Activists express alarm:

Discovery

Lipson

Putin

Activists are expressing alarm about more than 100 whales that are being kept in small, crowded pools in what environmentalists are calling a “whale prison,” off the coast of the Russian Far East.

The local court last week agreed to hear the activists’ lawsuit seeking to penalize officials who allowed the capture and demanding the animals’ release.

Activists first raised the alarm late last year when 90 belugas and 12 orcas were captured and placed in a marine containment facility. Russian law only allows for the capture of whales for “scientific” or “cultural” purposes. But activists believe the whales have been captured for sale to foreign amusement parks.

Local animal rights activists say the cramped conditions and low temperatures threaten the whales’ lives.

“There are very small chain-link pens, 12 to 15 baby whales are put there and have to be on top of each other,” said activist Nina Zyryanova. “Now it’s getting colder every day. Although these animals are native to the Arctic, they must move, hundred kilometers a day, to stay warm.”

The marine containment facility in Srednyaya Bay near Vladivostok has been investigated by Russian prosecutors who have already called the capture illegal. Russia’s President is Vladimir Putin. (AP)