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HALIFAX, N.S. —

A whale sanctuary group has changed tack in its ongoing search for a beluga protection area in Nova Scotia.

The Whale Sanctuary Project will hold public meetings over the next 10 days to identify communities that may be interested in becoming home to a seaside sanctuary for beluga whales being retired from entertainment parks.

Project organizers Charles Vinick and Lori Marino first floated the idea of a sanctuary in Nova Scotia last summer but the idea foundered in at least one community, Terence Bay, amid opposition from local fishermen.

This time around the group is emphasizing community input and consultation, said Vinick, who is best known for the Keiko Project, which marshaled public support to reintroduce to the wild an orca captured in Iceland and sold to Marineland in Niagara Falls, Ont., made famous in the Free Willy films.

“This is a different approach,” Vinick said in an interview Tuesday after a news conference in Halifax announcing the public meetings.

Last summer, the group focused on gathering information such as depth, water flow and other physical characteristics at potential sites identified through conversations with local individuals and environmental groups.

“We have a lot of data but we need to start with people and really start with the communities,” Vinick said, “and that’s what this approach is about so that we (aren’t) seen as coming in with a plan and having people adopt it but rather try to create a workable plan with a community that’s interested.”

Referring to Terence Bay, he said “the fishermen had legitimate concerns. ... They are reasonably concerned about anything that may impact their livelihoods so we want to be sure we create a situation that’s positive for them as well as for any other stakeholders in the community.”

Vinick also said there was confusion last year about the species his group had in mind for the Nova Scotia sanctuary. While the project wants to create sanctuaries for orcas and dolphins elsewhere, the Nova Scotia site would only include beluga whales.

Dr. Lori Marino, president of the Whale Sanctuary Project, and Charles Vinick, its executive director, speak at a news conference Tuesday in Halifax. The group is looking for a site in Nova Scotia for a beluga whale sanctuary.

The organization is looking for a 40-hectare area (just under 0.5 square kilometres) along the Atlantic shore of Nova Scotia that can become a home to whales that retired from entertainment facilities or are injured and need rehabilitation within a netted-off area. The project would create jobs and promote knowledge among local residents and visitors about the beluga, the group says.

Belugas raised in captivity aren’t capable of feeding themselves in the wild so they would spend all their lives (between 30 and 50 years) in the protected area.

“Because they depend so much on learning throughout their ... childhood-juvenile period, they’ve missed all that,” said Marino, a neuroscientist who has studied the evolution of the brain and intelligence in dolphins, whales, primates and farmed animals.

“They have no idea what an ocean is,” she said at the news conference in Halifax. “They have no idea what it means to survive and catch one’s own fish. They don’t have a social group, they don’t have survival skills so we can’t just take them and dump them back in the ocean.”

The group’s local adviser and site selection co-ordinator, Catherine Kinsman, said the priorities will be to find the most suitable natural environment for the belugas and just as importantly, the right community for the sanctuary.

“I have a particular understanding of beluga whales in our waters,” said Kinsman, a beluga research specialist who co-founded the Whale Stewardship Project about 20 years ago, “but also I know the incredible value and importance of communities ... It’s the community that needs to really understand the visitor that’s there in their waters and be able to adopt and adapt to (them).

“The community (must be) able to conduct their activities in the water so they can still do what they need to do, both recreationally and for fishermen, and yet keep the whale safe.”

The first public meeting will be held Thursday, Jan. 31, in Alderney Landing in Dartmouth at 7 p.m. Details on the February meetings in Liverpool, Port Hawkesbury, Sherbrooke and Sheet Harbour can be found on the project's website.

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