Can whales survive Chicagos aquarium?
OCTOBER 26, 1998: For the Shedd Aquarium’s whale program, the third time had better be charmed There’s a furor over white whales in Chicago and it has absolutely nothing to do with Herman Melville. It’s morning at the Shedd Aquarium’s three-million-gallon Oceanarium. On the other side of the 215-pane wall of windows, a light drizzle mists over Lake Michigan. With the gauzy blanket of gray outside and the northern rainforest motif on the inside, the place feels downright Canadian. A beluga whale with the Inuit name Puiji (pronounced Poo-EE-jee) breaks the glassy surface of the Oceanarium’s 68-degree water. Her misshapen, nicked white back rises gently up before she glides back under the waves. Puiji and another whale, Immiayuk, are pregnant. This has folks at the Shedd Aquarium pensively thrilled. The development also has animal-rights activists in an uproar. Of course, this is nothing new for the Shedd. On September 22, 1992, Dr. Jeff Boehm gave two of the aquarium’s white whales routi
