A Brief Comment by Doug Draper, followed by a CBC Radio Phone-In Program Featuring Former Marineland Trainer Phil Demers
Posted September 9th, 2025 on Niagara At Large
Former Marineland marine mammal trainer and vocal animal justice activist Phil Demers
With yet another death of a beluga whale reported over the past week, raising the death toll of belugas at the 64-year-old Marineland amusement park in Niagara Falls, Ontario to at least 20 since 2019, how many more might die before the provincial and federal governments finally step in and have the remaining 30 or more belugas and any other remaining animals at the park removed to safe sanctuaries?
This is a question now being asked by animal rights activists and by many others across the Niagara region, province and country as the future of the Marineland park – once billed by its late owner John Holer and his marketers as the most popular tourist attraction next to the Falls themselves – now hangs in limbo.
The park itself, once open to throngs of visitors well in to October, is now already closed for the season. With its rides being sold off and parcels of its sprawling lands now severed for sale to new owners for other uses, the need to assist the remaining animals there is now more pressing than ever.
The keeping of marine mammals this park and in others like it for peoples’ entertainment has been a matter of controversy for many decades now.
One of the many rallies for animals at Marineland held outside the park’s fences over the decades. file photo by Doug Draper
In the case of Marineland and going back to my years as an environment reporter at The St. Catharines Standard in the 1980s and 90s, numerous citizen groups and former marine mammal trainers from the park have spoken out for the welfare of marine mammals and other animals confined there.
One of them is Phil Demers, a Niagara resident and former trainer whose courageous voice and passion for finding a better life for the animals in the park is beyond rival.
This Monday, September 8th, Phil Demers was a guest for half an hour on CBC Radio One’s noon phone-in program to discuss the question of what senior levels of governments should now do to assist the remaining animals at the Marineland park
To listen to the program, click on the following link, then click on the play icon that pops up –https://www.cbc.ca/listen/live-radio/1-45-ontario-today/clip/16168097-marineland-is-government-step-in
Finally, I urge you to call your municipal, provincial and federal representatives and urge them to do everything they can to see that the remaining animals at Marineland are removed to safe and healthy sanctuaries as soon as possible.
Let’s join Phil Demers in raising our voices for these animals before it is too late.
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Doug Draper, Niagara At Large
Kiska, forced to do nothing but swim in circles in a tank for peoples’ amusement, died in 2023
Remembering Kiska, the last remaining orca (‘killer whale’) in captivity in Canada, died at the Marineland park in 2023. Known to many toward the end of her life as “the world’s loneliest whale,” she had been held in captivity for four decades
For a related post on the Marineland animal captivity controversy, click on – Still Protesting Animal Captivity – After All These Years – Outside the Gates of Marineland. | Niagara At Large
For other related posts, click on following links –
Marineland Guilty Of Providing Insufficient Care To Three Black Bears | Niagara At Large
Latest Marineland Story Is Just So Sad | Niagara At Large
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