Marineland's crumbling infrastructure, staffing shortage and lack of resources have created dangerous conditions for its belugas and they should be moved immediately, a fired beluga trainer says.
Kristy Burgess, who worked at the Niagara Falls, Ont., park when a young beluga was put down in February, said Marineland's threat to euthanize all 30 of its remaining belugas if it doesn't receive emergency funding is a "repulsive" tactic that uses the whales as leverage.
"We need to get them out," Burgess said of the last captive whales in Canada. "Immediately."
Burgess is speaking out for the first time about her experience at Marineland as the very whales she loved now face possible death.
Nineteen belugas, one dolphin and one killer whale have died at the park since 2019, according to a d