Many people were outraged by the plan of capturing more whales and staged a protest at the supposed capture site. His release had been part for the aquarium to acquire new whales. These factors combined to cause the seal's death, and contributed to Miracle's own death by drowning not long after.Īs anti-captivity protests began to put pressure on aquariums, Sealand agreed to release Haida, but the animal died a few days before its scheduled release in October 1982, with no evidence of foul play. Lance Barrett-Lennard, a killer whale expert, determined that Miracle was a southern resident killer whale, which were known to play rough with other sea mammals in the wild. Miracle's play had become aggressive and was a safety problem for the divers, preventing proper maintenance of the pens.
McInerney also noted, which was corroborated by Alexandra Morton in the film, that Miracle had learned that by damaging the nets, divers would come into pen and she could play with the divers.
Sealand diver Larry McInerney stated in the documentary Who Killed Miracle? that she had drowned by becoming trapped between the double-net system at the aquarium. Several years later, Miracle's companion in her pen, a seal named Shadow, drowned in the nets forming the pen. Miracle became a popular attraction, and even though she was kept in a separate pen from Haida, the two would often try to call out and talk to each other. Due to her young age, exposure to human attention, and the unknown location of her family pod, Fisheries and Oceans of Canada deemed her "unable to be released," and she was therefore given to Sealand in 1978 as a third resort, after the Ministry of Fisheries and the Vancouver Aquarium were unable to take her in. Sealand, with permission from Bigg and Davis, decided to rescue the baby whale, who they named "Miracle," and take her back to Victoria for emergency care. They discovered the story was true and that the baby killer whale was suffering from a bullet wound. Alan Hoey, and Bigg by float plane to Menzies Bay to investigate the claim. Bigg, in turn, called Sealand and Bob Wright, who took Angus Mathews, Dr. Newman then called Dr Michael Bigg, head of Marine Mammal Research at the Pacific Biological Station in Nanaimo, B.C. Murray Newman, founding director of the aquarium, got a call from Campbell River, B.C., resident William Davis, who claimed he was feeding a sick baby killer whale by hand in the wild. Haida's third mate, Nootka III, was also short-lived, and Haida, who had mourned each of his mates and had been displaying signs of depression, remained alone for the next five years. In 1973, Sealand captured an older female whale to be Haida's new mate, and named her Nootka II in honour of her predecessor. Chimo died in 1972, a little over 2 years after her capture she was originally thought to be albino because of her white colour, but it was later discovered that she had Chediak-Hegashi Syndrome, which made her very susceptible to illness. Nootka was later sold, and moved through several aquariums before dying in California. Two of the orcas, Chimo and Nootka, were brought to Sealand. Shortly afterward, the aquarium decided to capture a mate for him, and four members of a pod of Bigg's killer whales were caught on March 1, 1970, off the coast of Pedder Bay near Victoria. The aquarium opened in 1969, housing an orca named Haida which had been captured in 1968. The aquarium subsequently closed and sold its orcas to SeaWorld. In 1991, all three were involved in an incident in which a trainer, Keltie Byrne, was killed. It housed a number of orcas: Haida, Nootka, and Tilikum. Sealand of the Pacific was a public aquarium in South Oak Bay at The Oak Bay Marina, near the city of Victoria, in British Columbia, Canada.
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