Tiffany Crawford, Vancouver Sun 22 Jun 10;
VANCOUVER — Nala, Vancouver's much-loved baby beluga, died Monday evening after its airway became blocked, the Vancouver Aquarium announced Tuesday.
Baby Nala was born June 7, 2009 to huge public fanfare and died just two weeks after her first birthday in the tank at the Vancouver Aquarium at about 10:15 p.m.
Aquarium veterinarian Dr. Martin Haulena said a necropsy on Nala showed she had a "unique pocket" located off her airway that contained a couple of rocks and a penny.
The pocket had become inflamed resulting in obstruction to Nala's airway, he said, which led to an accumulation of fluid in her lungs.
Haulena said staff members are still trying to figure out whether the pocket was the result of a congenital defect or caused by the inhalation of the foreign objects.
"A very, very strange finding, one that we certainly did not suspect," he said.
"I'm still racking my brain to try to figure out what we could have done about it," he said at a news conference Tuesday, in front of the beluga tank where Nala had died just several hours before.
The rocks are a normal part of the pool environment, although staff still aren't sure how the penny got in the tank.
Behind Haulena in the pool Tuesday, swam three Beluga whales, Tiqa, Quila and 23-year-old Aurora, the mother of baby Nala.
Two other belugas were in another tank. There are now five belugas at the aquarium.
Nala had suffered a bout of illness that had lasted about 10 to 14 days.
After taking blood samples, staff had treated her with medication for a suspected infection.
Her health seemed to improve Friday and by the weekend she was playing with the other whales.
Though Nala's health suddenly took a turn for the worse Monday and she had been put under 24-hour watch by staff and volunteers.
On Monday night, staff knew by the monitors that something was wrong, said Haulena. He said they rushed outside but Nala died just as they reached the water.
Nala is the second baby beluga born at the aquarium to die in five years. Another of Aurora's calves, named Tuvaq, died in 2005 at the age of three.
In 2002, a Pacific white-sided dolphin named Whitewings died of respiratory failure when staff tried to remove objects such as stones, pine cones and seashells from her stomach.
A Vancouver-based animal advocacy group said eating debris is a sign of neurotic behaviour in whales and dolphins caused by living in captivity, and that Nala's death was a another example of this behaviour.
"If you put a person in confinement and had just four walls and someone only visited a few times a day, that person would go crazy," said Annelise Sorg, a spokeswoman for the Coalition For No Whales in Captivity.
"It took Nala only a year to go crazy. Eating debris shows us they are not happy living in a concrete bathtub in a puddle in the park."
Beluga whale dies at Vancouver aquarium
AFP Google News 23 Jun 10;
VANCOUVER, Canada — A yearling Beluga whale died at the Vancouver Aquarium from "foreign bodies" in her airway, officials announced Tuesday.
The little white whale, named Nala, had been sick and on antibiotics, but her death late Monday night surprised staff at the aquarium, a research and tourist facility in this western Canadian city.
"We were already seeing much improved behavior with her appetite returning," said an aquarium statement. "She continued to play with her beluga family and trainers up to the day she died, which was why her death was unexpected."
"The preliminary results of Nala?s necropsy indicate that she had a unique pocket in her airway that contained three foreign bodies," said the aquarium. "The pocket had become inflamed resulting in obstruction to the airway and an accumulation of fluid in the lungs."
Lifeforce, an animal activist organization that opposes keeping whales in captivity, criticized in a statement this "36th death of a cetacean caused by the Vancouver Aquarium aquatic circus business."
"Beluga psychological and physical needs cannot be provided for in aquarium prisons, so they should be phased out," Lifeforce spokesman Peter Hamilton told AFP.
Five Belugas still remain at the aquarium, which defended its breeding program on research grounds.
"What we learn from the responsible breeding of animals can often help to further our understanding of wild populations," said the aquarium in a news release. It said the relationship between Nala and her mother Aurora had been used for research on whale communications.
After videos of Nala's birth in a tank on June 7, 2009 were released by the aquarium she received worldwide publicity. Her name was chosen in a Canada-wide contest, with Nala the abbreviation for "Nalautsaagaq," a special surprise gift in the Inuit language of Inuktitut.
