Vancouver Aquarium asks courts to overrule ban on cetaceans in Stanley Park
VANCOUVER — Officials with the Vancouver Aquarium say they have applied for a judicial review aimed at overturning a park board bylaw banning whales, dolphins and porpoises from its facility in Stanley Park.
The aquarium says it is asking the B.C. Supreme Court to rule the cetacean ban is invalid and set it aside.
In a news release, the aquarium says its petition claims the park board doesn’t have the statutory power to enact the amendment, that board commissioners refused to hear from aquarium officials and that the decision renders a $100-million aquarium upgrade obsolete.
The aquarium says it has already spent $45 million of public and private funding on the upgrade.