The Vancouver Aquarium says its harbour porpoise named Daisy died from pulmonary disease Thursday.
Daisy was just a month old when rescued by the aquarium in 2008. The average lifespane of the species is eight to 12 years.
The aquarium says there was a change in her behaviour earlier this month resulting in around-the-clock care. There was no immediate word on a cause of death.
The aquarium is now left with only two cetaceans, a Pacific white-side dolphin and a false killer while.
The death came on the same day aquarium officials applied for a judicial review aimed at overturning a park board bylaw banning whales, dolphins and porpoises from its facility.
The aquarium claims in its petition to the B.C. Supreme Court that the park board doesn’t have the statutory power to enact the bylaw, that board commissioners refused to hear from aquarium officials and that the decision renders a $100 million aquarium upgrade obsolete.
The aquarium said it had already spent $45 million of public and private funding on the upgrade. (News1130)
The Canadian Press
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