On July 13, 1865, fire tore through P.T. Barnum’s American Museum in New York City—a five-story exhibit hall of curiosities and confined animals, including two newly captured beluga whales from Canada. Outside, a crowd gathered on Broadway to watch the spectacle. Inside, on the second floor of the museum, the belugas circled in their glass-paned tank, far from their icy sea home.
“The whales were, of course, burned alive,” the New York Tribune later reported. “At an early stage of conflagration, the large panes of glass in the great ‘whale tank’ were broken to allow the heavy mass of water to flow upon the floor of the main saloon, and the leviathan natives of Labrador, when last seen, were floundering in mortal agony, to the inexpressible delight of the unfeeling boys, who demanded a share of the blubber.”
Few animals survived; those who made it out onto the street were in danger of being shot by police trying to keep order in the chaos. As smoke filled the air and flames engulfed the museum, the building began to collapse, reportedly sending the belugas crashing down onto Broadway, where their bodies lay rotting in the summer heat for days.
This wasn’t the first time belugas suffered under P.T. Barnum’s relentless pursuit of spectacle, and it wouldn’t be the last.
Four years earlier, in 1861, Barnum commissioned the capture of two wild belugas off the coast of Labrador, Canada, to create a new sensation at his American Museum. The captive belugas were crated in boxes of sloshing saltwater and hauled hundreds of miles by train to the heart of New York City.
“These are white whales and were taken near the Labrador coast by a crew of thirty-five men,” the New York Tribune gushed. “The largest is about 23 feet long; the other is 18 feet long. Their form and motion are graceful and their silver backs and bellies show brightly through the water … Just at present they are principally engaged in throwing their eyes around the premises and paying small attention to visitors … Here is a real ‘sensation.’ We do not believe the enterprise of Mr. Barnum will stop at white whales.”
It didn’t. And two days after their debut—confined to seven feet of lukewarm water in an 18 x 40 brick-and-concrete tank and suffocating on gas fumes in the basement of Barnum’s museum—the beluga whales died.
To the public, they were a sensation. To Barnum, a triumph.
Barnum declared his first whaling expedition “a great success” and busily started planning the next one. This time, he engineered “the world’s first functional oceanarium” by channeling sea water from New York Harbor to his museum and building a glass-paned tank on the second floor.
Soon, a new pair of captured and crated wild belugas arrived by train. Barnum installed them in the new tank, telling visitors (since it would have made for an even splashier spectacle): “I am sorry we can’t make him dance a hornpipe and do all sorts of things at the word of command.”
Between 1861 and 1865, P.T. Barnum commissioned the capture and transport of nine wild beluga whales for the public’s amusement. Some died in transit. Others perished in his tanks, only to be replaced by fresh captives, like rotating stage props in an endless performance. Reflecting on his whaling enterprise, Barnum later wrote: “I confess I was very proud that I had originated it and brought it to such successful conclusion.”
But Barnum’s “success” reached far beyond his American Museum: it ignited a global obsession with cetaceans in captivity. And as new aquariums and marine parks sprang up, they raced to follow Barnum’s lead.
A few months after the devastating 1865 fire, Barnum opened a new museum down the street on Broadway. When a raging fire destroyed that museum, too, in 1868, another two belugas were reported among the animal casualties.
Changes have of course been made to the marine mammal captivity industry over the last century. Today, improved scientific understanding, evolving public values, and stricter laws have led to better welfare standards and a growing focus on conservation, education, and rehabilitation. However, the fundamentals remain the same: this industry continues to exploit highly intelligent, profoundly complex, sentient beings for profit and entertainment. Only about 136,000 mature beluga whales still live in the wild. Today, more than 300 are held in tanks around the world—at least 62 are in North America alone.
What Barnum failed to grasp—and what many marine parks and aquariums still don’t seem to acknowledge—is this:
Belugas and other cetaceans are self-aware, autonomous individuals who deserve to live free and natural lives. Belugas are not here to be curiosities or props or attractions for our amusement. They’re subjects of their own lives. They’re not ours to own.
Beautiful Minds Behind the Glass
Beluga whales—often called “canaries of the sea”—are among the most intelligent, emotional, and socially complex beings on earth. They live in tight-knit pods. They sing to each other in rich symphonies of whistles, squeals, chirps, and clicks. They recognize themselves in mirrors, teach their young, mourn their dead, and pass ancestral culture down through generations. According to the World Wildlife Federation (WWF), studies indicate that belugas have a natural lifespan of up to 80 years.
In the wild, they glide through Arctic waters, swimming hundreds and sometimes thousands of miles together beneath the northern lights.
In captivity, all of that changes.
Instead of exploring ice-covered oceans, they circle in concrete tanks. Instead of hearing familiar voices in their natural pod, captive belugas may swim in a cacophony of sound: fists pounding on glass, amplified music, human laughter, fireworks booming overhead, the clattering of rollercoasters and amusement park rides nearby.
Beluga whales’ brains are among the most complex in the animal kingdom, with emotional centers that may rival or be even more developed than our own. Studies of cetacean brain structure have revealed differences in auditory processing pathways, for instance, when whales and dolphins are compared with terrestrial animals. Studies also show that in whale and dolphin brains, the neocortex—the seat of self-awareness—has more folds than our own.
P.T. Barnum and the 19th-century public didn’t have access to this information. But we know better now. So, what are we going to do with this knowledge?
Ad campaigns often feature belugas “playing” with children through aquarium glass. But are the whales really playing? “The open mouth and posturing are typical of the way cetaceans express aggression and I’ve seen a lot in captivity in the very same circumstances,” said cetacean behavior expert Dr. Lori Marino, after viewing a viral video recorded at Mystic Aquarium. “This poor animal is telling the kids: ‘Get away.’ It’s a threat. While belugas and other cetaceans in the wild make the same aggressive motions (open mouth, etc.) in this case, in my opinion, it is clearly due to the fact that these whales are crammed into this tank and have nowhere to go to escape the screaming kids poking at the glass.”
Captive belugas are prone to illnesses rarely seen in wild populations—ulcers, respiratory disease, chronic infections, and more. Some captive belugas circle endlessly in their tanks. Others float listlessly. Many die young.
In September 2015, the US District Court of Atlanta upheld NOAA Fisheries’ decision to deny Georgia Aquarium’s request for a permit to import 18 wild-caught beluga whales from Russia, five of which were determined to be only about 1.5 years old at time of capture and potentially still nursing.
In August 2020, NOAA issued a permit for Mystic Aquarium to import five belugas from Marineland in Niagara Falls, Canada. Three of the five whales died within 18 months of that transfer.
Eighteen beluga whales died in just five years at Marineland, which currently holds the largest population of captive belugas in the world. The most recent casualty—a seven-year-old named Eos—was euthanized in early 2025 because of multiple health issues. Now Marineland is being redeveloped, and the belugas held captive there need to be moved.
Where will they go? To a marine park in China? To another concrete tank in North America?
“In a natural setting, these animals would be swimming maybe a hundred miles a day, diving deep,” said Marino, who is founder and president of The Whale Sanctuary Project and founder and executive director of the Kimmela Center for Animal Advocacy. “They have their social lives, their social networks, roles to play in very tightly knit family groups. They raise their children. They have cultures, different ways of doing things in different populations. They can explore and play and come together. None of that is available in the concrete tank. None of it. They don’t have any place to go. They don’t have any place to dive … what you see is a lot of mortality, a lot of sickness, a lot of behavioral abnormalities. Everything that makes life worth living for a dolphin or whale is absent in marine parks and concrete tanks. None of it is available.”
There is a better way.
Sanctuary, Not Spectacle
Seaside sanctuaries—protected ocean coves where belugas can live out their days in freedom, dignity, and peace—offer something that captivity never can: the sound and feel of real ocean waves, the rhythm of tides, the freedom to make their own choices and live meaningful lives in a natural environment.
Marine parks and aquariums may argue that displaying captive belugas and other cetaceans is too valuable to discontinue, education- and research-wise. They may also argue that captive belugas are safer and happier living in tanks and that the chance for people to see these enchanting animals live and up-close will foster a greater love and concern for their well-being. But what are we actually teaching our children when we confine and display profoundly sentient beings in a barren tank for public amusement? Are children learning something so deeply valuable from these brief interactions that it outweighs the darker lessons they may be taking away from the experience without our realizing it?
Ric O’Barry, founder and director of the Dolphin Project, may have said it best: “My daughter has never seen a dinosaur, but she doesn’t have to see one in order to know about dinosaurs and to love dinosaurs.”
Holograms, virtual reality, and so many other amazing technologies are now available that have the potential to simulate (and even improve upon) the experience of seeing a live cetacean in a tank. L’Ecocirque is a circus that’s now using holograms instead of any live animals in their show. Imagine the spectacular shows and displays that marine parks and aquariums could offer to the public by combining water effects with holograms and new technologies. And imagine the public support they would receive for finally releasing their captive cetaceans to live out their days in a sanctuary with space, choice, and dignity.
And we already have a beluga sanctuary success story to build on. In 2019, two captive belugas—Little Grey and Little White—were relocated 6,000 miles from a water park in Shanghai to a large natural bay sanctuary off the south coast of Iceland, where they are now thriving.
In Nova Scotia, the Whale Sanctuary Project, led by Marino, is spearheading an effort to establish the first North American coastal refuge for retired belugas and orcas. “In sanctuaries they can live in the ocean, have a more interesting life, be autonomous, but also be fed and cared for,” Marino said. “It is the only solution for captive whales and dolphins. Eventually, we would like all captivity—including sanctuaries—to end.”
We Know Better. Why Aren’t We Doing Better?
Canada, some EU countries and cities, a few US states, and India (which recognizes cetaceans as nonhuman persons) have already banned whale and dolphin captivity. But so many aquariums and marine parks around the world continue to buy, breed, trade, and profit from the spectacle of beluga whales in captivity. So we continue to see cases like:
- Nanuq, a captive beluga believed to have died at age 31 from infection complications from a broken jaw he sustained during a forced breeding attempt at Orlando SeaWorld.
- Maris, a captive beluga who died at Georgia Aquarium at age 21—lessthan half a beluga’s natural lifespan—after losing two calves.
- Bella, a beluga whale who continues to circle aimlessly in her 24-foot glass-paned tank in a Seoul, South Korea shopping mall, after losing her two companions. There have been talks about sending her to sanctuary since 2019; Bella is still circling alone in her tank today.
This is not just about belugas. It’s about who we are as a species. Do we measure intelligence only in terms of human likeness, or do we honor it in all its forms? The arc of justice must extend beyond our own kind.
Cetacean sanctuary is now a reality. Public sentiment is shifting, and more and more people are speaking up for cetaceans in captivity.
Today—160 years after two belugas and countless animals lost their lives in the devastating fire at Barnum’s American Museum—we remember and grieve the animal victims, along with the tragic legacy of cetacean captivity P.T. Barnum left us. Barnum may have sparked public fascination with the spectacle of cetacean captivity in the 19th century, but today’s society is choosing to continue it. Hopefully, the tide will turn for captive belugas sooner rather than later.
Will we continue this outdated cruelty? Or will we acknowledge the suffering and create a future where belugas and other cetaceans remain wild, as they deserve to be, and where those already in captivity are relocated to sanctuaries where they can live their days in freedom, peace, and dignity?
It’s time to end the spectacle—for good.
Kristen Garabedian is earning her Master of Studies in Law (MSL) at the Center for Animal Law Studies, Lewis & Clark Law School. She’s especially interested in animal cognition and intelligence, emotion, culture, social bonds, and behavior.
The Nonhuman Rights Project (NhRP) is the only civil rights organization in the United States dedicated solely to securing rights for nonhuman animals. Our work challenges an archaic, unjust legal status quo that views and treats all nonhuman animals as “things” with no rights. As with human rights, nonhuman rights are based on fundamental values and principles of justice such as liberty, autonomy, equality, and fairness. All of human history shows that the only way to truly protect human beings’ fundamental interests is to recognize their rights. It’s no different for nonhuman animals.