Two more beluga whales die at Chicago's Shedd Aquarium, deepening scrutiny of Marineland rescue

Two beluga whales died Wednesday at Shedd Aquarium in Chicago, the aquarium said, bringing to three the number of belugas that have died there in roughly a week and a half following the largest marine-mammal rescue and relocation effort in history. The deaths of Beethoven, a 34-year-old male who had lived at Shedd for more than three decades, and Rain, a 20-year-old female who arrived from Canada's shuttered Marineland park only weeks earlier, came despite what the aquarium described as immediate intervention by its animal care and veterinary staff.

"Losing Beethoven and Rain so soon after Peekachu carries a profound weight for the people who knew and cared for them," the aquarium said in a statement reported by Block Club Chicago. Peekachu, a 23-year-old female also rescued from Marineland, died at Shedd on Aug. 26, about eight days before Wednesday's deaths.

The numbers

Shedd took in 10 belugas this summer as part of an international operation to relocate all 30 belugas and four dolphins remaining at Marineland of Canada, a Niagara Falls, Ontario theme park that closed to the public in 2024 and could no longer afford to care for its marine mammals. The whales arrived at Shedd in three separate shipments between late July and Sept. 1, roughly doubling the size of its existing beluga pod. Under the plan, coordinated with Canadian and American regulators, other Marineland belugas went to SeaWorld San Antonio, SeaWorld San Diego and Georgia Aquarium, while two belugas and the four dolphins went to Oceanogràfic in Valencia, Spain.

Shedd has not released a cause of death for any of the three whales. The aquarium said necropsies, blood tests and additional examinations were underway but that "it's impossible to know if these passings are isolated or related" until that work is finished, according to reporting by the Chicago Sun-Times. Some results, officials said, could take weeks to come back.

How the rescue came together

Marineland's beluga population had been the subject of years of complaints to Canadian regulators over water quality and animal welfare, and the park's caretakers warned in late 2025 that they might have to euthanize the whales once donor funding ran out. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration approved an emergency import permit in July, allowing a consortium of aquariums accredited by the Association of Zoos and Aquariums to bring the animals into the United States on the grounds that no Canadian facility could provide the medical treatment and husbandry the whales needed. Belugas are protected under the federal Marine Mammal Protection Act, and NOAA Fisheries continues to classify most wild populations of the species, an Arctic and sub-Arctic cetacean, as species of concern in parts of their range, according to the agency's beluga whale species profile.

Officials from the participating institutions had called the operation an unqualified success when the last transports were completed on Sept. 1. "This moment marks the next chapter for these rescued belugas," Shedd's Dr. Karisa Tang said when the first whales arrived, according to a joint announcement posted by Georgia Aquarium, one of the five institutions that took in animals. "Now that they are here, the full attention of our care and veterinary teams is on getting to know these whales."

Who is affected

The deaths have fallen hardest on Shedd's animal care staff, who were still in the early weeks of acclimating the rescued whales when Peekachu, then Rain, died. Beethoven's death is a separate kind of loss for the institution: he was born in 1992 and had been a fixture of Shedd's resident beluga pod for more than three decades, weighing close to 1,900 pounds and measuring roughly 14 feet, according to details the aquarium provided to NBC Chicago. Millions of visitors encountered him over the years in the Abbott Oceanarium.

The remaining Marineland transfers, still adjusting to new tanks, new companions and, in several cases, cold saltwater habitats different from what they knew in Ontario, are now the subject of closer monitoring. Shedd said it was continuing supportive care for the rest of the pod while the investigation into the three deaths proceeds.

"These losses are hard, made more difficult by the fact that it will take time to get concrete answers about what led to their passings."

That statement, attributed to Shedd Aquarium, appeared in reporting by both the Sun-Times and NBC Chicago following Wednesday's deaths.

The cluster of deaths has drawn pointed criticism from marine mammal advocates who opposed housing the rescued belugas in aquariums at all. Lori Marino, a neuroscientist and co-founder of the Whale Sanctuary Project, told the Sun-Times the deaths of Peekachu and Rain "bring up very serious questions about their health status prior to being transferred to Shedd," and separately told CBC News that outside observers still do not know what condition the animals were in when they were moved. Melissa Matlow of World Animal Protection said the deaths point to the need for open-water sanctuaries rather than tank-based facilities for whales that cannot be released.

Marineland has defended the transfers. An adviser to the park, Andrew Burns, said all of the whales sent to U.S. aquariums were certified fit to travel before they left Ontario. Shedd, for its part, has said repeatedly that the rescue was necessary because the 30 belugas at Marineland had nowhere else to go and that accredited aquariums, including Shedd, were asked by regulators and welfare groups to step in.

What happens next

Shedd said full necropsy findings on Beethoven and Rain could take weeks, mirroring the pace of the examination still underway for Peekachu. The results are likely to shape how aggressively regulators and the aquarium industry defend the broader Marineland relocation, which organizers had billed as a model for rescuing animals from a shuttered facility rather than allowing them to be euthanized. Animal welfare groups say they intend to press NOAA and the Association of Zoos and Aquariums for more transparency on the whales' health records before and after transport. Shedd has not said whether it will pause further integration of the rescued pod with its resident belugas while the inquiry continues.