One of the Shedd's Rescued Belugas Died This Week

Image from Diego Delso

A sad one from Museum Campus. Shedd Aquarium said Wednesday that Peekachu, a 23-year-old beluga, died suddenly on Tuesday. She was one of the whales moved to Chicago this summer from Marineland, the shuttered park in Niagara Falls, Ontario, and she had only been at 1200 S. Lake Shore Drive since the middle of the month.

Shedd says blood work showed she was dehydrated, that staff gave her fluids and supportive care, and that she died anyway. A necropsy is being done to find out why. The rest of the rescued belugas are still behind the scenes on round-the-clock monitoring rather than out in the public habitat.

We are not marine biologists and are not going to pretend otherwise. Moving whales across a border into a new tank is a hard call that people who do this for a living still argue about. What we do know is that a lot of us have taken a kid through that building.

WTTW and the Sun-Times both have the details.

Have you been over to Shedd since the belugas arrived? Tell us what you saw.