Baby beluga at Vancouver Aquarium recovers from infection
SUNNY DHILLON

Globe and Mail Update

June 24, 2008 at 8:14 PM EDT

VANCOUVER — Things are once again going swimmingly for Vancouver Aquarium's two-week old baby beluga, who's on the mend after a health scare this past weekend.

Aquarium staff noticed a change in the calf's behaviour on Saturday night. She was much more lethargic than usual and floated for prolonged stretches near the pool's surface. When she did not perk up on Sunday, aquarium veterinarian Dr. Martin Haulena ordered a round of tests and discovered the calf had an infectious abscess near her tail.

The calf was started on antibiotics and the abscess was drained. Her change in behaviour was almost immediate.

“Within about four or five hours, she was a brand new calf,” Dr. Haulena said. “She started swimming around very energetically, started doing barrel rolls, and playing with bubbles and acting a lot more like a little beluga calf should.”

Qila, a beluga whale at the Vancouver Aquarium, swims with her two-day-old calf in Vancouver on Thursday, June 12. (Jonathan Haward/Canadian Press)

Dr. Haulena said on Tuesday that the calf will remain on the antibiotics for at least one week. The drugs are mixed into water and given to the beluga via tube.

The precise cause of the infection is not yet known.

“There wasn't really any external sign of a wound,” Dr. Haulena said. He added that it's possible the calf simply bumped into something, likening the scenario to a small child bruising its knee.

But while the calf appears to be out of the woods at the moment, it hasn't been given a clean bill of health just yet.

“One of the worries is that the abscess is a sign of a more systemic problem, either a problem with her immune system or a systemic infection and that would not be a good scenario,” Dr. Haulena said. “That's why the systemic antibiotics are continuing. It is possible that there is more going on but right now she looks really good.”

Peter Hamilton, founder of Lifeforce, a Vancouver-based ecology organization that is opposed to whale captivity, said he's not surprised the Vancouver aquarium's latest addition has developed an infection. He said the U.S. National Marine Fisheries Service's annual marine mammal inventory reports have long proven that animals housed in aquariums are prone to infection, often of the lethal variety.

“It's not surprising because you have to look at these aquarium prisons as cesspools with the animal's own feces and urine that they have to swim in,” Mr. Hamiton said.

Dr. Haulena countered that infectious diseasesare common among young animals and young humans in general.