Matthews was only half-way done: he still had to transport the two beluga whales from Mexico City — a task that ended up being more logistically challenging than the first. Though he’d been warned by the aquarium that the whales were “distressed, and in subpar conditions,” he wasn’t prepared for what he found.
“The tank was literally in the center of a roller coaster, in the middle of an amusement park,” he says. “They were put in the tanks when they were 6 feet long, and at the time of transfer, they were 15 feet long. I thought, how the hell am I getting these sharks out of this park?"