This reverses a trend. There have been no imports of wild-caught whales or dolphins into the United States for 20 years. One constraint has been the Marine Mammal Protection Act (MMPA), which requires that captures be humane and not endanger wild populations—a standard that the marine parks find difficult to meet. Another has been a rise in public opposition to whale captivity, a growing PR problem for the industry that may well prove existential.

The beluga proposal, predictably, has ignited controversy. Environmental and animal-rights organizations argue that these 18 wild-caught whales are destined for lives of isolation, sensory deprivation, and mental derangement. The environmentalists suspect that the belugas may just be pump-primers—Trojan whales, in effect—pawns in an industry strategy to