Reef Guardians PSA on Cetacean Captivity
On our trip to Russia, as a part of the Cousteau Team, our objective was to get almost 100 whales destined for Chinese aquariums, set free. 10 Orca and 87 Beluga were being held for over a year and now it was time to set them free, returned to their home over 1800 km from their imprisoned location in Srednyaya and brought back to the Sea of Okhotsk in Far East Russia.
To date all 10 Orca, Killer Whales, have been returned home along with 12 Beluga whales. The fate however, for the remaining 75 Beluga is looking pretty grim. Russia's head of Fisheries , Kolonchin, made it known that they were now considering moving the remaining Beluga into over 30 aquariums across Russia. This is just another way of being able to allow the companies, who illegally captured them in the first place, to be able to lease them to aquariums in China. An agreement was signed to release all of them and at present that agreements purpose is being appears to be failing.