A ban on having exotic animals as pet would actually be the best to honour these 'magnificent' animals.
I don't think the owner was necessarily bad. However, if you are a pet owner, of any animal, not just exotic ones, the least you can do if you go away for holidays is having someone coming to check for your pets.
A beluga can change the shape of its "melon" (the bulbous mass on its head) at will. Could this be used as a form of communication? A new study indicates that it might. Here's a story from @hakaimagazine with a six-panel comic illustrating the five different melon shapes and in what contexts some are used.