Two beluga whales captured from the wild and forced to spend their lives performing in a Chinese aquarium are to be flown to freedom in an Icelandic bay by their new British owner within weeks.

Little Grey and Little White will be released into the world’s first beluga whale sanctuary — a remote bay in Iceland — in early April after being flown 6,000 miles from captivity at Changfeng Ocean World in Shanghai. “This will be the world’s first sanctuary created to rehabilitate captive cetaceans such as whales and dolphins,” said a spokesman for Britain’s Sea Life Trust, which is behind the project.

It hopes that the sanctuary, on the island of Heimaey, will eventually become home to dozens more whales released from captivity.

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