Vancouver Aquarium History of the Vancouver Aquarium narwhal program

Interesting article! So only New york and Vancouver have had narwhals or did more zoos/aquariums have them?
Did they ever find out how the narwhals died, like malnourishment?
 
In Murray Newman's autobiography Life in a Fishbowl: Confessions of an Aquarium Director (1994) he devotes 4 pages to the capture and experience of obtaining 6 narwhals and he was the director of the Vancouver Aquarium for decades. The 3 calves died of pneumonia, the two larger females died of bacterial infections and the big male (9 feet, 7 inches long and 900 pounds) died of an abscessed lung. Newman's theory is that the aquarium needed a "refrigerated seawater system" and he "suspected the warmer water in Vancouver was an underlying cause of death" even though the belugas were doing fine in adjacent pools.
 
Back
Top