First look at Shedd Aquarium's newest beluga whales: Acadia, Lillooet, Osiris, Sierra 47%
By Stefano Esposito8%
7/23/2026, 8:59:22 PM
BS Summary: This article contains 19 faulty reasoning types, including Biased Writer Voice, Optimism Bias, and Confirmation Bias, with Negativity Bias as the most egregious example at 17.7% saturation with 75 hits. Analysis detected 616 faulty-reasoning hits from 424 analyzed words, generating a BS Score of 48.8% and a BS Rank of 47% (11,256 of 21,175 articles). This article is better (less manipulative) than 53.20% of the article peer group.
Shafts of sunlight angle into glistening turquoise water.
Four beluga whales, in near-synchronized perfection, glide by, eyeing the cluster of visitors on the other side of a huge picture window.
One of those visitors is Karisa Tang, Shedd Aquarium’s vice president of animal health.
Tang’s hand goes to her chest at the approach of these most graceful creatures — even though she’s seen Acadia, Lillooet, Osiris, and Sierra countless times before.
“That’s stunning in the sunlight,” Tang says during a visit by the Sun-Times to the aquarium Thursday morning in an area — for the time being — closed to the public.
Two more Shedd scientists huddle nearby, eyes glued to computer screens as they monitor the health of the new arrivals.
So far, says Tang, the signs look good for the whales, which arrived just before dawn Tuesday from the now-shuttered Marineland, a once-popular tourist attraction in Niagara Falls, Ontario.
“We are seeing them foraging, engaging with the habitat, being curious, exploring together.
… In the previous 48 hours, we’ve seen some really positive signs,” Tang said.
Tang said she’s been aboard aircraft for other marine mammal transports, but never before with animals quite as large as belugas.
“Absolutely wild,” she said of the experience.
But no turbulence, she added.
“As we arrived at Shedd, the sun was just peeking out,” she said.
The whales were then wheeled into the aquarium on special carts, then lowered into the water.
The beluga rescue is controversial, particularly in Canada, where animal rights activists have for years been sounding the alarm about what they say is the mistreatment of animals at Marineland, which first opened in 1961.
And those same activists say, among other things, that exporting whales out of the country isn’t the answer and may actually be a violation of a 2019 Canadian law intended to end the breeding and keeping of whales in captivity.
Shedd officials haven’t ruled out breeding the Marineland belugas at some point, but they say that the current focus is on acclimatizing the new arrivals to their new habitat.
A whale sanctuary off the coast of Nova Scotia — something animal rights activists say they hope to open in the next year or so — isn’t a realistic option, Tang said.
“There is no sea pen that exists that provides the standards of care necessary to care for these whales,” she said.
“That conversation has been going on for years and it has still yet to materialize.”
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1speaker57%attributed speech182writer words
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74%flagged-word coverageKarisa Tang
242 attributed words100% of attributed speech69% writer coverage
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