I’m sure there are lots of anti-Marineland sites out there. I am certainly not going to post about every complaint, but I thought that this one was particularly interesting, because it mentions the “warehouse” that has caused some controversy for Marineland over the years.
Junior was captured from Iceland in 1984. He was then transported to Marineland Ontario. Junior spent the last four years of his short life in an awful tiny tank inside a windowless store cynically called the “warehouse” (because arriving dolphins were “stored” there before they were declared ready for the public pool). During this time he was without sunlight and outside air.
I have no inside information, but I think that the whales have much better conditions now than before. Also, with everyone having cell phone cameras, and with the public able to get so much information, it would be very hard these days for a company to operate questionable facilities.
Note: I understand there are those who are no matter what think that whales should not be kept in captivity. This posting is made to provide some information. If you want to debate the ethics of holding whales/dolphins/seals/walruses captive, please do it elsewhere. I will moderate comments.
This past Monday we went to Marineland. While we were there, I picked up my season’s pass, and we will definitely be going back.
General Observations
- All of the water was a lot cleaner than previous visits. This includes the water in the aquarium, the Orca tanks, and the Beluga tanks
- The show in the aquarium are very short and are hardly worth doing. They had three pacific walruses (two females and one male). They were fed and did a couple of small tricks. The whole thing only lasted a couple of minutes. However, I did learn something. The announcer claimed that tusks are like wisdom teeth. Sometimes they are removed if they will cause a problem. Out of the three walruses, only one female had tusks
- There used to be a gift shop right next to aquarium in the same building. Obviously the space is still there, but it isn’t a gift shop anymore. That is now the place where you rent strollers and things
- We watched the 5:15 stadium show on a Monday. The crowd was very small, so there wasn’t much “electricity” in the air. It had rained a bit earlier in the day, so I’m sure the park cleared out.
- During the part of the show where the dolphin’s perform, there are normally four of them together. All four came out, but one of the dolphins wouldn’t do anything. The trainer was very patient and touched the dolphin a lot (obviously trying to coax it into performing), but it just wouldn’t do anything. It just didn’t seem interested at all
- There were 16 belugas in one tank, and only 6 in others. There was someone sitting there with a clipboard and you could see two smaller Belugas swimming. Apparently there was a baby born two weeks ago. The other baby is actually the one that was born last year.
Ride Observations
- I was technically within the height limit of the Orca Screamer, but realistically I was too big to go on. I didn’t fit well into the seat and hurt my back a bit. My 5-year-old son just loved the right, though
- We went on Orca Screamer, Viking Adventure, Lady Bug Coaster, and Space Avenger
- There were spider webs everywhere! I’m sure all of the heat, moisture, humidity makes it difficult to control. My sons kept pointing them out
- all sorts of languages, always one of the interesting things about Niagara Falls
- Pretty well everything seemed to be in working order. The only thing I noticed was that one of the “spaceships” on the Space Avenger wasn’t working
I didn’t take enough good pictures to put up a new gallery, so I’ve just posted a few below. You can click on the picture to see a larger version
The Viking Adventure
An Orca Whale
A Dolphin
A Beluga whale mother with its new baby (only 2 weeks old)
A Pacfic Walrus
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