Hong Kong’s Ocean Park will transform its North Pole Encounter zone into a marine mammal conservation centre featuring the skeleton of a whale that washed ashore in Sai Kung in 2023.
The new exhibit, scheduled to open in the first quarter of 2027, will highlight the park’s marine mammal research and rescue efforts.
Visitors can explore other exhibits and animals, such as seals and sea lions, at Pacific Pier, an attraction in the Marine World section, the theme park said.
The new centre will feature interactive zones and immersive learning facilities that showcase marine mammal behaviours and highlight threats to ocean ecosystems, such as climate change and plastic pollution, according to the park.
The park said visitors could learn about marine life and discover hands-on ways to support conservation at the new facility.
The revamp announcement followed the deaths of 11-year-old Arctic foxes “Siu Go” and “Trinity” and the subsequent closure of their Arctic Fox Den.
The park’s last two Arctic foxes both died from irreversible, age-related decline.
The den, along with the North Pole Encounter, was part of the “Polar Adventure” zone, introduced in the 2010s as the park expanded its collection of cold-climate animal exhibits.
The enclosure was part of a broader effort to showcase polar wildlife, including penguins, seals and walruses, in a chilled habitat designed to simulate Arctic conditions and promote conservation awareness among visitors.
In mid-July 2023, a juvenile male Bryde’s whale measuring more than eight metres (26 feet) in length appeared in Hong Kong waters and became the object of a whale-watching craze, with tours conducted on chartered vessels.
By the end of the month, the whale was found dead off Shelter Island in Sai Kung. An official autopsy report concluded that it had died after a large, fast-moving vessel fatally injured its back and spine.
It was later buried, with its bones retrieved after the remaining soft tissue had decomposed. Authorities said the skeleton would be donated to Ocean Park for research purposes. -- SOUTH CHINA MORNING POST
