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One of the the most important parts of taking off on an international flight for four beluga whales whales he is making sure that he does not realize that he is on a journey. “The goal is to get them to notice as little as possible,” says Karina Tang, senior veterinarian and vice president of animal health at Chicago’s Shedd Aquarium.
Tang and Charlie Jacobsma, Shedd’s director of animal behavior and studies, both accompanied the beluga whales Acadia, Lillooet, Osiris, and Sierra on the trip from Niagara Falls to Toronto’s Pearson Airport to Chicago. Two other belugas boarded the Boeing 777 cargo plane, but were later taken to a reservoir in San Antonio.
The whales lived in Marineland at Niagara Falls, which is a very popular and long-running attraction aquarium and amusement park which fell into disrepair after the death of its owner and was closed to the public in 2024. When it ran out of money to care for the animals, the park had already requested Canadian government to help. In 2025, Marineland announced that it had made a “dangerous decision” to consider euthanasia if it could not relocate the animals.
At the time, the entire aquarium and marine life world was already discussing the possibilities; by January 2026, members of the rescue team were flying to Ontario to see how they could transport the belugas. In June, Canada agreed with Marineland to allow the facility to be rehabilitated, in which animals can go to marine reserves in Georgia, San Diego, and Spain, in addition to whales that have already been relocated to Chicago and Texas. It was an unprecedented task. “Humans have already migrated belugas,” says Tang. “But something on this scale has never happened.”
Everything went as smoothly as hundreds of thousands of aquatic mammals would: “Beautiful, nice, slow takeoff and smooth landing,” Jacobsma told WIRED. The team was able to stay close to the whales, constantly watching them and “pouring water on their backs, to make sure they were comfortable.”
A few days after the visit, on a sunny Friday afternoon, visitors to the Shedd’s Oceanarium are greeted with signs asking for silence. “Please keep your voice down,” they read. Help the rescued belugas get used to their new home. WIRED took a look at the secret facility, which is monitored around the clock by doctors and other marine biologists, where Acadia, Lillooet, Osiris, and Sierra are currently out of public view so their new keepers can focus on settling them into their new home.
