As he learns to communicate with chirps, whistles and squeals, the Shedd Aquarium’s first baby beluga in over four years now has a name that sings: Opus. It’s a musical term — meaning a set of compositions — that honors his father Beethoven and nods to the high-pitched songs that have led to these whales being dubbed the “canaries of the sea.”
“The chosen name had overwhelming support, our members loved the connection between father and son, found the name to be clever and appreciated the opportunity to give this special whale a name,” said Charlie Jacobsma, director of animal behavior and training at Shedd Aquarium, in a news release Thursday.
Shedd members cast more than 1,000 votes to choose the calf’s name from a list of suggestions from aquarium staff. His caretakers say the 7-month-old is a curious explorer who likes to try new things. Since his birth to 35-year-old Naya in July, Opus has grown three times his newborn size of 5 feet and 105 pounds. He has recently begun eating solid fish, swimming in new spaces and meeting other pod members.
Opus has been spending time with Atlas, the second youngest beluga at the Shedd, born in 2020. As he explores, guests might be able to occasionally catch a glimpse of the calf on exhibit at the Abbott Oceanarium and recognize him as the smallest and darkest compared with the others.
Earlier this year, genetic tests confirmed Beethoven — the oldest male of the aquarium’s other eight belugas — is the calf’s father. But Opus won’t meet him for several months, as beluga fathers have no parental role or attachment to the calves.
The handful of accredited zoos and aquariums that care for this species have collected and provided valuable insights and most of the scientific knowledge available on the gestation and births of belugas, which are rarely seen or studied in the wild.
The first few months are vital for the development of beluga calves, and include milestones like bonding, swimming together, nursing regularly and gaining weight rapidly. The mother’s fat-rich milk allows the baby to build fat reserves for energy and for insulation from icy water temperatures. Understanding these milestones can provide insights into the possible disruptive effects of pollution, noise and human activity on wild belugas.
Observing and studying them can also inform management strategies for more vulnerable wild populations. For instance, while beluga whales are considered a species of least concern by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature, the population in Alaska’s Cook Inlet is classified as critically endangered.
Threats include industrial contaminants that accumulate in their bodies, boat traffic or shoreline and offshore development that hinder their movements, commercial overfishing that limits their food sources and other types of human disturbances in Anchorage, Alaska’s most densely populated area.
Other name options for Opus included Campbell, for the Campbell Creek Estuary Park, or Kincaid, for another park — both overlooking Cook Inlet. A fourth name option was Leucas for the scientific name of beluga whales, Delphinapterus leucas.
The aquarium has been involved with other beluga conservation efforts recently, including developing research methods for the University of Quebec and the Group for Research and Education of Marine Mammals to study an endangered population in Canada’s St. Lawrence Estuary, which connects the Great Lakes to the Atlantic Ocean.
A beluga whale’s weight, muscle and fat can indicate its chances of survival and reproductive success, but a changing environment might be contributing to a decline in body makeup for the St. Lawrence Estuary population. The Shedd allowed researchers to test drone photography on the aquarium’s healthy belugas so they could take those techniques and monitor the wild population from afar and understand its decline.
Beluga whale populations in the United States are protected under the Marine Mammal Protection Act, and the population in Cook Inlet is protected under the Endangered Species Act. Both laws have recently been targeted by Republican lawmakers in the U.S. Committee on Natural Resources, who last week argued at an oversight meeting that they were an overreach of federal authority and ambiguous statutes.
“The more we understand species like beluga whales, the better positioned we are to contribute to safeguarding them for generations to come,” said Andrew Pulver, vice president of animal care at Shedd Aquarium, in a news release when Opus was born. “Every birth at Shedd Aquarium is not only a moment to celebrate — it’s a significant stride toward our vision of a world thriving with aquatic life.”
