Della the Grey Seal (c.2013-2025)
Obituary
Della, a 35-year-old grey seal, held at the Aquarium of Niagara, has died.
Della, a 35-year-old grey seal, died at the Aquarium of Niagara in New York in July 2025. She was euthanized after being diagnosed with a painful shoulder condition that affected her mobility. She was rescued in 1990 and sent to Zoo Knoxville, Lincoln Park Zoo, and Brookfield Zoo before being sent to New York.
Seals are frequently used in “encounters” at aquariums and marine amusement parks. Though Della was blind from cataracts in her later years, the aquarium continued to allow visitors to pay to touch her in encounters. These programs are stressful, dangerous, and further limit a wild animal’s already severely restricted life.
Aquariums and marine amusement parks use rescues to greenwash their true purpose—to exhibit animals for profit. Rescues are heavily promoted in press releases and are popular with the media. But rescues are unregulated, without oversight from independent agencies. Facilities evaluate rescues in terms of the animal’s exhibition potential. Further, the majority of exhibited animals are not rescues but bred in captivity or captured from the wild.
The development of marine sanctuaries is urgently needed to care for the animals currently exploited at aquariums and amusement parks and those that legitimately need rescue and cannot be returned to the wild. World Animal Protection urges everyone who loves seals to avoid aquariums and amusement parks and enjoy them in the wild.
