MYSTIC — On Friday morning, five new Connecticut residents from Canada met their neighbors at a social hour, for the first time in a month.
Only these recent expats can grow to more than a ton, and normally spend most of their lives in the frigid waters of the Arctic Ocean.
Mystic Aquarium’s five new beluga whales were introduced to the aquarium’s three existing belugas, after spending a month apart to get used to their new environment.
Now all eight of them will live together in the 750,000 gallon “Arctic Coast habitat,” the aquarium said in a news release.
The newly arrived whales range in age from 5 to 6 years old, and arrived at the center in May, “a 22-hour endeavor that involved two flights on a giant cargo plane, flatbed trucks, police escorts, custom-designed transport containers, cranes, and over 150 team members,” the aquarium said.
Since they arrived from Marineland in Canada, the five belugas have lived in a separate tank with viewing windows into the Arctic Habitat tank. That’s allowed the whales to communicate with the Aquarium’s other three whales — Juno, Kela, and Natasha — and for the marine mammals to get to know one another.
On Friday morning, a gate was lifted allowing the five new arrivals the chance to meet their new living partners.
In a statement, the aquarium’s senior vice president of zoological operations said the aquarium is “extremely pleased” with how the introductions between the two groups went.
“Introductions of this nature can be somewhat unpredictable, as you never know how a particular animal will react, but today could not have gone better,” said Dr. Allison Tuttle.
The aquarium said the belugas have been working with trainers “so that the whales can participate in critical research aimed at saving endangered populations of the species.”
A Connecticut animal rights group had sued in federal court to try to block the aquarium from obtaining the belugas from Canada, but the aquarium was ultimately able to import them.
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June 19, 2021 at 09:25AM
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Mystic Belugas meet new arrivals for first time - Middletown Press
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