Beluga whales have had a bit of a fraught history at the Georgia Aquarium. But now, there may be reason for celebration.
On Tuesday, the aquarium announced one of its beluga whales, Whisper, is expected to give birth to a calf in April.
"We routinely monitor the health and wellbeing of all of our animals which allows us to detect even subtle changes in their health, like the upward trend in Whisper's hormones," Tonya Clauss, the aquarium's vice president of animal health said in a statement.
The announcement goes on to say that the aquarium is “hopeful” that Whisper, who is 20 years old, and the calf “will have a safe delivery come spring.”
“It has been very exciting to watch Whisper’s progress and see her calf growing with each ultrasound,” Clauss said in the statement.
Based on monitoring and the typical gestation period for the whales of 14-15 months, the staff believes the calf will be born in mid-April. Its gender will not be known until after it is born.
Whisper has been at the aquarium less than a year. Last February, Whisper and Imaq, a 32-year-old male, arrived from Seaworld Orlando and Seaworld San Antonio, respectively.
The two joined the aquarium's other beluga whales, Qinu, Nunavik, and Maple. And were the first new arrivals since Maple in 2016.
In June 2017, the aquarium announced Qinu, then 9, was expecting her first calf. However, when she went into labor that November, the whale experienced complications and the infant did not survive.
“The position and shape of the calf prevented the delivery and it was determined the calf had died before it had a chance to be born,” the aquarium said in a statement at the time. “Our veterinary and animal care teams intervened for the safety of Qinu and worked around the clock to carefully remove the calf.”
It was part of a string of loss for the aquarium.
Two other newborn belugas had previously died at the aquarium, one in May 2012, the other in June 2015, both offspring of the beluga, Maris. Maris died in October 2015 of heart failure when she was 21 years old.
Over the years, the aquarium has made various attempts to grow its beluga population.
In 2016, it announced that it would no longer accept whales or dolphins that had been caught in the wild. That was a reversal from years of trying to acquire belugas from a Russian-based company.
That came after the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration denied the permit from the aquarium to import whales from a Russian facility.
According to the aquarium, beluga whales live in the wild in arctic waters near Alaska, Canada, Norway and Greenland. Researchers estimate there are 150,000 beluga whales worldwide.
The aquarium notes that its current population of belugas are used in research programs that they partner with the government and universities on.
"By studying and observing beluga whales in human care, we are able to create baseline indicators to understand issues threatening this species in the wild," according to the aquarium's website.
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