Why killer whales should not be kept in captivity
bbc.com
bbc.com
In a recent BBC Attenborough documentary (I think Frozen Planet) there was a sequence where they showed teams of killer whales swiftly swimming just under the surface to create a wave in an attempt to knock a seal off an ice flow so that they could eat it.
After the main part of the documentary they had a "making of" component that showed how the film crew got the shots and made the film, and they showed the killer whales trying to do the same trick on the tiny boat the camera men were on to try to knock them into the water.
Seems like we might not be very palatable for many creatures (or are just too bizarre for them to eat).
A bunch of stuff becomes much harder if you don't have a little finger.
For example, a human happening to stray close to a young orca might be confused as a threat to it, which could trigger an attack by a parent. Yet, despite there being lots of orcas in the ocean, no violent altercation between a wild orca and a human has led to a human death.
That this hasn't happened even once is remarkable, especially given the massive size and strength of orca. Other large mammals often kill humans, and not just as food, for example, hippos.
I don't think we know exactly why orcas have never killed humans, but I would guess their intelligence has something to do with it.
Orcas are common where I live in British Columbia, but you really don't have that many swimmers around in contrast to tropical areas. Additionally, the local resident orcas eat salmon and I don't think they'd consider humans to be a potential food source. Transient orcas eat seals, and I could imagine them confusing a human with a seal just as great white sharks do. Maybe the migration patterns of transient orcas don't line up with when and where people swim.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killer_whale#Range_and_habitat
and they can encounter humans not just when the humans are swimming - which is rare in cold climates - but also when they are fishing.
Furthermore, there are also practically no cases of other dolphins than orca killing humans, and human-dolphin encounters are not that rare. For example, even in the times of ancient Greece, dolphins were known and considered very friendly,
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dolphin#In_history_and_religio...
Other dolphins are of course significantly smaller than orca, but still very powerful when in the water.
I don't think there is an obvious answer for why wild orca have never been seen killing a human, and practically no other dolphin either. It's an interesting mystery.
I’ve read that most of the time shark attacks are somewhat accidental with the shark biting to find out what something is, but not continuing the attack.
It could be that the echolocation abilities of toothed whales provides them with a superior ability to discern a human from their typical favoured prey and they don't make mistakes.
It would be ambitious for a dolphin to kill a large animal like a human and that’s since that’s not their typical hunting behaviour, I can understand why dolphin attacks are not common.
On other hand an transient orca would often eat human sized animals. Even if I’m right that echolocation would allow an orca to discern between a seal and a human, why wouldn’t they give the human a bite to see if they tasted any good? It is pretty weird mystery that there have been no recorded attacks on humans.
http://www.davidspilmanfinebooks.com/pages/books/13027/aspey...
You don't have to pay $350 for the print version, it's on Gutenberg
"SeaWorld holds 23 orcas in its three parks in the United States and owns (at least) a further four at Loro Parque in Spain (ownership of Adan and Morgan not verified). At least forty-five orcas have died at SeaWorld." [1]
[1] http://uk.whales.org/wdc-in-action/fate-of-captive-orcas
For pigs, this is entirely plausible. While i'm also very opposed to our current factory farming practices, since i'm fairly nihilistic about ending meat consumption for high functioning mammals in my lifetime, we could absolutely and trivially easily make their lives pleasant before slaughtering them for their delicious bacon. Yes, it would cause bacon to be more expensive, but it's definitely doable. This is simply impossible for orcas under the current paradigm.
Even as someone who supports animal rights and welfare, i could see myself being okay with orcas in captivity, if we're talking about oceanic reservations, say, the size of Connecticut, but at that size, it'd be impossible for us to make them do tricks and crap that people go to sea world for.
I try to take a more game-theoretic approach. Support those that are doing more to change the culture of how we treat animals to minimize the harm that exists and will persist. This may even arguably go as far is purchasing potentially objectionable animal products from those that are trying to change the social norms of farming.
The animal rights argument is perfectly good to have in the halls of academia, but in the world we live in, those of us who are good consequentialists may vastly differ in our approaches to how we should respond to the marketplace we live in to most effectively reduce the suffering that persists. It's also arguable that a diversity of approaches will be more effective due to the vast open-ended questions of how approaches will be accepted by the greater population. I for one think that convincing people that we should raise our "bacon" humanely will do vastly more for the reduction of suffering in the world than would telling people we should ban it because it's clearly immoral to consume.
Several vigorous campaigns existed to improve the conditions for pigs. Look at England for an example, where changes in English law were voluntarily followed by Danish and Dutch pig farmers so they could compete on welfare standards.
See also "free range" eggs and higher welfare farm standards.
Plenty of people like eating meat but will only buy meat from animals that have higher welfare standards.
Modern sheep are. If they're not sheared regularly and their fleece is allowed to grow, they end up suffering quite a lot - they are not suitable for living in the wild, and in the other direction, are also not particularly suitable as pets.
Yes, nature is not a thing with intentions, but modern sheep are a combination of natural processes and humans (who do have intentions) meddling with things.
Also the article's point and general theme seems kind of weak :
>In line with this, several decades of observation show that orcas are not naturally violent towards humans. There are no recorded cases of a wild orca killing a human.
This implies (and the surrounding text) - that this behavior is a result of captivity changing their behavior.
How often do orcas and humans meet in a setting that would allow them to harm a human in a similar way they would - say a penguin ? Would it be plausible that they would do a similar thing in the wild in a similar setting given enough opportunities (since trainers interact with them constantly) ?
It's not like dogs who have evolved to live with humans and are generally treated well.
Future generations will judge us very poorly on this.
Generally, I find such speculative statements worthless. It's another way to say "I really think this should be obvious and that my idea will eventually be widely accepted to be correct". That's all well and good, but everyone thinks that about their own thoughts. It really doesn't contribute anything to the argument; it's an attempt to shame your opponent into agreeing with you by invoking his future childrens' potential disdain.
I also think that if you really want to know what future generations will think of something, you should refer to what prior generations thought of it. By this standard, future generations are likely to taunt us mercilessly for caring so much about what we imagine to be a whale's internal monologue.
Obviously some things we can't tell, like what clothes fashions will be in 50 or 100 years. But when you get down to matters of morality and ethics, I believe we do see a clear progression over time. And we can predict it, to some extent. That's the first reason I think we'll be judged harshly here.
A second reason is that we can already see this trend happening. More and more people care about cruelty-free farming, as well as are becoming vegetarians or vegans. Of course, that trend might stop or reverse. But we have reasonable grounds to think it might continue. If it does, then eventually current society will look pretty bad.
A third reason is that this isn't an arbitrary issue that we happen to see a trend on. A lot of people that eat meat realize there is something wrong with things like factory farming. They ignore it, and it's easy to ignore for the most part. But when they think about it, they realize it's immoral. Most people are good in the sense that they do not want to harm other living beings; caring about animal suffering is just a natural outcome of that. In other words, most people don't need to be convinced on the merits of the issue. What most don't yet realize is the huge extent of the problem, and that there are good alternatives.
See also this article for further reasoning along these lines: http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-35667355
Are there any reliable stats for this that also take into account what it likely to be increased meat consumption in places like China and other developing countries?
"Morality" and "ethics" do not have clear objective definitions, nor do they exist on a straight continuum. Most practical applications of morality and ethics are complex and involve a substantial portion of grey area. Morality and ethics change based on the perspective of the culture; they change based on time and place. This should show that, barring a few simple cases, they are not objective verities.
However, most humans do end up falling back to the same social structure and basic social codes. They do, after a few generations, admit defeat and openly reject what many a century prior had considered the society's moral manifest destiny. It is true that over time, numerous cultures and societies have attempted to modify these basic structural arrangements, but invariably these entities dissolve and humanity as a whole continues in a manner that is quite similar to how it has always continued.
When you're discussing how future generations will perceive things, it is best to do it with a historical perspective that considers more than a single place and more than 100 years of history. I believe that if one does this, the likelihood that any specific social agenda that's not the basic one dictated by the fundamentals of human biology and sociology (the universal rules around pairing, mating, and raising children) will be accepted as self-evident truth becomes quite remote.
>Most people are good in the sense that they do not want to harm other living beings; caring about animal suffering is just a natural outcome of that. In other words, most people don't need to be convinced on the merits of the issue. What most don't yet realize is the huge extent of the problem, and that there are good alternatives.
There's a big difference between opposing the extreme tactics of factory farms and opposing animal captivity in general. Blackfish's producers and supporters oppose captivity in general, and are trying to generate outrage with the orca as their first test case.
Edit: grammar
The subtitle is 'Keeping orcas in aquariums deprives them of crucial aspects of their lives, and in some cases it can even prove dangerous to humans'. BBC seems to know what these creatures are called, but prefers to use 'killer whales' in the title. Why? That's messed up, both in general and for this particular piece.
I'm guessing if someone doesn't know what an "orca" is then they won't get the title at all. Whereas everyone knows what a whale is, even if they don't know what a killer whale specifically is.
I mean, baiting to click the article ('killer whale') and showing the creature ('Hey, I know that one. Free Willy was a great movie!') should be enough, even if we accept your premise.
I'm mostly repeating what my better half wants me to say right now, but .. why would we call something a 'killer' (often hard to get right for people - killing in the animal kingdom isn't what we associate with a killer)? And why would we repeatedly do so in a plea to stop treating them badly?
Yes, they're called both "orcas" and "killer whales", with the latter being more common.
And on that note, do people really parse "killer whales" as "whales that kill (people?)". I'm pretty sure I don't; my brain treats the phrase as an opaque semantic unit meaning "those giant, black and white dolphins".
Are orcas called 'killer whales' because the kill people?
yes - 3
no - 2
But - obviously that's a cultural thing as well. I just checked the English Wikipedia and it happily lists Orcas as 'Killer Whales'. The German Wikipedia [1] however calls them 'Orcas' or 'Sword whales' (Schwertwale, translating word by word here) and explicitly says (my crappy translation, original to go and ask Google Translate about is below [2]) "The animals have been referred to as Killer Whales and Murder Whales by Whalers due to their seeminly brutal ways to hunt for prey".
So maybe it's a bit of both? Bad publicity in general with a name like that and using a name that isn't common and generally ~obsolete~ in my home country?
1: https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schwertwal 2: "Die Namen Killerwal und Mörderwal wurden den Tieren von Walfängern gegeben und nehmen Bezug auf die oft brutal anmutenden Jagdmethoden dieser Raubwale."
And here's the bigger problem I (well, I stated it over and over again: This was kinda introduced to me rather recently) have: As a non-native speaker of English 'to kill' is neutral. A fox kills a hen. 'killer' is immediately associated with ethical and moral values, feels much closer to murderer.
Actually .. I have trouble translating 'killer' back to my native language, German. 'Mörder' would be murderer, 'Jäger' is hunter - it might be that I'm just tired, but I cannot come up with something that might match 'killer' without either making the animal sound human and vicious (murderer) or diluting the whole term (hunter).
Native English speakers: Is 'killer' something you read and understand as 'predator in nature'? Do you feel that this name comes with emotional baggage?
"Slang. something or someone having a formidable impact, devastating effect, etc.:"
Orcas are nothing if not formidable.
The article might be appealing to people, but that doesn't really matter - what I meant from beyond "people" was that orcas don't kill people, but that doesn't make them not exceedingly good predators. Killer Whale meaning "Whale that is really, really, really good at killing things" seems entirely apt.
Also, "also known as..." is just an easy way to make sure people who don't know what "Orca" meant now do.
a) They're not whales, really
b) If you see them as Dolphins, why aren't those all 'Killer whales'?
c) A number of real whales kill big stuff. Sperm whales are the prime example. I mean, they fight, kill and eat Giant Squid. Can you be more badass, aren't they 'killers' on a different scale?
b) Dolphins just eat fish, don't they? Anyway, I think any aquatic animal that will beach itself to eat a seal should get a good name.
c) Yeah, I'd be upset if the people who named me did so because they mistakenly thought I had sperm in my head.
b) Both the original article and Wikipedia mention that Orcas vary quite a lot and are even considered different subspecies or species, depending on the person you talk to. Wikipedia (section 'Types') lists 'Residents'. They eat fish.. No seals are involved. They're "killers" (if we're looking at the targets they hunt) like .. dolphins. Or Tuna, really (eating fish and squid as well). Killer Tuna?
:-\
I was actually impressed that over 4 decades of orca captivity, they could only identify a small number of violent incidents, and while it's sad that these incidents occurred, it seems like a known occupational hazard whenever dealing with large animals. They tried to make it out like the small group of trainers that had been injured or killed over the years had no way of knowing that their job was potentially dangerous, which is, of course, patently ridiculous.
I didn't see any substantive argument in Blackfish. I don't think they made the case that orcas are a special, elevated form of animal intelligence that is too sensitive to be kept in captivity; they mostly just recounted a list of some bad things that have happened over the history of orca captivity, but I don't see how that's supposed to be representative. All serious endeavors will have mishaps.
I believe Blackfish's producers are trying to lay the baseline for a larger anti-animal-captivity platform in general, and I can't get on board with that. I think that animal captivity is a net good; it allows us to learn about the animals, increases the passion humans have for nature (meaning they'll be less likely to destroy it recklessly), and provides the basic components needed for many important scientific studies.
I think most zoologists keep animals because they genuinely care about them and care about educating the public on how to live peacefully and cooperatively with them. Hiding something away in a corner is not an effective way to engender wonder or interest in it, and that means it's far too easy for some uncharitable business interest to destroy in the name of profit.
Really in some sense SeaWorld is a victim of its own success. They successfully took the daunting specter of the killer whale and made him so cuddly and kid-friendly that this is the animal people are most receptive to believing is actually so super special, caring, smart, and sweet that it doesn't deserve to live in a container.
I don't believe this, and I don't believe any reasonable value for "many people" do either. Most people are not vegetarians or vegans. Most people do not hate zoos. Most people do not hate farms. Most people do not take offense at the keeping of pets.
Captivity is a great example of human ingenuity and dominance. It's good for everyone, including many of the animals that are kept captive.
>In the future, human animals will look back with revulsion at the way we currently treat other animals.
I totally disagree. Humans have not yet developed this type of serious revulsion on a macro scale, even though animals have been kept captive for thousands of years and across all human cultures.
If you want to say some of the extremes of captivity are inhumane, then great, you'll get no argument from me there. But I fundamentally disagree with anyone who believes that captivity as a whole is improper.
Personally I'm fine morally with eating non factory-farmed meat; keeping a massive creature locked up just to use as part of a show to me is morally objectionable.
Zoos seem terrible places on the whole; safari parks are acceptable to me though. I remember with great sadness my first visit to a zoo (in the UK, as an adult) seeing a lion in a tiny cage pacing up and down.
No one is even trying to put all killer whales in aquarium. Having few of them where humans could watch them is a good thing. Where else would my 5 year old know about these giant creatures, after all he needs to do something for their preservation.
Watching wildlife up and close is a great experience just so we could empathize with their needs. I cared a damn about Polar Bears or Orangutans until I saw them up and close at San Diego zoo. Now I am much more willing to donate money that helps their cause.
Besides if an animal is entertaining for humans I think that is a great evolutionary trait that can help those animals survive. I don't see how else that df*k Panda would have survived on earth.
For humans, maybe. How is it good for orcas? Isn't the issue here that we are denying agency from intelligent beings?
On the other hand, our treatment of lifeforms of varying difference to ourselves already on our planet is deeply troubling. The thought of that culture spreading across the galaxy like a disease is horrifying.
I have a pet dog. I think I treat her well. Will my descendants look back on this and compare me to my not-so-distant ancestors who were racist or sexist?
http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/story-one-whale...
Also, In the "Animal Minds" episode, Radiolab recounts a story of divers saving a net-entangled whale, and the whale in turn "thanks" each diver. It's a good show, and the examples included are thought-provoking. If you found this story intriguing, I recommend giving this Radiolab episode a listen. If not, the stories leads to what is intelligence and connection possibilities across species, and the topic of Spindle Neurons is presented which are explored as a connection between high and low order parts of the brain. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spindle_neuron)
_
The Goods:
1. The episode: http://www.radiolab.org/story/91701-animal-minds/
2. A related follow-up about whales:
http://www.radiolab.org/story/149761-whale-saying-thank-you/
Why the assumption that humans are uniquely pestilential in our behavior? For all we know, 'the galaxy' might consider our capacity for tolerance to be the disease.
They do so even if they are not verbally threatened with negative consequences if they fail to come home; and they wouldn't understand that anyway. :)
Domestic animals kept as pets that are treated well have good lives that they arguably enjoy. Wild animals have it very tough, by contrast.
Some dogs are famous (worldwide!) for acts of extraordinary loyalty toward their humans.
Loyalty of animals seems to be something for which we have no good evidence?
These studies used the same techniques that researchers use with pre-communicative human babies. They measure gaze direction and duration, among other things. Even with conversation, how could you tell? Humans are able to prevaricate and dissemble, after all.
How can you tell if someone is loyal to your crime family? Maybe he's just conditioned to not wear concrete overshoes and get a cut of the rackets?
How can you tell if someone is loyal to your country? Maybe they are just conditioned to not get fired and blacklisted or imprisoned, and to receive government benefits?
Domesticated animals are animals that co-evolved with modern humans (lately with a lot of human selection). Some of our practices towards our pets are barbaric now. For instance, purposefully breeding worse and worse genes to get a flatter face despite the misery this causes the dogs.
But in other ways, dogs and cats still can't make choices about things that would allow us to treat them as equals.
For instance, we forcibly sterilize cats and dogs so they don't breed and contribute to the overpopulation problem. We restrict their movement so they do not endanger others or themselves. Outdoor cats are an environmental catastrophe in most areas.
It's tough to know what the right treatment of a pet is. I do believe we've gotten better. It used to be common for vets to not give pain meds to dogs recovering from surgery. I guess it's easier to ignore the pain when they can't talk to you. It also used to be common to shoot a dog who has broken a leg. I recently had a dog who had osteosarcoma. We paid to have his leg amputated and for chemo. Our conversations with the vet were nearly identical to how I'd approach getting cancer. Some people thought we were nuts paying for such care.
Cats are still treated as disposable by many people. One step above a goldfish. Meanwhile, some people are starting to actually take koi fish in to vets for treatment.
If you treat your pets as individual lives worthy of dignity and let that inform your thinking, I imagine you're already better than most of human history's brutally utilitarian approach.
I know mine will not. My dogs are living the good life.
Because something has a higher order nervous system does that mean we have to assign it equal rights? How high an order of system would be required to have equal rights? Why does it really matter how something else feels other than members of our own species?
For the record I generally agree with not keeping killer whales in captivity. I'm just asking the question so we know the position has been well considered.
Perhaps "slavery" is a bit too strong? (And that's without even getting into "you say that like it's a bad thing....").
If nothing can consume anything else then life can't exist.
I'd argue that their ethical standards are wholly separate from our own. For humans, self-preservation as a race is very important.
If you don't eat living things, that leaves milk and honey.
I'm not saying "become X-ist". I'm saying that in order for us to live, others must die. Plants, animals and others aren't inherently worth more or less than we humans. But it's our responsibility to remember their sacrifices so we could continue.
Failing to draw a line between two things doesn't mean that they are the same. Plants do not possess a nervous system capable of metacognition. Killing and eating a plant is not the same thing as killing and eating a mammal, bird, or fish.
> Plants do not possess a nervous system capable of metacognition.
Scientists aren't so sure. And we're only finding out more chemical 'sensors' that allow different sensing of our environment. As for a nervous net, it was thought "No"... But again, more study shows that it's not true.
http://www.pri.org/stories/2014-01-09/new-research-plant-int...
http://www.dw.com/en/when-plants-say-ouch/a-510552-1
http://www.bbc.com/earth/story/20141111-plants-have-a-hidden...
> Killing and eating a plant is not the same thing as killing and eating a mammal, bird, or fish.
That's just moralizing. There is no basis in which to say that X life is better or worse than Y life.
>That's just moralizing. There is no basis in which to say that X life is better or worse than Y life.
Did I say anything about morality? No. Did I say that plant lives were "worse", or animal lives were "better"? No. I said killing a plant was different than killing a mammal. Do you disagree with that assertion?
Edit: Killing a plant might be more similar to killing off chunks of an organism's brain cells. As such it may be ethical to kill individual plants assuming we maintain the integrity of any existing colonies.
Animals have a greatly inhibited sense of consciousness and continuity. They deserve respect as a resource, but they don't deserve "rights" of any kind.
I come from India where we literally and figuratively worship plethora to animal gods. We made our bullocks work like slaves in our field and yet for us they were members of family. Humans in the house-hold did not start their food until the Animals were served their food first. Same for temple elephants, bullfight bulls, snakes etc. it was a relationship that both used Animals and yet respected them for their "life".
In last decade or so a lot of western funded NGOs are on prowl painting all Hindu traditions as "exploitative towards animals" demanding ban on almost everything from bull-fights to temple elephants.
Solutions sometimes exist in plain sight but we refuse to look.
Hell, don't worry about proving it. Just define "sentient" in a objective, empirically measurable way.
Haha! You can't! Therefore, words don't exist.
I didn't disallow you to use words to define it.
</ irony>
Or they could just be honest, and about that they are just a Disney-Sea-Circus and the science is just an excuse to keep the dollars rolling in.
No more of these animals should be born into captivity, and if possible, we should at least try to release as many of them as possible back into the wild, possibly as their own pod.
Right now, at this very moment, on American highways, there are no less than 5,000 concentration camp trucks. Trucks that we’ve constructed. Inside these trucks there are living, terrified, innocent beings (such as) cows, pigs and chickens. These trucks are being driven to concentration camp slaughterhouses that we’ve carefully constructed all across America. When the trucks arrive, the animals are so frightened they won’t even get off the truck. They’re not stupid. They know what’s next. So people go on the trucks with electric prods and force them to walk down the chutes to their own death. Or if the animals are small enough to manhandle, like chickens, we’ll just grab them off the trucks and toss them inside. Inside, these innocent, living beings are hanged upside down, fully conscious. In other words, they go in alive against their will and come out chopped up into hundreds of pieces. I think this type of behavior is inexcusable and unbecoming of a species that claims to understand right from wrong. The animals have not done one single thing to us to deserve the wrath and the cruelty that we hurl on them.
It might not have been your intent, but you are reducing the victims of actual concentration camps to the status of food animals.
If you do indeed believe that battery farming of livestock for meat production is worse than human genocide, we cannot have a rational conversation about ethics or animal rights, as we do not agree on the necessary foundation premises.
We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11269620 and marked it off-topic.