A pair of performing beluga whales have been flown from China to Iceland to live out their days in a marine sanctuary.
Conservationists celebrated when a plane from Shanghai carrying the whales, named Little Grey and Little White, touched down at Keflavik International Airport.
“The whales did well on the flight and are in good shape,” logistic expert Sigurjon Sigurdsson said after the 12-year-old females were on the ground.
The whales, expected to reach 35 to 50 years of age, will be the first aquatic animals to inhabit the sanctuary for cetaceans off Iceland’s southern coast.
Their home will be a 32,000-square-metre sea pen at a pristine creek called Klettsvik, accessible by whale-watching boats.
After an 11-hour flight, the pair's tank was loaded onto a truck for a drive to a harbor and the last leg of their journey, a 30-minute boat ride to the Westman Islands archipelago.
There, they are set to stay in a specially designed indoor pool for 40 days while caretakers increase their food intake to build up extra blubber for heat insulation. The whales currently weigh about 900 kilos (1,980 pounds) and have strong appetites for herring.
Little White and Little Grey were captured in Russian waters and sold to Changfeng Ocean World aquarium in Shanghai some 10 years ago.
Changfeng Ocean World was acquired by Merlin Entertainment, a British corporation that owns Legoland and other theme parks.
The company, which has a policy against captive whales and dolphins, teamed up with the wildlife fund Sea Life Trust to spearhead the effort.
"We are sad to see them leave but we understand that they come from nature," Iker Wang, head trainer at Chengfeng aquarium, said in a press statement.
Marianne Helene Rasmussen, a research professor at the University of Iceland, questioned what the massive operation accomplished. Whale-watching, to her, is about seeing the mammals in their natural surroundings.
"Why bring two whales, whose species is not naturally in Icelandic water, and keep them in captivity here?" Rasmussen said.
In 1998, the male orca from the Hollywood film "Free Willy" was released into the same Klettsvik creek and prepared for freedom with "ocean walks."
"That was a very different project," Robertsdottir said. "These belugas are not being trained to eventually live in the wild. They will be fed and live only at Klettsvik."
