Marineland: The Long, Long Epilogue

The final day of operations at Marineland, the controversial marine life theme park in Niagara Falls, was on September 1st, 2024. The park, as many predicted, never reopened to the public. There was no fanfare, no celebration, no protest. Everyone was ready for this exhausting story to end. And technically speaking, Marineland, the theme park, is over.

But the final day of Marineland, the stubborn red stain on the Niagara Region, has yet to pass. The gates are shut, but the tanks are full. The animals spent years in there, languishing. The Skyscreamer—their enormous drop tower—stands still, defiant, looming like a sinister scarecrow over the Niagara Falls skyline. You can't look at the actual Falls without the tower peeking over, into the photos and memories of tourists and locals alike.

Look at me, still tall and proud, the tower says. It was never going to be that easy.

In August 2024, I was there for what I thought was the closing chapter of Marineland. In retrospect, I was naive. Marineland has survived too much for mere bankruptcy to finish it off.

When the park closed, and inheritor Marie Holer died shortly after, the park passed to an ownership trust who began seriously looking to sell. As we've discussed in previous installments, this land is ludicrously valuable. It's three times the size of Disney World's Magic Kingdom, located less than a 10 minute drive from the main tourist area of Niagara Falls. You can practically hear the housing development vultures swirl.

You'd imagine this land would sell quickly, but there's a catch—the same catch that led to the park's downfall in the first place. The animals. No one wants to buy the park until the remaining marine life, including as many as 30 beluga whales, are removed, presumably because by owning the park, they become responsible for doing it.

Okay, so management needs to get rid of some whales. How hard could that be? Well...

In 2019, the federal government passed the Ending the Captivity of Whales and Dolphins Act. You get three guesses what the bill made illegal. Predictably, Marineland opposed the bill's passing, claiming it would make it impossible to operate the park. (Yeah, man, that was the point!)

Marineland's lobbying efforts managed to secure them a grandfather clause, meaning that they could legally keep the whales and dolphins they already had, but any import or export of these creatures would need to be specifically reviewed and approved by the Minister of Fisheries.

That's the problem: not only did Marineland need to find a buyer for thirty belugas, it needed to be one that the feds approved of.

In September 2025, they proposed sending the belugas to Chimelong Ocean Kingdom, an extremely popular sea life amusement park in China—sort of like a parallel universe successful Marineland. But the Fisheries Minister was squeamish about sending the animals to another amusement park, and said no, sending this process all the way back to square one.¹

This is when Marineland management tried an interesting new negotiation tactic: blackmail.

You'll be surprised to hear that "Give Me Millions Of Dollars Or I'll Kill These Whales" did not make Marineland popular, and it certainly didn't help them shake their reputation for animal abuse. The government seemed to call their bluff, and negotiation continued in private.

But inside this absurd turn of events was something that kind of resembled a good point—there isn't that many places in the world that these animals can be sent. You can't reintroduce these animals into the wild after they had spent their whole lives in captivity. A proposed whale sanctuary off the coast of Nova Scotia would be perfect—if it had ever been built.

As a whole year came and went since the park's closure, and with no visible progress being made on getting the animals out of the park, frustration grew within Niagara Falls. The space existed in a sort of limbo. We knew that something was going to happen, but everything seemed so static—with the park, the province, and the federal government all more interested in pointing fingers at each other than moving forwards. The old age was over, but we had no idea what could possibly emerge from the vacuum Marineland left behind.²

Eventually, mercifully, Marineland and the government agreed in late January of 2026 to send their remaining whales and dolphins to accredited aquariums across North America. A few weeks later, it really happened, and the first sea lions arrived at the Vancouver Aquarium.³

The animals are finally getting out of Marineland and into better homes. Soon, in theory, the park can be sold, and Marineland can finally start fading into memory.

But that day has not yet come. The sign in the empty parking lot still proudly reads Marineland. Some people think it will never come down.

When we talk about the indomitable nature of the human spirit, it's usually about something we're proud of. We think of the determination, vision, and hard work it must have taken to build impossible ancient wonders of the world, or modern marvels like the Internet or Wikipedia.

But there's no rule that says we only achieve the impossible when our dreams are noble.

Marineland was the vision of a singular, determined, ruthless man, John Holer, who moved heaven and earth to make this horrible, horrible place. He defied public opinion and countless protestors. He defied the laws of the nation, the laws of economics, and the laws of common sense.

He was wholly, painfully wrong to do so, but he was so convinced he was right.

Not a single person alive in the world today wants Marineland to still be there. Not the city, not the province, not the owners. But it remains, and no power has yet proven able to fully dislodge it. It's a monument to the misery we can nurture through stubbornness.

When you set your mind to changing the world, make sure it's for the better.

Footnotes

1. Turns out this specific part of the story went semi-viral on Chinese TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@guangtouriji/video/7561131942414978322 ↩

2. Okay, this is not totally true. An American real estate firm named Knapp Capital Management made a public bid to invest $5 billion into revitalizing the area into a year-round amusement resort/water park/casino/whale sanctuary/data center (????). No one from the government seemed to take this very seriously, which Knapp management would loudly complain about through an article in The Globe And Mail—although, in my opinion, if they were really serious they should have paid for a real concept artist instead of using the ugliest AI slop you've ever seen in your life. ↩

3. This was only after Marineland again threatened to kill the animals if the government didn't approve the export license. I think they actually just can't help themselves. ↩