Sea World Bid to Import Whales Scrutinized

Animal rights activists and a federal agency that regulates marine parks are taking a tough approach to Sea World’s request to import a half-dozen killer whales from a marine park in Canada.

The National Marine Fisheries Service, which may decide by spring whether to permit the whales to be imported, has made some policy changes and “will treat every application seriously and thoroughly,” says Ann Terbush, the agency’s permit chief.

Sea World, which operates parks in San Diego, Orlando, San Antonio and Ohio, applied for permits to import the whales in late 1991, according to Dan LeBlanc, a spokesman for Sea World of California on Mission Bay.

While the Sea World parks initially applied to import four whales, that number could rise because one whale since has had a baby and another whale is pregnant, LeBlanc said.

The parks now have 13 permanent whales and one whale on a temporary basis that was imported last month from Canada. Sea World has not identified which parks would get the whales, LeBlanc said.

Nancy Daves of the Animal Protection Institute contends that marine parks in the past “felt it was their right to capture and import animals.”

“I think what the National Marine Fisheries Service is saying is, ‘It’s a privilege, and we are going to scrutinize these applications in keeping with what the public wants us to do,’ ” Daves said.

Sea World officials say they are doing what the public wants: providing close-up encounters with killer whales. “People like it,” said Brad Andrews, a Sea World vice president.

Last year’s death of two killer whales--at Sea World parks in Orlando and San Antonio--prompted increased scrutiny by the federal agency.

Sea World of Florida last month imported a killer whale that, along with two other whales, was involved in the drowning of a trainer at Sealand of the Pacific near Victoria, B.C. LeBlanc said that the whale was taken from Victoria to Orlando “on an emergency basis” to help safeguard the remaining whales held in that facility.

Federal officials want to make sure that the “tragic incident” is not repeated at Sea World in Orlando, Terbush told the Orlando Sentinel in a story published Monday. The agency is still reserving the right to determine whether the recent import, named Tillikum, will remain in Florida.

Times staff writer Greg Johnson contributed to this report.