My Grief for Maris; My Plea For Natasha - I love beluga whales more than the Georgia Aquarium (and other marine parks):
[TL;DR but please, please read. This took a lot to do as I had to type it while I’ve been crying and fighting back intense emotions. Please take a few minutes to read this and support me if only a little. <3]
^to quote Ric O’Barry “the smile is deceiving”
I’ve been feeling low all week. I’m aware it’s a depressive episode. All the symptoms are there. But now that I have a “reason” to cry, I can’t stop.
I’m passionate about whales and I care about all of them. I hate what people have done to them and continue to do them. I’ll always fight for animals to have freedom away from human greed and their own autonomy. That will never stop. I’ll always be an advocate for animals. ..But…
Whales became personal for me because I grew up going to the NYC Aquarium. It was my favorite place. Especially the beluga whales. Marina, Natasha, and Maris. I was mesmerized by them. I remember being a little kid seeing Natasha with Maris, who was just a little gray baby (that’s how and when I learned belugas aren’t born white) and just enjoying everything about them. I read every book I could find in the library. I read every information spot on every diorama in Hall of Ocean Life in the Museum of Natural History. The more I learned the more I loved. But as I learned more I felt a little sad to see them in a small tank.
As part of my Girl Scout program we were asked for volunteer at places. Most girls did easy local things like visiting seniors or babysitting. I volunteered at the Aquarium. Of all the zoos in NYC they were doing the worst, financially. They were desperate for money, desperate for help. Despite the amazing animals they couldn’t compete with fancier facilities like the Mystic or SeaWorld, their animals didn’t perform. With limited space and less money they also couldn’t make the exhibits look modern and cool the way other facilities could. So not many people were interested. The other zoos, especially the Bronx Zoo, could update and stay interesting and that i turn kept getting people. To the point where zoos like the Bronx Zoo and Central Park Zoo are city staples and on the lists of places for tourism. But not the aquarium. I couldn’t think of any other place I wanted to spend my free time.
I didn’t much care for the dolphins at the time. Not that I don’t like dolphins, but the tank they were in was small and they were bored and frustrated. So they acted like assholes. I still have scars from where one bit me when I was feeding it. I didn’t work with the dolphins after that and they didn’t blame me. They thought I was brave for trying. But I loved the belugas. I’d go in to help hose off the inside of the enclosure. I’d clean the windows on the outside. I’d help thaw out frozen fish and squid to feed them. Feeding them was the best. While they didn’t perform, they did announce feedings and so they’d do little tricks at times for visitors as they were being fed. Never forced, though. They were always guaranteed food. Marina was very bonded to one of the keepers, she wasn’t too friendly to me. But Natasha was. Natasha grew to recognize me in an instant, and her daughter Maris did the same. I would go i with the keeper for enrichment and hold out targets for them and throw balls. I didn’t even care when Natasha would splash me and get Maris to do it. I’d splash back. I did this every summer until 2003. And during the school year when I’d go just as a visitor Natasha and Maris would always take time to swim up to the window and say hi. When I had to move to Texas it disrupted a lot in my life. It took away many connections I’d developed as a neurotic autistic child.
When I visited my dad a couple years later for a holiday for longer than a long weekend we went to the aquarium. It was 2005. I immediately went looking for the belugas. but they were gone. They said due to lack of funding they couldn’t afford to adequately keep whales and dolphins anymore and in time would figure out another use for the space. The belugas were sent to another facility for care (they didn’t say where). It hurt, but I knew they were alive and I knew how small the tank was and how much the aquarium was hurting financially. I knew it was a good decision.
Marina died in 2007* (some sources say 09) but I didn’t find out until later. Georgia Aquarium was not prepared for belugas.(The aquarium itself opened in freakin 2005! Brand new!) They had others from other facilities that kept dying not long after they opened. They redid their enclosure at the end of the 2000s and sent their belugas to SeaWorld San Antonio until they were done. The revamp finished in 2010. They took back all of their belugas…. except Natasha. Their claim was the construction was already stressful on Natasha as she was older and moving her around again would upset her more and hurt her. (I realize now it was because she’s docile enough SeaWorld can use her in shows and especially their interactive programs but she’s too old to rely on to breed again.)
Maris went back to Georgia without her mother. Still a teenager. Barely hit reproductive age. But because she was able to reproduce they started to breed her. Her first calf died not long after it was born. They say it was a freak thing. But anyone who knows whales knows it’s because Maris was young and wasn’t taught how to be a mother, nor did she even have her mother with her to help her with pregnancy and birth. But they didn’t think about that or if they did, didn’t care. So they waited a bit, tried working with other whales of theirs (with little success) and then started petitioning to import belugas being held in Russia that were freshly caught from the wild to build stock (still has yet to be approved because at least some of our laws work). Last year Maris got pregnant from one of their males at 20 years old and gave birth this past May barely 21 years old. Her calf died a month after it was born. The aquarium still won’t tell the truth why that happened. Wild whales have their first babies in their late teens/early 20s and do so around other whales with help from their family, especially their mothers. They spend years around other whales with calves to learn about it. They aren’t left to do it alone, to figure it out alone. But Maris was.
[I’d like to note that in the time after the supposed “revamp” of the beluga exhibit, many of their captive belugas they got on “loans” from other facilities kept dying. Babies born to mothers other than Maris died. Young adults died. Males and females. Yet this apparently wasn’t a sign. To put it in perspective with the exception of Natasha (who got ditched) when they redid the beluga tank and reopened it and brought them back there was a good half dozen belugas at least (not counting the couple of babies that popped out not longer after they got settled in. Yet now with Maris gone there’s only 2 left. The two left are captive born from Sea World Texas, one male and one female. The male , Grayson, is 8 years old. The female, Qinu is 7. Not old enough to breed. The others have either died or transferred but I only found one documentation of confirmed transfer. The sire of Maris’s second calf was relocated to the Shedd Aquarium in Chicago with no public reasons given (he was moved this year, but was born in SeaWorld San Antonio and then moved to Georgia in 2010). You’d think if they wanted more whales they’d not transfer whales everywhere unless bad things were happening, as getting captive whales on loan from other facilities is easier, likely cheaper, and more legal than trying to import fresh wild whales from another country.]
Maris just lost her second live born baby. She’s in a tank with two other whales she doesn’t know, didn’t grow up with. Her mother is gone. All the humans around her just feed her and check her stats, sometimes play with her. But they don’t pay attention. It’s likely at this point they were already checking her to see when they could possibly breed her next. Since that’s currently their only way to get more belugas until they can import them.
Then today Maris was reported dead. At 21 years old. (I still vividly remember her as a tiny gray beautiful baby playing with her mother, healthy and content.) They say she was acting fine. She was eating. She showed no sign of illness. The tank conditions were fine. They’re going to perform a necropsy to determine the cause.
I can say if the necropsy comes up and they shrug because it shows nothing. No disease, no obstruction (sometimes they chew things in enclosures), no chemicals from the water being off…. Whales and dolphins get depression. They get mental illness. The industry knows this. Most of the captive orcas are on antipsychotics and medications like Xanax and Valium to keep them calm and to try to reduce aggression especially in dominant females and hormone driven males. Dolphins are treated with medications for ulcers all the time from stress. This is a known thing. These animals can suffer mentally, emotionally. And unlike humans, they’re not automatic air breathers. Every breath is a choice they make. And at any time they can choose not to come up for their next breath.
If the necropsy comes up with something that’s not poisoning, tank-related, or illness - bullshit that’s their way of saying “sometimes these things happen” or they try to say she was old (21 is not old for a beluga by any means) the most likely reason is that she did it herself. She didn’t get over the death of her baby. (It hasn’t even been 6 months yet. Humans can take years to get over grief like that. And whales who are emotionally sensitive beings, who knows how long it takes for them.) And she didn’t have any family around her. She didn’t have her mother to go to. The other whales are strangers to her. She may have been born in captivity but she didn’t grow up with them. She was alone. Alone with her grief in a place she couldn’t escape. She very well could’ve just decided she had enough, dove to the bottom and decided to stay there. And I wouldn’t blame her. As hard as it is for me to imagine the energetic spirited little Maris I saw in NYC with her mom to do that. After all she’s been through, I’d understand.
They’ll say these things happen but not blame themselves. When they did it. They bred her too soon before she was ready. They left her mother in San Antonio meaning she had no support. No one to help her be ready. They had her experience loss of a baby twice and subject her to social issues with strange whales on a daily basis. That all takes a toll. She was only 21. 21 and lost two live babies (and I believe she’s had a miscarriage in between as well). 21 and “lost” her mother at 19 not knowing if she’d see her again. They stripped her life from her. And they expected everything to be okay? They thought she’d be over the death of her baby, the second live baby of hers to die, in only a few months? They thought because she complied with their routines and took their food she was okay? No. They did this to her. They claim to be “experts” but real experts know whale families especially mothers and children stick together for life in most species (and belugas are one of those species). If they were experts they’d know these animals experience stress as well as mental and emotional issues. If they were experts they’d know you can’t stick random whales who don’t know each other together and expect everything to be okay.
The people at the Georgia Aquarium are not Marine Animal Experts or actual scientists. They’re what happens when someone sees SeaWorld in their prime (90s and early 2000s) and think it’s a good idea. They just couldn’t get orcas. The Georgia Aquarium is new. It’s not an established facility. It’s barely a decade old. They’re corporate shills masquerading as science and education (when they’ve yet to release any peer reviewed scientific papers - at least SeaWorld has done that much!). Home Depot sponsored their giant tank that houses whale sharks and manta rays. Animals that are extremely difficult to keep in captivity and frequently die. They try to hide this by having several at a time (so there’s no lone whale shark/manta ray that people question its disappearance when it dies and they’re looking for another). But they don’t have long captive lifespans. It’s why older more established aquariums don’t keep them. (Yet these older facilities do surprisingly well. Monterey Bay is a perfect example.) They want exotic and novel to get money and that’s it. The experts they have aren’t experts on marine life. They’re experts on how to make money. They have dolphins that do shows. Tricks for food. In a stadium like setting.
Their penguins didn’t come from thin air -a source (-cough-SeaWorldmostlikely-cough-) went to Antarctica RECENTLY to “save” (ie capture) wild penguins and gave them to various affiliated facilities, GA included, on “breeding loans”. So GA can use this code, that these were captive penguins they got from elsewhere as rescues, on loan, rather than the truth. All smoke and mirrors to get money. To get money in ticket sales. To get money in their food court and gift stores. To get money in “animal encounter” experiences where they allow people who love animals to get up close and personal in the enclosures not knowing anything really about those animals or how they came to be there, but they love them enough to pay money so they can have the chance to see an animal in person they otherwise never would in the wild. Like it’s a right. (Reality check - no, it’s not. Animals don’t exist for you to gawk at, to touch. To be in your line of sight. No matter how much you “love” them.) They prey on people who love animals by selling them these experiences. Claim the money goes to help the animals when really it goes into their pockets because nothing about their facility, their business, or their industry is honest.
This is so personal because I love whales. I love belugas. And I want what’s best for them. And what’s best for them isn’t in a tank around people. What’s best for them isn’t to be someplace convenient where I can see them when I want to (captivity). What’s best for them is to be in the ocean with other belugas. And instead of captivity we pay money to fight pollution, whaling, and other risks that hurt them in the wild. We pay to support eco friendly expeditions for people to see them in their natural habitats. We pay for researchers to study them, to photograph them, make films of them to teach people. We pay for these facilities to set up live streaming video feeds so people CAN see them at their leisure (just not in person) [there’s a couple of feeds set up in Canada that do quite well and get amazing footage]. That’s what’s best for them and that’s what people should pay for.
I love Natasha. My heart breaks that her daughter is gone and she’ll never know how alone she truly is now. Every minute I had with her and her daughter was a gift I will never forget. But I know now I had no right to even be in their presence like that. Their existence shouldn’t have been in a tank. I love Natasha but I hate that she’s in captivity. I hate that she was caught in the wild in the 80s and been stuck in tank after tank since (but was amazing mother she learned a lot during her time when she was still wild, she was so good with Maris). I love Natasha and I hate that she’s stuck in a tank. Especially a SeaWorld tank. With no hope of freedom. With no family left. Nothing familiar left. (I doubt anyone from NYC back int he day goes to see her or anything.) The moment I had with her this past May was amazing. That she recognized me years later. That she did our thing. That was amazing and that proves how incredible she is and her species is. She hadn’t seen me in over a decade but remembered. I was familiar. But my heart hurt to see her there surrounded by strange whales. As when I was there I found out Maris just had a calf in Georgia. Without Natasha. Natasha didn’t know she’d become a grandmother. She didn’t get to be with her daughter, to help her. My heart sank hearing that information despite being elated moments before when I got to reconnect with my old friend. I love Natasha but hate her current existence.
She was caught in the wild. I know where. She still has family out there, even if not her own mother. Siblings. Cousins. Others who speak her language, know her culture. I was hesitant at first about pushing for her freedom because she had Maris in captivity and Maris may not have done well being brought to the ocean even with her mother (because tanks are very sterile captive born whales don’t build immunity to natural things in the ocean). But now her captive family is gone. She’s not too old. As far as the wild goes, she’s at a prime age. She may be too old to breed again, but she’s not too old to rejoin her original family and help them. She’s not too old to be a true beluga again. Marina died in a tank only a few years after her transfer from NYC. Both of Maris’s babies died in a tank. Maris just died in a tank, with no babies, without her mother. I don’t want Natasha to go the same way. She’s Big Mama whale. She’s the original Mama Beluga. She deserves better.
They may not be able to set orcas free right now but I don’t see a damn good reason why they can’t let Natasha go. Not all belugas just her. NYC documented where she was caught. It’d be easy to identify the pod and set up a sea pen. And then get her out of SeaWorld (there’s plenty of belugas there and they breed fairly well aside from her personality itself they won’t miss her not being there). Put her back in the ocean. Get researchers and old keepers to help her remember how to catch fish. Prep her with vaccinations and vitamins so she can be ready for everything in the ocean water again to make up for any lost immunity when she was captive. And have the seapen close enough so she can hear the passing pods. So she can sing to them and they can sing back. And when she remembers how to catch fish and communicates with other belugas, all signs of being ready, she’s let go to join them. It would be the greatest thing any human can do for her. To make up for everything that’d been taken away since her capture. Of course, nothing will ever be enough to make up for her tankmate, Marina, or her mate who died in the early 90s (also wild caught from her region), or other babies she had in captivity who didn’t last long, and especially not enough to make up for being separated from her daughter and not be able to help her be a mother whale which led her daughter to heartbreak and her own demise. Nothing will ever be enough to make up for the death of Maris, her precious daughter. Especially if everything offered is offered to her in captivity. The best thing to do is to do what’s right. Get her prepared medically with vaccinations and supplements, get a seapen set up and return her to her wild family. Take her back home. Because she has nothing left where she is now.
I loved those belugas. Even Marina and others I didn’t know well. But I loved Maris and Natasha. I’m still crying hours after reading about Maris and typing this. I remember when Maris was a little gray happy, singing, twirling thing ignorant of the world around her just knowing everything’s okay so long as she has her mom and nice people to play with her and give her fish. I watched her turn white and get bigger but still have that sprit. Always energetic and playful. Maris and Natasha were a team. They loved to play with keepers by splashing and grabbing toys. I remember this happy, lively spirit.
I also remember, the one time I was at the Georgia Aquarium (for Dragon*Con - I didn’t know much about them at the time), I left the crowd to get some quiet. And the quietest spot was by the belugas. Well, the one window that was uncovered as it was technically after hours. Like when I was a kid I found peace and solace in belugas so I sat on a ledge in front of the window. And I saw whales swimming around as they do. And one kept circling close to me over and over again. It went up for air then came back down and pressed its melon to the glass, blowing some bubbles. It was cute. But it also seemed oddly tired. Like something was wrong. Like it was trying to tell me something. I realize now that when I went to sit by the belugas that was Maris. Maris also recognized me. She came over to try to say hi the best she could. But I didn’t recognize her because she didn’t have the same energy, what she was doing was cute, but it wasn’t her. But she saw me. She knew me. She’d seen me do that before, relax by the wall of a beluga tank. And she was trying to do what she used to do all those years ago. But I didn’t recognize it, because I didn’t see the happy lively Maris spirit in her eyes. At the time I didn’t know it was her, even with the board near the tank listing the names of whales in the tank and Maris being on there. It was Maris. She was trying to connect to a familiar face from her past, something she probably didn’t get to do often. But this was a different time. When she’d lost a calf and been separated from her mother for a few years. The Maris spirit wasn’t the same. If she hadn’t even approached me and hung out even looking back I wouldn’t think it was her or another whale (as belugas generally do like to check people out who hang out by the tank they just don’t always stick around very long). But she stayed by that wall, only moving to go up to breathe, as long as I sat there. Which was comforting for me. As being around belugas always has been but I realize now that comfort in a way came from Maris. For all I know I was the highlight of her day, even her week that night. Even if I didn’t recognize her at the time or have any fish to feed her.
^her eyes don’t have the same spirit in Georgia
And that memory makes me glad that the last time I saw her wasn’t over a decade ago in New York. I did get to see her one last time. And she still remembered me. I just wish I knew it was her at the time because her spirit was different. But I know now, and my heart feels heavy that despite everything she’d been through since I last saw her, she remembered me. Remembered me as a friend. And wanted to connect again. I hope it didn’t hurt her that I didn’t recognize her at the time, rather I was just smiling, laughing, and happy to play with her through the glass because she was there, like I probably would have done if another whale did that. But now that I remember and can put the pieces together I’m grateful for that last connection with her two years ago [and after learning more about GA I decided to never go back as much as I love Maris because of what they do, and my anger at them only increased when she had her calf this year and it died].
There is a selfish part in me that wishes I could’ve at least been there recently To see how she was doing after the death of her calf, to try to talk to someone there about getting Natasha back to see if they would listen, to tell Maris how sorry I am her life had to turn out this way so painful, so sad, and so lonely, to tell her she’s always had a place in my heart and always will, to tell her she did the best she could and not to blame herself, the babies are in a better place than that thank, and….. To say goodbye properly. Because those of us who knew her in NY have just as much right to grief as the “experts” in GA do. Because the GA staff and “experts” have never known Maris the way the people in NYC did. They may have briefly but not for long. The Maris there is not the NY Maris. They’ll never know the real Maris, her true spirit, her inner light. Because rather than treat her with love and care all she was to them was a means to make more whales. Between separating her from her mother, and breeding her over and over with strange males she didn’t know resulting in two live births where the calves then died (and there may have been miscarriage as well which hurts emotionally and mentally to them as well). Of course they’ll never know the real Maris. Her spirit. Her light. Because they broke her spirit. They dimmed her light. They don’t know Maris like NYC did. They have no more right over grief and mourning over her than the people in NYC who knew her.
But of course none of us humans, no matter how we knew her or where we knew her, knew her and loved her as much as her mother. So if anyone has the most rights to say goodbye and grieve it’s Natasha. But knowing the industry she’ll never get the chance. She’ll continue life not knowing, even maybe continuing to have hope they’ll be reunited (though that will happen one day it won’t be in a tank or the ocean but in the big blue in the sky with other families no longer on this earth) …. part of me, while I’d be even more devastated because it’d mean my whole NYC whale family is dead especially the real Mama Beluga, feels maybe it’d also be best for Natasha as well. To join her daughter (and other deceased wild family members, and her mate who helped make Maris) up in whatever afterlife or heaven there is for belugas.
Rather than languish alone in a SeaWorld pool with other belugas who aren’t her family, especially if there’s just no way in hell anything could or would be done to take her back to Canadian waters to rehabilitate and reunite her with her wild populations. As she wasn’t born in captivity. She was born in the cold waters near Canada. She’s 100% pure wild beluga mama. so if the industry is too selfish to free an older healthy beluga [who serves no purpose for them breeding wise and is little help with the other belugas they have who have calves since they’re not related, all she’s good for is public interaction programs] and bring her back to her family (which is known) . She’s not even middle aged, she’s not sick or weak. If introduced back into the wild near her family there’d be a high success rate of her rejoining her kind, finding her pod, and living out the rest of her life in freedom. Whether it’s only a few months, a few years, or even longer (you can’t predict how long a whale, even a wild caught whale kept in captivity will live once returned to the ocean because not all damage from captivity is obvious or visible or even shows up in behaviors - even if they remember how to hunt for themselves and decide not to bother much with people).
There’s a lot going in her favor to take the slow sea pen approach to reintroducing her to the wild. But knowing the industry, SeaWorld especially, even though she’s not a million dollar making machine like an orca they wouldn’t be likely to be cool with people taking her home. Because if that’s successful that would only mean more pushes to retire other animals, like orcas, especially the ones left who were wild caught, but not exactly return them to their families due to psychological damage rather let them live in the ocean in a big sea pen while still getting looked after by humans while also able to feel the rhythms of the ocean and hear other whales out there. And if people want to see them they can pay some money (which would pay the staff and such who take care of them there as due to all the years in captivity and physical and mental issues they have they would need people tending to them). It would be more dignified, especially if work was made to keep the pens filtered and free of pollutants. A real sanctuary they can experience life in the ocean until they die and that would be the show. The show would be learning from mistakes and truly doing right by animals. [The captive borns make it tricky but some actual experts believe that if properly prepared on the medical front with vaccines, immune system boosters supplements, etc they’d be okay to join their captive families in the pens. But they all agree still wouldn’t be fit to be in the wild itself there’s no pod to take them no pod would understand their Captive Culture.]
Despite knowing this. Despite knowing the obstacles and the battles and how selfish the “enemy” really is, I will keep fighting for Natasha and I want others to do the same. I want people to know of Natasha and Maris and what the industry did to them after NYC made the difficult choice to end their cetacean program. Which should set the standard for all aquariums and marine experiences not just the expense involve but just the ethics of it. But because it was only seen as a decision made because of money the rest of the industry just responded with dollar signs in their eyes. Even still, despite all that, despite the corporate greed, I want to keep fighting and for others to join the fight. I want people to know the truth of Natasha, Maris (and Marina). I don’t want them to disappear into the void as both deceased and living captive animals tend to do.
^in Georgia - Nico (RIP), Maris (RIP), and Natasha
It’s not just orcas and dolphins the industry is harming, belugas suffer just as much but you hardly see anyone speak for them. I’ll speak for them. I’ll never stop speaking for them and I encourage all of you, my friends, to do the same. Because not only is it the morally right thing to do, but it’s personal. It’s for my old friends. It’s to honor Maris and what could have been. And it’s to fight for Natasha and give more hope that her life can be better because that’s what she deserves. So please fight with me. Fight for the original Mama Beluga any way you can, anywhere you can. These tragedies must stop. Natasha needs people on her side more than ever!
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