Bulea, the Shedd Aquarium’s only male Pacific white-sided dolphin and one of the original four captured in 1988 for the Shedd’s Oceanarium exhibit, has died after struggling in recent years with a chronic respiratory illness.
The graceful, 6-foot-6-inch dolphin died about 5:45 p.m. Thursday in the Oceanarium’s medical facility despite veterinarians’ efforts to save him. He was down to 205 pounds from his normal 240, had been in failing health for 10 days, and had extreme problems breathing in his last hour, said Jeffrey Boehm, the Oceanarium’s chief veterinarian.
“From our preliminary necropsy results, we believe he had pneumonia,” Boehm said. “Respiratory problems are not uncommon in marine mammals, something often found in beached whales and dolphins in the wild.”
For the past couple of years, the aquarium staff has been struggling to isolate and identify the virus or bacteria plaguing the dolphin in hopes of finding a treatment, Boehm said.
Bulea’s death will force the Shedd to retool its plans to make the facility a breeding center for white-sided dolphins. He had sired the only dolphin born at the Oceanarium, a baby that was stillborn in 1995.
The Pacific white-sided dolphins, remarkably athletic and high-leaping, have become familiar to Oceanarium visitors who watch them work with trainers several times a day in public showings in the facility’s main, 2 million-gallon pool.
The Oceanarium now has five dolphin females: Tique, Sira and Kri, who were collected along with Bulea in Monterey Bay off California in 1988; and Piquet and Katrl, collected in 1993 amid furious protests by animal rights activists who are opposed to keeping marine mammals in aquariums and zoos..
Indeed, animal rights activists seized on Bulea’s death to call for an investigation by federal authorities and for the release of the remaining dolphins back into the wild.
“The Shedd Aquarium has a horrible history with animal deaths,” said Debbie Leahy, president of Illinois Animal Action.
Quitz, another male dolphin collected in 1993, died two years later after contracting a bacterial infection, probably from wild-caught fish fed to the Oceanarium animals.
But even without a male, “there is no reason why we can’t be a part of a breeding program,” Boehm said.
For example, the Shedd currently has a male and a pregnant female beluga whale on breeding loan from a zoo in Tacoma, Wash., and Boehm said a similar loan might be worked out for a male dolphin from one of a dozen aquariums around the world.
“Those plans will come later,” he said. “We’ve been so focused on trying to save Bulea, that that has not been something we’ve been thinking about.”
Pacific white-sided dolphins are not so well known to science or the public as bottle-nosed dolphins. They live farther off coastlines and in deeper waters.
Science knows little about their life cycles or average life expectancies. About 20 of them are in American aquariums, including two captive-born ones at Texas Sea World.
Because of the difficulties of studying them in nature, the small captive populations are prized by marine biologists.
“We know so little about whales and dolphins in general,” said Tom Otten, director of Seattle’s Point Defiance Zoo who has spent much of his career specializing in marine mammals.
“Much of what we do know comes directly from what we have learned observing those in zoos and aquariums. The ultimate purpose of doing this may well be to safely return members of these species to the wild when their numbers are endangered out there.”
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They are intelligent and charismatic animals that bond with people around them.
“The bond he had with those who work with him was phenomenal,” Boehm said Friday. “Even yesterday afternoon he was still soliciting interaction, bringing balls to the side of the pool to get attention from the people watching him.
“It’s been a pretty rough time here for a lot of people since we lost Bulea. People start getting teary remembering how two of the (female dolphins), Tique and Sira, seemed to look after him as he got weaker. They’d get on either side of him and swim along, letting him slipstream between them for a free, almost effortless ride.”
Over the last couple of years, Boehm said Bulea had gone through bouts of weight loss and lassitude. As his bad days increased over the last few months, the dolphin seemed to enjoy being with his female counterparts, though he hadn’t engaged in mating activity or taken part in Oceanarium performances for months.
“We saw a waxing and waning process of inflammation in him for such a long time,” Boehm said, “seeing recovery and relapse. In the last couple of years, we consulted veterinary specialists and specialists in radiology and internal medicine.
“We sent samples of his white blood cells to a specialist at the University of Miami to see if his immune system was working, it turned out to be OK. We’re hoping further work on tissues from the necropsy will tell us more.”
Besides Quitz and Bulea, the Oceanarium also experienced the death of two beluga whales in 1992 shortly after they were brought in from the wild, apparently killed in reaction to a deworming medicine.
“Bulea’s loss hurts,” Boehm said, “but as you work with these animals, you really learn the lessons of how death is part of life. We’re going to have the opportunity some day down the line to see some births, too, and growing and nurturing.”