For weeks, I'd been following the story of the thirty beluga whales currently at Marineland of Canada, just across the US-Canada border from Niagara Falls. The whales are in urgent need of a new home, but between the limited facilities capable of taking in even a few of the marine mammals and the legal hurdles to moving cetaceans, ready solutions have been hard to come by. Some voices have even been advocating for the euthanasia of the entire group, just to solve the problem (or at least make it so they don't have to worry about it any longer). A statement on the whales, from AZA and their Canadian counterpart, CAZA:
Despite what some folks believe, there are not sanctuaries or sea-pens that can accommodate these animals, nor is it clear that such facilities would be a good fit for these animals if they did exist. As far as I can see, the best solution would be to rehome these animals in accredited facilities, with a special focus on which facilities could accomodate appropriate social groups to keep certain animals together.
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