To Bob and Robin at HLN Morning Express,

I am a big fan of your show, I watch it and HLN whenever I can. So I was quite disappointed to see Bob promoting on your show this morning a swim with Beluga whale experience at the Georgia Aquarium. With all the attention that cetacean captivity issues have gotten recently, I would think that an excellent news organization such as yours would have done a bit more research as seen that this is not an appropriate or beneficial activity to recommend to your viewers.

While most of the media attention has been on killer whales, beluga whales are also highly intelligent and social animals, who live a migratory existence in the wild, and as such are ill-suited to a life of captivity. In the wild they live in groups of 10 to 50 animals, and range over hundreds of miles. There is growing evidence that the "swim with" programs, in particular, cause a great deal of stress on the dolphins and beluga whales that are compelled to participate. The upturned appearance of the mouth of the Beluga gives us the false sense that they are happy, when they are really just performing trained behaviors that they are compelled to by their captors.

The Georgia Aquarium has gone beyond what other aquaria and marine parks in this country have done, in that they have recently attempted to import wild caught beluga whales, rather that just display captive-bred animals. Thankfully, their request was denied (for now). Disturbingly, in denying the request, NOAA cited not only the negative impact on the wild population from which the wild-caught whales were taken, but the fact that the whales were taken at approximately 18 months of age, when they were likely still nursing and dependent on their mothers. I urge you to look into these issues for yourself and see if the Georgia Aquarium's Beluga program is something that should be promoted, given all the excellent family activities out there that do not harm animals.

Respectfully,

Laura West