorry for them being away from their kind and so devastated that this was what their life entailed, for the pleasure of mankind.
I was relieved when the show ended and shocked at how quickly the whales went back into their silence and boredom to await their next performance.
I was so happy to leave the place and felt lucky that I could. If only I could have taken them with me and released them. Then I had a terrible thought. Even if I could free them it would not be right. They were nowhere near where they should have been. Nowhere near their Arctic homeland. They would not have survived in this warmer ocean but my thought of a rescue has never left me to this day!
I really hope that one day soon all captured Ocean Creatures will be released back into the wild, in the right way of course. I know that this has already started to happen and I am so happy and grateful to see every rescue and release that occurs.
I also hope that no other animal is taken from its family for the sole purpose of earning a pretty penny? Well, I can dream can’t I…?
Whales and Tales 