Fjord & Bælt in Focus

15-minute read

In the last episode of my podcast I mention a scientific paper about my former place of work, Fjord & Bælt. I shared some snippets in the show, but I’d like to dive much deeper into it for anybody who’s interested. Basically, I’ve copied and pasted chunks of the paper and torn it to pieces bit by bit.

If anyone from Fjord & Bælt is reading this, I really am sorry. I had a great time there (despite feeling sorry for the animals the entire time), and my year in Denmark was one of the happiest of my life. But now that I’ve found myself and, more importantly, my voice I have to speak up. I can’t see much distinction between what happens there and commercial facilities. Fjord & Bælt could even be worse, given how the animals have to perform in public presentations and participate in research.

As I mentioned in episode 10, this paper was written by Magnus Wahlberg who I worked with while I was in Denmark. Sorry again, Magnus. I’m about to put your work through the shredder for a second time.

Here’s a quick introduction for anyone coming in to this blind, Fjord & Bælt is a small aquarium in Denmark that’s held porpoises in captivity for the last 25 years. They are affiliated with the University of South Denmark, who have a lab and offices in the aquarium grounds.

The porpoises and seals are trained to participate in research for scientific publications. When I worked there, we also had a pair of cormorants who weren’t on display but were subject to behavioural and acoustical research. Magnus’ paper says there have been more than 60 scientific papers resulting from their work with the animals.

It all sounds pretty above board, right? Keep reading, I’m about to quote the paper directly -

The idea of establishing a marine research and outreach center in Kerteminde dates to the early 1990s when the University of Southern Denmark was searching for a new location for its marine ecology and ecotoxicology programs.

Simultaneously, the Kerteminde municipality was interested in establishing an outreach center to promote the town’s tourist portfolio, as well as in developing teaching activities for school classes near and far. Ideas converged upon using a location in Kerteminde harbour, both as a laboratory and as an education center. By 1995, funding had been secured, and construction started.

The university wanted a new marine facility, sounds fine so far. Porpoises weren’t a part of the initial idea, they just wanted to do science. But things were about to escalate -

Early in the planning, the chief curator of the local museums, Erland Porsmose, had come up with the idea of F&B keeping harbour porpoises, small cetacean residents to inner Danish waters.

The idea was not so far-fetched for Erland, being a son of a fisherman and from youth well acquainted with porpoises from the Belts. Erland asked Søren Andersen for help. Søren had decades of experience keeping porpoises at Danish research facilities.

However, Søren thought it would be difficult to keep the porpoises alive for extended time periods. From his experience, porpoises acquired many different types of diseases that could be fatal when kept over longer periods.

Knowing how much sickness and death has happened at Fjord & Bælt since it established, it’s really infuriating that nobody listened to this guy. But the ball was already in motion -

An ambitious construction plan evolved to secure sufficient space for keeping porpoises and to use the tidal exchange in the harbour to secure continuous renewal of the water.

While retaining a large section of the original harbour wall, two openings were created to allow for continuous in and out flow of the water. Double netting across those openings was established along and inside the original harbour wall, creating a 30 × 20 m and 3 to 5 m deep net pen.

The proposed solution was accepted as it involved less expenditures for the contractor and had the advantage of keeping a navigational marker in its original position.

I’ve already mentioned that the pools were small. It’s also worth knowing that the centre’s construction was planned before they decided to nab some porpoises. Listen to this bit -

A protective wall was added to the plans, which would eventually form the outside of the harbour porpoise enclosure.

Their habitat, which has now been in use for 25 years, was an afterthought. And on top of that, they botched together a small enclosure to keep costs down and not have to move a navigational marker. Magnus himself admits it’s not ideal -

It was not easy to design the sea pen and make it sustainable and functional for its purposes. Kerteminde harbour is well known for hefty changes in water level, leading to strong currents and fast changes in visibility conditions.

When the current is outward going and wind blows into the harbour from the east, standing wave patterns in the harbour challenge any structures and boats adjacent to the harbour walls.

During cold winters, the harbour could freeze, but thanks to the strong water movements, this has only been a serious challenge on rare occasions. Along the pen’s perimeter were pontoons that moved up and down with the daily changes in water level; this was where animal care staff would feed and train the porpoises.

This is 100% correct. In the winter we had to put noisy pumps in the water to keep the water from freezing and trapping the porpoises under ice. They were basically swimming around in a giant unflavoured slushie.

The water was sometimes so low pontoons around the pools were hanging at steep angles. We’d have to climb down carefully to feed the animals. We’d also get nosy kayakers coming and bothering the porpoises at the end of the pool that connected to the fjord. They continued nonetheless. They were on a mission -

When planning the center, there was great concern about the high bycatch rate of porpoises in gillnets. Reducing bycatch to sustainable levels became a major aim of the research. Outreach activities around the porpoises should inform the public about the challenges of nature conservation … among the early visitors to the center, many had no idea that porpoises could be found in Danish waters.

Great! Although a billboard could have done the same job. In terms of aiming to reduce bycatch, that’s a tricky one to assess. Not all porpoises that get caught in nets get reported, so it’s hard to know for sure.

There’s a good paper from 2023 that says the porpoise bycatch rate is a third of what is was historically, but then say they don’t include bycatch for international fisheries operating in Danish waters, so how useful is that data anyway?

But back to Fjord & Bælt. They’d been given permission to acquire some porpoises, and all they had to do was wait for some to get caught by a fishing vessel -

On 7 April 1997, less than a month after F&B’s official opening, two porpoises (later named “Eigil” and “Freja”) were brought to Kerteminde from a pound net near Korsør in the Great Belt.

The porpoises were first held in small quarantine pools inside the Marine Biological Research Center, next door to F&B, to monitor their health condition. When the porpoises arrived at the center, they were not used to eating dead fish, whether served whole or in pieces.

A variety of techniques were used to try to get them to eat. Following a suggestion from Søren Andersen, the trainer used a fishing pole with a dead fish on a line, shaking it to make it appear alive.

In the wild, a dead fish might be rotten, diseased or full of parasites. Imagine being fed something you’ve evolved to avoid like the plague for the rest of your life. Because it is the rest of their lives. Their accidental bycatch has earned them indefinite detention. They had to comply or die. These two complied, listen -

The animals rapidly learned how to station in front of the care staff and how to present their bodies to the trainers for body checks. A small sloping platform was installed, and the animals were trained to swim onto the platform for visual inspection, regular weighing, and for other voluntary husbandry behaviours. While the porpoises were out of the water, the audience had a greater chance to see their entire bodies.

The animals were being taught even more unnatural behaviour, and the fact that the animals would be completely out of the water so that the public could see them was a ‘bonus’. That sloping platform gets used a lot, by the way. The animals probably have to train it once a day each at least. And they didn’t stop there -

Over time, the animal care and training programs expanded. The animals were trained to voluntarily participate in health care, including sampling from the blowhole and stomach; blood collection; and measuring length, blubber thickness, girths, and weight … Eigil and Freja were also trained to wear suction cups and eye cups, expanding the possibilities for research projects regarding sonar and behavior.

They could be blindfolded when solving echolocation tasks and wear various types of measurement equipment during research sessions to obtain information on sound production, body acceleration, heart rate, and hearing.

I talked a lot about medical care in captive cetaceans in the podcast and there’s some horrifying footage of it on my instagram @adolphinpod (watch with caution). As a personal witness to healthcare at Fjord & Bælt, it was an uneventful part of the daily routine. Most of the time.

There were emergencies and illnesses, some of which went on a long time. The animals wouldn’t always voluntarily come to station (where the food is) when they weren’t feeling well, and sometimes we’d have to isolate them in the small medical pool for extended periods.

One thing I never witnessed was the arrival of a new porpoise, as described by Magnus thusly -

In April 1999, an additional porpoise was brought to F&B after being caught in a pound net in Baaring Vig, Denmark. She was named “Nuka.” After a short quarantine period, Nuka was put in the floating pen and, after further adaptation, to the large semi-open sea pen. She was a healthy, well-nourished porpoise and a quick learner.

Unfortunately, she died in February 2000 after 10 days of illness. The necropsy revealed that she had suffered from a rare bacterial infection, which caused a large gathering of pus in the wall of her heart.

Nuka was the first porpoise to die at Fjord & Bælt. She didn’t even last a year. Like Søren Andersen said back in 1995, porpoises get sick and die in captivity. That didn’t stop them getting another new whale, however -

Another young female, called “Sif,” was collected from a pound net in July 2004 at Fjellerup Strand, Jutland. Even though she had recurrent health problems during her entire life and was often under long-term treatments for various ailments, she participated in a wide range of hearing and echolocation studies.

I knew Sif. She was very shy and one of the more sickly of the porpoises. This might sound weird, but I never got close with her. She didn’t let me. There was another porpoise with more medical problems than Sif, and she was born right there in captivity.

In 2006, Freja had her first calf, which, unfortunately, did not survive the birth. A few months later, Freja was pregnant again … Freja gave birth to “Frigg” on 8 August 2007 at 0200 h, following nine long hours of labor.

Magnus describes this event as - and I quote “the first successful porpoise birth ever.” I think he meant to say captive birth. Porpoises are successfully born all the time. But yes, Frigg was the first captive-born porpoise to survive long enough for the birth to be considered successful. I remember her as fondly as Magnus does -

Frigg rapidly developed into a fast learner and very social animal, without the natural deep-rooted hesitation that can be found in wild animals brought into zoological facilities.

We had the opportunity to study her behavioural, physical, and sensory development, and the bonds between her and her mother Freja throughout the first year of her life. Using a hydrophone array, we could show that Frigg, already at day 4, apparently had a functional sonar.

Sadly, Frigg died in 2013 from a parasitic infection of Toxoplasmosis.

I wasn’t there when Frigg died, but I heard every detail. She was on medication her entire life, and got ill more frequently than the others to my recollection. She was only six years old and by all accounts it was a slow death. The trainers felt her heart stop beating.

That left them with three porpoises then they usually had four. But once again, there would be a new arrival -

In 2013 and 2014, Sif delivered two male calves that only survived a few days after birth. It is still not entirely clear what went wrong in these cases. The first calf, named “Mr X,” did not seem to develop normal porpoise calf behaviour but would swim almost mindlessly along the perimeter of the pool, being indifferent to Sif’s efforts in calling for his attention.

I wasn’t there for this either. I went back for my second stint after Frigg’s death and Sif’s delivery. The trainers were still reeling from the losses, and had stayed at work for more than 10 consecutive days to be ready to act in an emergency. Morale was low, until this gal right here brought her bants back, of course.

I learned through researching my podcast that after I’d left for the second time, Sif got pregnant again -

The second calf, named “Mr. Y,” never attended to Sif but instead seemed to adopt the perimeter of the pool as his mother. Both calves were euthanized within a week after birth when we had to conclude that the relationship to the mother did not develop as needed. This was one of the hardest decisions ever made by F&B staff.

Sif had a violent reaction to her first calf being taken away from her, and I can only imagine how much it must have hurt to lose another baby in such quick succession. I have no clue as to the circumstances beyond what Magnus wrote and would rather not know. I loved Frigg, and hearing how much she suffered was horrible. It would be just as bad to hear about Sif. Magnus took a pragmatic approach to the problem -

After the unsuccessful births of Sif’s two calves, we realized that the future of having porpoises at F&B could not rely on births. Instead, we started to plan for collecting new animals from pound nets. This is a rather complicated operation, involving many people, permits, and interactions with fishermen and more.

In May 2017, all logistical requirements had been fulfilled, and a suitable animal, named “Idun,” was collected from a pound net in the Great Bælt. Regretfully, Idun did not survive the first period of quarantine.

If you’re keeping track, Idun was the sixth porpoise to die at the centre, including all the calves. Sif became the seventh in December 2017, but she wasn’t the last -

A new attempt was made in September 2020. Two female porpoises were caught in a pound net at Korsør in the Great Belt. They were estimated to be about 15 months old. One of the porpoises was extremely malnourished and suffering from deep wounds, probably bites from a seal that had been observed inside the pound net.

Both females, given the names “Vilja” and “Saga,” were placed in a quarantine facility for acclimation and while waiting for blood test results. After three days, both animals began eating hand-held fish. Basic training, such as station training and target recognition, was started.

Vilja, the smaller and injured animal, unfortunately died after 14 days of intensive care and rehabilitation. Necropsy results showed that she had a very high load of parasites, causing bleeding lesions and damage to her lungs and other organs. Saga, however, was in good health and was soon moved out of quarantine into the smaller medical pool in the main sea pen.

That brings us to eight dead animals at Fjord & Bælt since 1999. The current collection consists of Freja, Saga and a male who was brought ashore later that year -

A little more than a month later, in early November 2020, a local fishermen arrived at F&B with a young male porpoise and a dead calf. Both had been caught in his pound net in Kerteminde Bay, just outside F&B. From its length, the male porpoise was determined to have been born in 2019. A routine full health check was performed, and he was then placed in the quarantine facility. He was given the name “Eskild.”

The caretakers had learned a lot from taking care of Saga and Vilja, so Eskild started eating from a trainer’s hand two days after arrival. Once his blood and health tests were satisfactory, Eskild was moved to the small outdoor floating pen, which allowed for auditory and visual contact with Saga and Freja. After a couple of weeks, he was released into the main pen, where he has remained with Saga and Freja ever since.

Freja is the oldest known porpoise on Earth. She’s at least 26 years old as of the time of writing this. If you want to check on the animals at Fjord & Bælt, have a look at this captive cetacean database. It’s not completely exhaustive but all the information on there is definitely correct.

I gave Fjord & Bælt a bit of a free pass when it first got mentioned in my podcast. It was only when I was writing about captivity in the name of research that I realised I’d let them off really easy. And I’m not the only one. Magnus will tell you himself -

One day in 1997, activists from Greenpeace Germany arrived at the newly conceived center to demonstrate against F&B keeping whales in captivity. This was before the era of social media, and Greenpeace’s objective was to publish a feature article about the protests in their membership magazine.

In response to the activists, the center director decided to invite them inside so that they could see and hear for themselves what took place at the center. The openness paid off. A few weeks later, Greenpeace published an article about how F&B would benefit wild porpoises.

The research angle worked on Greenpeace too. And I’m not saying research is bad or wrong, I just don’t think it’s worth uprooting healthy, wild animals and controlling every facet of their existence until their dying day. But this is the bit that really struck a chord with me -

You regularly hear strong opinions against keeping marine mammals in captivity, often expressed without background knowledge on how the work inside facilities such as F&B is carried out and what the objectives are.

Not this time, Magnus. I know exactly how things work at Fjord & Bælt. Admittedly I was only there for a year, but I was on the team working with the animals day to day. I was there for every presentation, research session and medical check. I scraped barnacles off the slide-out ramp so Eigil wouldn’t scratch himself when he humped it.

I watched the animals freak out at the tiniest things. The head trainer, Jakob, even showed me and the other interns a video of how much the behaviour of the porpoises was affected by visitors walking calmly past the pools. He didn’t seem to think there was a problem giving presentations on mic, playing music and sound effects while the audience laughs and cheers.

Wild porpoises can have home ranges bigger than 200 square kilometres (80 square miles). The animals at Fjord & Bælt have about 50 metres (165 feet) of lengthways swimming room and 15 metres (50 feet) of width. That’s if the back pool isn’t in use.

There’s a net cutting off the rear third of the pool and the only entrance is a small underwater opening. They slide a metal gate in from above to keep animals in the research pool, main pool or different animals in each.

Research isn’t physically damaging, but frequently involves blindfolding the animals with suction cups and other invasive procedures that are extremely far-removed from natural porpoise behaviour. If people walking past is scary, how terrifying must it be to have tiny plungers put on your eyes for an experiment?

I’m not the only one to criticise Fjord & Bælt -

In the 2010s, demonstrations started to be organized during the international Empty the Tanks day in May, but the event never attracted more than a few tens of demonstrators. Even though we could see the national and international climate against having marine mammals in captivity was growing, F&B was barely affected by this trend.

We thought that by having a strong focus on research and education and being a nonprofit organization, it would help us to make opponents understand that we were not keeping animals in captivity for entertainment and economic gain.

They’re flying under the radar. Nobody’s scrutinising them because they have academia on their side. Well, not nobody, exactly -

When F&B acquired new porpoises in 2020, several large animal rights NGOs launched large protest campaigns against the center ... For many months, the center was under constant accusations and threats to its buildings and animals. We care about good animal welfare and seriously consider the ethical dimension of having wild animals in a facility for outreach and research.

Unfortunately, the nature of these campaigns is not representative of the actual situation at F&B and the conditions of our animals, such as claims that the porpoises are showing behavioral signs of maltreatment. The campaigns reported the incorrect species kept, that no relevant research is done, and that experiments with the animals damaged them physically.

I have to disagree here. I do think you’re maltreating those porpoises by having them in captivity in the first place. Plus, the animals have to do medical behaviours, presentations and research.

In terms of research quality, I’m not sure the ends justify the means. Magnus addresses the valuable finds that have come from more than two decades of work -

Quite often, we hear people asking themselves, or us, “Soon you must know all there is to know about porpoises!?” In fact, the situation is quite the opposite. Even after 25 years of studies, we are merely scratching the surface in understanding the lives of harbour porpoises.

Regarding porpoise biology, we learned that the animals fatten seasonally in response to declining sea temperature and perhaps daylight changes in winter, thus increasing their energy deposits and insulation.

In addition, we have learned that teeth growth layers can be used to assess animal age. Even though animals may rarely attain more than 20 years of age, most porpoises do not live beyond five years in the wild, right around the time of sexual maturity.

Animals gaining weight in the winter? Stop the presses! We need to get this breaking news to the people immediately! These are legitimately the justifications he gives in the paper.

Interestingly, he doesn’t loop back to bycatch reduction, which has supposedly been the goal all along. I believe there has been work on acoustic alarms at the centre, but it’s not something Magnus chose to highlight when discussing their big findings.

Personally, I can see a very simple solution to reducing porpoise bycatch. Fish less. We ought to be doing that anyway given the state the stocks are already in. It’s all well and good educating the public about porpoises living around Denmark, but the centre’s visitors aren’t the ones that need the message. It’s those contributing to their continued bycatch that need the education, in my opinion.

There is one last line I want to share from my buddy Magnus’ paper, because it actually applies to me personally.

We thank all of the volunteers and trainer staff at Fjord&Bælt throughout the years for their hard and always professional work with the animals.

All I can say is - you’re welcome, Magnus.