The Georgia Aquarium is asking a court to intervene on its behalf, after federal regulators denied a permit for it to import wild-captured beluga whales.
The aquarium filed suit Monday in federal court in Atlanta seeking a ruling to let it acquire 18 belugas captured in the Sakhalin-Amur region of the Sea of Okhotsk, off the east coast of Russia.Caught by Russian collectors in the years 2006, 2010 and 2011, the snow-white cetaceans are being held at Russia’s Utrish Marine Mammal Research Station.
The Georgia Aquarium intended to bring the whales into the country to improve the genetic diversity of the captive population and ensure the species’ survival. The whales would have been housed at six facilities: the Shedd Aquarium in Chicago, Mystic Aquarium in Mystic, Conn.; SeaWorld parks in San Diego, San Antonio, and Orlando; and the Georgia Aquarium.
via Georgia Aquarium files suit after beluga import permit denied | www.myajc.com.
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