It must be tough being a baby beluga. Especially if you’re born in a fishbowl.
First, you have to be adorable like the baby beluga in the Raffi song or like the plush toys they sell in the gift shop of the Vancouver Aquarium.
Then you have to have a cool, First Nations-sounding name, like Tiqa. It helps if it has “Q” in it.
Then you have to make it to adulthood, and if the fishbowl you’re born in happens to be the Vancouver Aquarium, the odds of that happening aren’t good — three baby belugas have died in the past six years.
A total of five have born at the aquarium — including Tiqa’s mother, Qila — since 1995, and three have died. You have a 60 per cent chance of not making it.
Tiqa was the latest fishbowl beluga to die, on Friday morning, of pneumonia, or some underlying cause. At this time, the underlying cause remains a mystery, but who knows? Maybe three-year-old Tiqa faced spending his 25- to 30-year life span as an adorable marketing device and just gave up the ghost.
In the wild, belugas range the oceans, migrating from the Arctic to warmer southern waters in the winter. In the aquarium, belugas swim from one end of the fishbowl to the other, and then repeat. I have no idea what that feels like if you’re a beluga, but I suspect it’s like spending your entire existence in a 350-square-foot studio apartment. At least there are always plenty of snacks.
Animal-rights activists always sound so sure of themselves: We have no right to keep these enormous, intelligent creatures in aquariums. They belong in the wild. End of argument. Just watching them swim around in circles, it’s tough to argue.
But who knows? Maybe belugas are slacker whales and like dwelling in the marine equivalent of a couch. Certainly, it’s no haven out there. If the killer whales or the polar bears don’t get you, the humans will, armed with their pointy sticks and pollution. As aquarium CEO John Nightengale points out, belugas have a 50-50 chance of survival in the wild, which apparently means it’s OK to raise them in a fishbowl.
Maybe it is, but when they insist on dying, their value as adorable marketing devices is limited. Maybe the aquarium should just give up on the idea and stick to the lower forms of life. I mean, who cares if your mollusk dies? You just get a new clam and carry on.
Local news from metronews.ca/vancouver
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