Staff with the Vancouver Aquarium has gone to court over an effort to ban it having whales and dolphins in captivity.
The Vancouver Park Board voted last month to amend a bylaw that would end the aquarium’s program of keeping new cetaceans at its facility in Stanley Park.
RELATED: The Vancouver Park Board votes to ban new cetaceans
The aquarium announced Thursday it has launched a legal challenge in B.C. Supreme Court, arguing the park board doesn’t have the power to enact a bylaw amendment, that it refused to hear the aquarium’s argument and that the bylaw itself is too vague.
Staff also argue that the program’s cancellation would result in a loss of funding to its marine mammal rescue centre in Vancouver.
Last fall, two belugas, a mother and daughter named Qila and Aurora, died within two weeks of each other.
More to come.
@ashwadhwani
ashley.wadhwani@bpdigital.ca
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