{"id":758130,"date":"2019-09-02T08:55:43","date_gmt":"2019-09-02T12:55:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/animalrightswatch.us\/?p=758130"},"modified":"2019-09-02T08:55:43","modified_gmt":"2019-09-02T12:55:43","slug":"russia-releases-last-orcas-from-whale-jail-what-about-the-belugas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/animalrightswatch.us\/?p=758130","title":{"rendered":"Russia releases last Orcas from &#8216;whale jail&#8217; &#8211; What about the Belugas?"},"content":{"rendered":"\t<blockquote  class=\"bs-quote bs-quote-1 bsq-t1 bsq-s1 bsq-left\">\n\t\t<div class=\"quote-content\">\n\t\t\t<p>75 beluga whales are still languishing in the 'whale jail', and the question remains whether Russia's practice of catching wild marine mammals for the aquarium industry will be banned.<\/p>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t<\/blockquote>\n\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><strong>AFP:<\/strong> <em>&#8216;Russian environmentalists celebrated a &#8220;huge victory&#8221; on Tuesday after the last of a group of killer whales kept in a notorious facility were released into the sea following year-long captivity. But 75 beluga whales still languished in pens in the so-called &#8220;whale jail&#8221; in the Russian Far East, and the question remains whether Russia&#8217;s controversial practise of catching wild marine mammals for the aquarium industry will be banned.<\/em><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><em>The All-Russian Fisheries and Oceanography Institute, or VNIRO, has released a total of 10 killer whales, or orcas, and 12 of 87 beluga whales since June, sending them on an arduous 1,800-kilometre (1,120 mile) route by truck and boat&#8230; VNIRO said in a statement that the last two killer whales and six of the belugas had been released into the wild. &#8220;All 10 orcas from the Srednyaya Bay (facility) have been set free,&#8221; it said&#8230;<\/em><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><em>The scandal over the secretive facility packed with young orcas and belugas broke early this year after photos appeared in the media of the animals struggling to swim in ice-encrusted waters. Russian President Vladimir Putin eventually ordered officials to resolve the situation and oversaw the first release of whales in June.<\/em><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><em>The aquarium industry has for years used a loophole in Russian law allowing it to catch wild orcas for &#8220;educational&#8221; purposes but in fact ship them abroad. The firms that own the whales admitted they had plans to sell them to aquariums, particularly in China, where there is a boom in such sea life centres&#8217;.<\/em> <a href=\"https:\/\/news.yahoo.com\/russia-releases-last-orcas-whale-jail-003856221.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><strong>SOURCE&#8230;<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n<p><strong>RELATED VIDEO:<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/QNaCjOLFFRU\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>AFP: &#8216;Russian environmentalists celebrated a &#8220;huge victory&#8221; on Tuesday after the last of a group of killer whales kept in a notorious facility were released into the sea following year-long captivity. But 75 beluga whales still languished in pens in the so-called &#8220;whale jail&#8221; in the Russian Far East, and the question remains whether Russia&#8217;s [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":758131,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[16,17,20,23,25],"tags":[27,28,30,32,35],"class_list":["post-758130","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-culture","category-environment","category-justice","category-rights","category-welfare","tag-cruelty","tag-entertainment","tag-exploitation","tag-free-living","tag-protection"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/animalrightswatch.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/758130","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/animalrightswatch.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/animalrightswatch.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/animalrightswatch.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/animalrightswatch.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=758130"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/animalrightswatch.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/758130\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":758132,"href":"http:\/\/animalrightswatch.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/758130\/revisions\/758132"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/animalrightswatch.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/758131"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/animalrightswatch.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=758130"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/animalrightswatch.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=758130"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/animalrightswatch.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=758130"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}