Georgia Aquarium Battles Federal Government Over Belugas

An anonymous reader writes: The Georgia Aquarium has argued in court that the National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration's denial of its permit to import beluga whales from Russia was arbitrary and capricious. The National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration's National Marine Fisheries Service says the aquarium failed to meet the requirements of a law meant to protect marine mammals. Both sides accuse the other of twisting the facts, a NOAA lawyer accuses the aquarium trying "to confuse the court," and a lawyer for the aquarium says the government had "cooked the books" on whale population numbers.

Comments

approval

[phantomfive]

I'm so glad I'm a programmer. The only legal issues I have to deal with are patents and copyright suits. So much easier, right?

According to the article, the aquarium already has some beluga whales in its care. When the new whales arrive, some of them will be kept in Georgia, others will be transferred to Sea World.

Originally, the regulatory agency gave approval. Then in 2013, the agency changed its mind, and denied the approval. What movie about Sea World came out in 2013?

In any case, the aquarium is suing the agency to open up the documents that explain why their request was denied. So far that hasn't gone through court yet.

(Note, this is all from the article, and news articles are frequently wrong. I don't have any inside information here).

Re:approval

[fustakrakich]

I don't understand why it should be approved. It's cruel to the animal. That's a pretty straightforward reason to deny it.

Re:approval

[MightyMartian]

Indeed. They should shut all the facilities down, euthanize the animals that have no hope of being reintroduced to the wild and outlaw the importation or breeding of whales and dolphins.

Oh, and fuck Sea World's investors.

Re:approval

[Aighearach]

Well, don't just blindly trust the Fox News story here.

As to the claim that they didn't give reasons...

http://www.nmfs.noaa.gov/pr/pe...

All of the documents are there, including the public comment, and the response from the company to the public comments, and the denial letter.

http://www.nmfs.noaa.gov/pr/pe...
http://www.nmfs.noaa.gov/pr/pe...

I find their responses to the public comments to be evasive, dishonest, and confrontational. They make no attempt to seriously address the issues in a way that could lead to compromise solutions or mitigation of problems.

They give a bunch of reasons for denial. And they didn't approve it and then unapprove it, either; they processed the application and denied it. The whales were captured in Russia before the permit application. Fox News would prefer it to be ambiguous so that it sounds like the big bad Gubermint is hurting everybody by changing their minds. But that didn't happen.

Remember, the default thing with importing marine mammals for public display is that you can't do it. You can't just buy a marine mammal and build an aquarium. You need special permission, because these are intelligent animals who are under continued population stress due to human activity. People have gone to great lengths to afford them some minor protections. You need to get a permit, and it needs to be in the public interest. This company seems to think that they have a right to import marine mammals, but they simply don't. That isn't a right. The government has a significant interest in regulating foreign trade.

Why does Fox News care? Because evul libraaals want to save whales.

https://www.change.org/p/noaa-...

There was no approval before the denial. They applied, the public commented, the agency considered, and they denied it. Which is what most of the public wanted in this case. I don't even understand their claim; how could they have approval already before the required public comment period, etc? It makes no sense at all. They knew the process going in; the person doing the review recommended denial, and the Agency agreed and denied. It is a requirement of the law that in order to issue such a permit, it has to not have a negative impact on the species. In this case, these are whales being captured in the wild purely to sell to zoos, and so supporting that trade has a small but negative impact on the species. There is no positive conservation goal identified that balances that. It is purely for entertainment. That is banned under the law where it has any negative impact on the species. In other cases, whales that are threatened in the wild are captured to be used in captive breeding programs that are believed to have a net positive impact on the species. That means it is legal for NOAA to issue the permit in those cases. The Beluga population is not benefiting or expected to benefit from any such breeding program.

it's wrong

[cats-paw]

keeping Belugas in captivity is wrong, wrong, wrong.

The Georgia Acquarium was wrong from the moment they started this effort.

Re: it's wrong

[Anonymous Coward]

I live in atlanta and we have a season pass to the Georgia aquarium. The reason why the aquarium needs more whales is because for whatever reason the people who run it and the owner, Home Depot founder Arthur Blank, decided the unique attraction would be whale sharks and belugas. Both keep dying in captivity and hence need to be replaced frequently with wild animals to keep the exhibits open. Pretty ridiculous really. The aquarium is excellent without the poor belugas trapped in a small tank.

Re:it's wrong

[amiga3D]

I'm generally anti-PETA but I really think keeping whales in a small tank is pretty fucked. Whales are not fish, they are Mammals and fairly intelligent ones at that.