Vancouver bans whales and dolphins at aquarium
bbc.com
bbc.com
The Vancouver acquarium was one of the top cetacean health, care, and research institutes in the world. It was one of the models of how good a captive and public educational environment can be. Thanks to campaigns like this one, they had to close down and transfer their rescue orcas to the only organizations that could take them... Which turned out to be SeaWorld, where they died shortly after. Of course, SeaWorld is notorious for terrible conditions for the animals.
It drives me nuts that kids growing up in my hometown now don't understand these magnificent creatures, don't feel any special connection to them. For many in my generation, it feels like a betrayal on the part of our local environmentalist movement. They killed our orcas and disconnected our children from one of the most amazing parts of their environment. They destroyed the model that powered legislative attempts to protect cetaceans around the world.
We had a similar story with the beavers in Stanley park - our environmenal lobby campaigned to have the city stop dredging "Beaver lake", because it disturbed the beavers. They stopped dredging, the lake filled with silt and most of the beavers (and other wildlife) died. Now they're debating starting dredging again, to save the one surviving beaver.
For people like me that care about our environment and the animals we share it with, it's rage inducing. The naturalist fallacy at work. :/
Animals are a lot less likely to get bored in the wild.
https://img.memesuper.com/fb3647c753a84754210e7d4879042b9d_s...
Animals in captivity are always problematic, but there are sometimes good reasons for it both from an animal welfare point of view and from a human education point of view. In the meantime, great strides have been made in improving conditions for animals in captivity, and Vancouver has been a leader in this regard.
It's a "serious research institution" with only one peer reviewed publication based on data from captured belugas.
While individuals may take animal welfare very seriously, the Vancouver Aquarium has attempted to confuse their marine mammal rescue with the captivity of cetaceans. 99% of the marine mammals they rescue are baby seals that humans have interfered with while their mother was out feeding.
Next, regarding "tricks" and "entertainment," many people who experienced the shows found then entertaining. http://www.metronews.ca/news/vancouver/2017/05/11/we-dont-do...
While I will agree that the Vancouver Aquarium can be considered to "take animal welfare seriously" I also feel that their president and website disingenuously conflate mammal with cetacean, hide the sources of "wild cetacean injuries" (eg, Japanese sourced dolphins), and vastly under spend when it comes to care of their cetaceans.
Are some of these not peer reviewed? I'm not familiar with the journals that they were published in.
I'm no expert, but I imagine research could take place in a sea pen like this and Vancouver has no shortage of coastline.
http://40.media.tumblr.com/80c13240cad8e0b40c72ae7ea5a0797a/...
To feel better, to brag, to fight against stress, to improve their ego or impress the opposite sex. Several social reasons to explain this strange behaviour.
When dolphins jump, leap, chase and obtain some fishes and human approval as reward they are entertaining humans of course.
Is this bad? well, visitors pay their food, and the pool filters that keep the water clean, and the vets... but this is not all. They are exercising also. Some people says that dolphins are sad for this. Well, It seems that nowadays everybody is the true and sacred representant of dolphin race in the earth, so I can jump to that train also. Dolphins can and probably enjoy the play, the cooperative chase and the interaction with other dolphins and humans. Why? Because exercice leads to serotonin and adrenalin and this is known to have a positive effect in the mood of a vertebrate. More serotonin released by your brain will makes you a happier dolphin or guy. Trained dolphins have also the change of keep their brain active solving problems, feel better, brag, improve their ego or impress the opposite sex.
Otherwise the dolphin or seal would snooze in their pool for entire weeks without no stimulus at all and this "solution" would be the definition of animal cruelty.
I also wonder if they can shift away from the 'orphanage' model to a more 'foster' model by bringing in sick animals, nursing them to health, then releasing them shortly after. Not sure if this is in the cards politically, but it would be a middle ground between traditional aquariums and a total ban. Its important to note many of these animals get to aquariums because they've been injured by humans. We should feel a responsibility to help them if we are the ones hurting them. Washing our hands of this responsibility seems irresponsible to me and justifying it with feel good politics seems highly questionable.
This is exactly how the Monterey bay aquarium works, fwiw.
And this is PETA's intention, they'd rather see an animal euthanized than be in captivity.
I agree that the 'feel good' politics get in the way of sound decisions by professionals who really do have the best interest of the animals at heart. I really dislike when bystanders reading the daily headlines question the motivations of people who have dedicated their whole lives to understanding and improving the lives of the animals in their care.
That's not to say that how things are done should never change and we should never question the professionals or those in authority. But decisions like this really seem like they do more harm than good. Politics and science don't mix well but I guess we don't get much of one without the other, as that's how the bulk of science funding is done...
I personally think that although it'll make children watching the local news cry, we should help animals and immediately return them to the wild. If the only way to help them means taking them into captivity, we should not help.
It depends on the animal of course, and if they're social animals or prefer solitude. There are many birds, injured beyond rehabilitation, that seem to do fine in captivity (so long as it's a good centre with lots of space -- most places don't though which is sad. The Cincinnati Zoo is an example of a good centre for rehabilitation).
When it comes to dolphins and whales, I totally agree though. They're simply too big and they evolved to travel massive distances. If they can be treated and nursed for a few weeks and immediately released, I think that's the best thing.
Why should aquatic specialists decide if they'd survive in the wild? If they are healthy enough to at least be able to find others of their kind, is it not better to die free than live long in a cage?
From an instinctive and evolutionary standpoint, definitely the latter.
I am with "letting wild animals be wild". If an animal can be patched up and let back into the wild after a couple of week, great. I hate aquariums and zoos for this reason. Its the human equivalent of https://popularresistance.org/deep-racism-the-forgotten-hist...
I would rather prefer reserves. e.g Nairobi national park, serengeti, mara. Really large spaces where animals can remain wild but conservation programs can still take place.
Vancouver aquarium in its Vancouver's ridiculously priced real estate doesn't have enough space to host big intelligent animals.
Perhaps this is the preferred outcome, from the animal's perspective.
I mean if a human had the choice between dying and being caged in a 5x5 ft closet for a substantial amount of time, ...
http://awesomeocean.com/2014/07/05/blackfish-full-blacklies/
just spend a little time reading about lolita in the miami seaquarium, who has been alone there for decades. note that orcas are some of the most social and familial animals in the world. her tankmate essentially committed suicide by repeatedly ramming his head against the tank, eventually dying from a hemorrhage.
even if one believes what is stated on that site, i don't see how getting some facts (most of them being inconsequential) wrong negates the tragedy it is that we imprison one of the smartest species on the planet, a truly massive animal, and THE apex predator in the ocean.
you can freely search and find the many stories and horrors of our capture and imprisonment of orcas without watching blackfish.
Blackfish was very far from being truthful. Is manipulative and perversely designed to elicit an emotional and irrational response.
Mixing tillikum footage with old recordings of several people swimming on a pool that were filmed on different decades and places; and mounting both in an apparently continuous attack scene that never happened is just an example. One of many
Humans are also some of the most social and familial animals in the world. Nevertheless, some humans kill, dismember or do the most terrible things to other humans, having so serious mental issues that must be keep apart from society. This pattern can be found in all intelligent animal species. Most specimens are fine but a few can born being psychopaths or develop as one later. And a clever psycho is not something that you should take lightly. Life is unfair, and sometimes (and I'm not saying that is necessarily the Lolita's case) there is a good reason to have a big and mean animal isolated from its congeners.
The behavior you are describing also has little to nothing to do with psychopathy, which is far more prevalent outside of mental institutions and prisons than most people would like to admit.
> I think that all this criticism against Tilikum is hurting him more than anything.
Come on..
Unlike SeaWorld, it's a non-profit. All proceeds are directed back into rehabilitation and education programs.
Is that what you're accusing the Vancouver Aquarium of doing?
https://www.charitydata.ca/charity/vancouver-aquarium-marine...
It looks pretty innocent as far as these things go. They do ~$40M in revenue / expenses every year, spend $1.2M on fundraising, and their management expenses are high but not unreasonable. The biggest red flag I see is a large ($15M) loan that's costing them upwards of a million/year in interest.
Compensation seems pretty typical too, there's a more detailed compensation schedule on the Canada Revenue Agency's website but the link doesn't work externally. In short, there's 1 staff member making between $250k-$300k, there are 3 between $200k-$250k, and 6 between $120k-$200k.
1. how much un-needed overhead their expenses consist of, beyond the minimum costs required to run the facility;
2. the dollar-amount of donations that reach the relevant causes by having this type of facility operating, vs. the dollar-amount of donations that would be given to the same causes if this facility did not exist, or if it tried to operate on slimmer margins (by e.g. only being a marine-wildlife gift shop or somesuch.)
My own suspicion is that the answer to #1 is "not much", and the answer to #2 is "a far larger amount." (Under the argument: people don't bother to donate money to wildlife preservation if they're not being actively reminded of the existence of wildlife in need of preservation. That "15% of revenue" still likely ends up as a larger absolute dollar-figure than the total amount of donations to the same causes made by all other individuals or organizations in the area.)
Even if you don't agree with my suspicions, I think those two questions are the only good ones to be debating here.
http://www.businessdictionary.com/definition/proceeds.html
Nearly every non-profit in the world has expenses to cover first.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/02/05/pets-shelter-euthan...
But PETA appears to spend more effort putting them down than attempting to re-home them.
Maybe we should close down the animal shelters too and let all the animals "free". I'm sure they'll do fine in the wild.
Considering that the last report confirmed that the Belugas had been poisoned by a foreign substance, I wouldn't be so confident in that statement.
One interpretation of that could be they were intentionally poisoned.
These whales had been living in that pool for years and had even given birth without issue. Seems rather strange timing to all of a sudden have a mystery 'toxin' bring two of them down, particularly with the pool testing clean after their deaths.
what marineland and seaworld do to their animals and what vancouver aquarium does as a rescue centre and research facility does is something totally different.
The vancouver aquarium is a noble facility with a noble goal. my visit there honestly instilled a deep respect for me in more than just sea life.
I implore you to stop deriding institutions that may very well be acting in wildlife's best interest.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vancouver_Aquarium#Animals_at_...
Really. This is the definition of rescuing them.
Some whales have very low populations. There could be less than 30 estimated vaquitas alive in reproductive age and is an species exclusive to USA and Mejico that only has one single baby each two years. Is imperative starting breeding it on captivity as soon as possible.
You can release the grandsons of a captive animal, but not a single specimen of a wild and free extinct species. When is gone is gone and there is not more baijis to be released. Too little, too late.
Taking children from abusive parents, and giving them to foster parents, is rescuing those children.
Taking pets from abusive owners, and giving them to the ASPCA, is rescuing those pets.
So taking now-unable-to-survive-in-the-wild wildlife from abusive caretakers or breeders, and giving them to wildlife preservation organizations, is...?
(Note that I don't believe in paying the breeders for their whales; that just incentivizes making more captive whales. They should be confiscated by law-enforcement, and then law-enforcement should place them with a rescue organization they have a partnership with.)
Breeding is a natural instinct and one of the few normal (and fulfilling) activities captive mammals can still participate in.
It may not be noble to force them to breed, sure. But is it a noble to deny them the right to breed if they are naturally inclined?
To be clear, I don't pretend to know the answer, I'm just pointing out that it's a much more complicated moral issue than you are letting on.
The Vancouver Aquarium is a non-profit organization, and has much different goals and priorities than Seaworld.
Secondly, you are repeating this line that as a non-profit they are somehow more noble and different than Seaworld, for example. If that's the case, why do they loan animals to SeaWorld and other Aquariums for breeding?
"On breeding loan to SeaWorld, Shedd Aquarium & Georgia Aquarium are the following:
Allua, a female beluga is around 24 years of age. She was moved to SeaWorld San Diego on a breeding loan in 2005. Imaq, a male beluga who is around 21 years of age. He is on breeding loan to SeaWorld San Antonio. Grayson, a male beluga who is 8 years old living at the Shedd Aquarium. He was born at SeaWorld San Antonio in 2007, but belongs to the Vancouver Aquarium as he was born to Nanuq, who was owned by the aquarium and also fathered Qila. Until early 2016, Grayson was living at the Georgia Aquarium with his half-sister Qinu. Qinu, a female beluga born in 2010 who is 7 years of age living at the Georgia Aquarium. She was also born at SeaWorld San Antonio and lived with Grayson until he was moved to the Shedd Aquarium. As with Grayson, she was born to Nanuq and belongs to the Vancouver Aquarium."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vancouver_Aquarium#Animals_at_...
> Michael Wiebe, chair of the Vancouver Park Board, said that after two belugas died within days of one another at the aquarium last fall, the board decided they needed to look into whether it was right to keep bringing in more.
The truth is people can't really build a tank large enough to take care of these creatures, or offer them the proper conditions. Killer whales can travel up to 100 miles a day, and dolphins sure do a lot of traveling as well. How do you offer that or allow for the group social dynamics in a cage?
I'm not even sure how good the education value of seeing a dolphin locked up in a tank is. Anecdotally, I went to the zoo a lot as a kid but all I remember doing is gawking. Watching documentaries as a kid I actually heard about their social interactions and natural behaviors. Many of those behaviors don't come up surrounded by people in enclosures.
If we want to "understand and appreciate" a creature it should be on their terms. For dolphins documentaries or visiting them in their habitat seems like the best way, not some aquarium where the parking lot for visitors is larger than their tanks.
[1] http://www.cbc.ca/beta/news/canada/british-columbia/vancouve...
---
The aquarium now suspects that a toxin is responsible, although no lingering contaminants have been found in the tissues of the dead whales. While intentional poisoning hasn’t been ruled out, it’s also possible that a naturally occurring toxin is responsible.
“The epidemiology of the scenario, the chain of events, lead us to be highly suspect of a toxin that came and went — and one that we may not identify,” Haulena said.
---
Investigation continues, but it's a small town and the unproven truth is that one of the people behind this ban poisoned the two whales to 'save them'
'The aquarium suspects' with no evidence whatsoever to back them up.
And you then claim: 'the unproven truth is that...'
Is this a joke ?
How does that work?
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/vancouver-aqu...
So you're saying that to have a "special connection" to ocean wildlife we need to keep animals captive in a small pool?
Obviously we can't all go on excursions into the sea, but aquariums don't seem like the best model for understanding and appreciating wildlife.
You don't need to pay for expensive tourist rides to see some of these creatures. If you live in the right areas, and if we take care of our waterways, you can see all kinds of amazing creatures just by riding a ferry.
Pods of orcas visit Stanley Park and False Creek at least once every couple years, usually more. And thats a magical day when they do. If you think that kids dont feel special connections to these creatures that come visit downtown once in a while, you're deluded
There's a reason orcas feature heavily in First Nations art, local sports team mascots, etc here. They're beautiful animals but they're not exotics.
I meant specifically the orcas visiting downtown that I had never heard of. I did not know this was a thing and can't recall hearing it on the news.
That's laughable. A cursory check indicates the pricing starting at ~$80 for a single child. A family of four? That's ~$420.
Children's tickets are ~$20 at the aquarium (and they have special discounts for kids from local schools and the disabled). A family of four at the aquarium would cost ~ $110
In what world does a 4x multiple qualify as "for not much more..."?
As a kid growing up in Yaletown, I had never heard of pods of orcas coming that close, nor that it was possible to watch them. And I grew up in Yaletown for close to 15 years.
Vision Vancouver, the political party, is very slick and spends an order of magnitude more on PR than anybody else in the city, in a town now with little news reporting.
1. It's well known who killed 2 of belugas -- somebody who publicly presents themselves as caring for whales -- but there is no discussion of it in the reporting.
2. There has been zero effort to have a conversation with the people at the Aquarium. There is an intentional effort to get shock value, encourage a public squabble that rouses some of their base and that distracts from their overall performance.
Vision Vancouver is now feeling the heat for freezing upzoning of single family home neighbourhoods so that they can direct hundreds of millions annually in buildable land grants in one-off variances to the large developers who are their main donors (Wall, Westbank, Concord). The problem in Vancouver is a monopoly of new buildable land where a single marketer, Bob Rennie, can dictate pricing for a year by virtue of controlling over 80% of new units in any given year under Vision Vancouver.
The next municipal election is a year away, but they've been around at full speed hiring PR folks on the public dime, setting up astroturf groups, wining and dining the few remaining beat reporters, and sending moles to infiltrate the new Vancouver Renters' Union. They're picking fights that are fake and real, any news is good news now if they can be ahead of the story instead of chasing to catch up for once.
---
Disclosure: I volunteered for the last two Vision Vancouver campaigns, as a favor to a friend and when I believed they actually meant what they said. I had already given up on them when I was asked to join an astroturf group by Mike Magee last summer
There are 5 beluga whales on loan to other facilities, in preparation for the construction of new tanks in September.
Everyone agrees that the welfare of these whales is better served in those new tanks, than where they are currently staying. This ban prevents the return of the whales currently on loan. As I said, I am for a ban on cetaceans but this is a PR exercise and not about the whales.
The Chair is a Green party member and the rest of the makeup is 1 Green, 1 Vision and 4 right of centre NPA.
This decision doesn't seem to fit cleanly into any sort of left/right political spectrum.
Not a lot of direct evidence, but a shitload of smoke.
I'm sure this is going to be a very unpopular comment here, but for the sake of a different perspective... Every time I see this sentiment, it tends to come from fans of Blackfish. I watched that "documentary", which was very cherry-picked to push a biased perspective. I've also lived near a SeaWorld and have noticed, first-hand, the conservation they do of the environment and cetacean life.
Yes, SeaWorld is for-profit, while many zoos are non-profit, but they do make some meaningful effort to help out.
The vast majority of people in the developed nations, will never actually see these animals in their native habitat. I would say the majority of the HN readers have never seen a lion, tiger, rhinoceros, elephant, orca, or shark outside of a zoo, aquarium, or sanctuary.
The effect of these laws is that more and more people will not have a personal connection to these animals. Therefore, when it comes to cheaper goods versus animal extinction, people may say that they feel bad about it, but their behavior and voting patterns are unlikely to change to prevent the extinction.
For example, if I hear that the giraffe will go extinct, I think back to the excitement of when I first saw a giraffe, and feel sad that my kids may never get to experience that and am likely to be more motivated to prevent it. If, however it is some animal that I have only seen in a video, well, I'll make sure to download it so I can show it to my kids someday.
Out of sight, out of mind really is a true statement about human attention and motivation.
I think that is hyperbole. They are only banning the whales, not all the other animals that are helped by the aquarium. I was at the aquarium this last summer. There's much more to it than the beluga whales. Sure some people will choose not to go once the whales are gone, but there's still tons of other things to see.
IMO not true. Photography / cinematography have historically proven to move people enough to take action (eg. war photography, poached animals, rhinos with their horns cut, etc.). Zoos only provides a little more than a photography. Can you pet the animal? Should you if you could? Would that help to make the point of protecting them?
I don't think this justifies transporting the animal on the other side of the planet into unnatural, prison like conditions where they often suffer both mentally and physically.
Sanctuaries are IMO way better in that they are built in animal's natural environment, further from cities, where the animals can live their lives in peace instead of being stressed by thousands of visitors every day.
I think pictures have a much bigger impact on "moving" adults but zoos and aquariums have a greater overall impact for children (just my opinion).
What is the driving force behind moving animals to sanctuaries and protecting them? It's the love and care people have towards the animals and species, right? I'm not saying taking away zoos and aquariums are going to make humans cold blooded but I really think they help overall.
What's nice about new technology is it allows for opportunities to capture animal activity in remote natural environments, with minimal impact. For instance, the Katmai National Park "bear cam" in Brooks Falls, Alaska (where in season people watch grizzlies feed on salmon) is a rather popular webcam. Not only does the webcam reduce human impact, it equalizes: Brooks Falls is very remote, and thus it is very expensive to get there. The webcam brings a side of nature to everyone, that previously only the well-off would see.
I think zoos and aquariums can still exist, but moving to an animal hospital / research / protection model versus the entertainment model of Sea World and the like makes sense. I hope the environmental movement recognizes that the former is still valuable.
I disagree with the latter sentence. I think that seeing something in person -- whether an animal or a landscape -- is very different to seeing a photograph or video. That's why it's so different to travel somewhere to see something in person.
(Slightly off topic, but you'd be amazed at the wildlife that you come across in the highly urbanized parts of Vancouver because it is surrounded to the north and east by wilderness and has many rail corridors and parks that animals follow into the city.)
On the other hand all of them are against seeing dolphin or whale cruelty even if only a handful of them ever saw any of cetacean (me included).
I know that this is all anecdotal evidence but it the most that I can produce.
My reaction was just like "Yeah, because killing whales on a game makes me want to buy a ship and start whaling myself."
[0] https://www.polygon.com/2013/3/6/4070836/peta-objects-whalin...
But most locations offer a ticket for a year, sometimes even for a family for a year, and become very affordable all of a sudden if you visit four to rive times a year or more.
Since most of the zoos over here also offer mundane attractions for kids (fancy playgrounds, petting zoos and whatnot) it's a decent deal and in my experience something that works quite well.
-Locking a dolphin up in "jail" or killing a cow/pig?
-Locking the few dolphins up in "jails" or the billions of cows/pigs killed each year?
I think the ethical inconsistencies with regards to animal treatment are huge, but also understandable. I don't know the answers, but the questions do bother me.
* intelligence and potential for suffering
* Duration of suffering
* Endangered status
* Usefulness as a human product
* Ability of average human to empathize with species
Both of these animals are slaughtered young so they aren't locked up for years and years.
Putting an dolphin in a small pond and put to work all day doing tricks is horrible. Whales and dolphins belong in the open ocean where they can swim for miles and miles. They are not domesticated animals.
My view is that if you have to put the animal in a cage to keep it, you shouldn't have them. The exception would be a fish tank with nothing exotic.
The only way it will change is everyone buys organic or true free range. The costs are too expensive for me to buy all the time. I think Americans should rethink eating meat at most meals. I've not been able to do it regularly.
Both of those terms are pretty meaningless, and their ineffectual enforcement makes them even less so. The solution isn't to humane-wash, it's to stop eating things that come out of chickens' anuses.
That way you are not only doing something healthy for yourself and the animals, it's also supporting the local economy in a meaningful way.
There is nothing healthy about consuming animals. Not for humans, not for animals, not for this planet, not for anyone. And a similar "supporting the economy" justification was used in defense of slavery, which you're still supporting in another form.
Seriously... I advocate people being more aware of where they get their food and cutting down on their meat intake and your first reflex is to compare it to advocating slavery? Sorry but behavior like that is exactly the reason why barely anybody likes vegans or takes them seriously.
Change doesn't happen in massive paradigm shifts, it happens slowly. You won't convince 7 billion people to stop consuming animal products from one day to another. So let's be a little bit realistic and start with small steps which people are actually willing to take, wouldn't that be an actual start?
Except in many parts of the world where they are placed into barns for six months of the year. Or if they're used for veal.
This is a complete fabrication and utter logical fallacy.
The aquarium is not a jail.
Keeping an animal "jailed" purely for entertainment -- "worse." Nobody needs to see dolphins doing tricks in order to survive.
In fact, there's some good arguments (potentially debatable) that eating animal products actually shortens lifespan! The exact opposite of needing meat to survive...
>Meat is eaten purely for pleasure.
So are plants. Do you know how delicious this apple is I'm eating right now?
Additionally, the plants we do eat often evolved to produce food for us. Apple trees and other fruiting plants all evolved to be eaten, so the consumer distributes the seeds in stool. That apple is delicious because the tree had an evolutionary bias to make it delicious so you would eat it. We eat plenty of plants like herbs and cabbages not for that purpose (albeit we did breed cabbages to be mutant and tasty) but an apple is a terrible example of a plant we hurt by eating it.
We don't actually know that for certain. We only know that it does not communicate that pain in a method discernable to us.
You argue the semantics in problem domains we don't fully understand. Feelings and sensations only get wishy-washy when you have a developed nervous system, because we cannot accurately predict how said system behaves due to its complexity. But we do know what is actually ascribed to that system, what behaviors it propagates as, and that things without it don't experience it.
We have vernacular in place to express how plants react to stimuli. Sensation, pain, and feeling are not in that vocabulary, because they describe an essential aspect of the animal kingdom, not the plant one.
Completely wrong, and frankly a pretty stupid thing to say. Plants provide the basis for all life on this planet. Without plants, there would be no complete proteins, there would be no essential fatty acids, there would be no sustainable nutrition for humans nor any other being on this planet. What you're saying is straight up silly. Stop.
This is not a scientifically tenable statement. It's just based on hearsay and various nonsense.
"In the global food web, we discover that humans are similar to anchovy or pigs and cannot be considered apex predators"
From now on, the reproduction of cetaceans is prohibited, as the introduction of new animals. Therefore, dolphins and whales in captivity will no longer exist and suffer. This was triggered following an incident at MarineLand, one of the biggest parks, where a mudslide killed many animals in 2015.
1) To be left to die of starvation.
2) To be rescued and spend the rest of your life fed but kept in a 6x6 ft cage.
Pick one.
Thus, you would be contributing to your species' long term survival.
Site note: I don't think a 6x6 human cage is analogous. Maybe a medium-sized apartment in which you can socialize with other humans is a fairer comparison? It would be a poor existence indeed. But worse than death?
Give me a break.
How does this make the practice any less cruel?
Reading through the comments on this thread I'm actually flabbergasted.
>How does this make the practice any less cruel?
It doesn't. It's arguing that there might be at least some long term potential benefit to the practice for the species and therefore morally defensible (if the alternative is letting the animal die slowly and painfully).
I don't pretend to know all the answers. But lets at least be clear on what the question is.
You're also misunderstanding the choices available:
1) The alternative for the whale in this scenario is death. Are you sure the whale would choose that over living in an aquarium? How sure?
Remember - The overwhelming majority of human beings don't even make that choice (see: suicide rates of long-term prisoners).
2) > I'd much rather spend all the money used in housing these whales on field studies and establishing conservation zones in the actual environment.
What money? You mean the money generated from the aquarium? Oh wait. Ummm... I have some very bad news about your proposed scheme.
It really doesn't sound like you've thought this through. I admire the compassion of people like you. I really do. But, you seem to be living in some alternate universe from the rest of us. You might be better served to think with your heart and your brain.
Obviously zoos and aquariums can do great work but there are animals in this world that do not live in captivity very well and if they were capable of properly weighing the options I'm sure many would choose death. I know many humans (myself inclused) who would make the same choice. If we can show certain species of whale can handle captivity well then by all means save them, house them, whatever but I doubt these particular whales are being let go lightly and sitting around saying 'think of the missed scientific opportunity' ignores the well-being of the whale. And maybe if it were possible to communicate to the whale the benefit of its sacrifice it might be ok but we can't and to ignore the anxiety of the whale is cruel.
Another interesting hypothetical situation: You are a stray cat, happily living on a street, feeding on garbage and screwing your cat-girlfriends in the free time. One day you are caught by humans and presented with the following choice: 1. Get euthanized. 2. Get your balls cut off and released back to freedom. Pick one.
I say used to be, because the current climate in aquariums is just "Make it jump for us." and education is a far off second thought.
Our ability to study animals in the wild, with high tech GPS tracking, more accessible travel options, better sensor data, etc, is much greater than it was 30-40 years ago when these animals were being put in zoos and aquariums. We don't need them in there anymore from a scientific point of view. The argument that people form connections with them? I don't know.
A friend who worked there shared the following, which is worth a read if you're n interested in the topic:. http://vanmag.com/city/how-working-at-the-vancouver-aquarium...
That is why some people are appalled by what is happening with humans vs other animals.
Because furtivism, habitat loss, contamination, sixth extinction, education and conservation.
Because some species only survive in zoos today.
Because only 9 of each 10 wild lions in Africa had dissapeared in one human generation lapse time, etc, etc...
Now they see that they can not properly take care of animals, even if they try to do their best they still do not know how to do it right. New sickness, etc.
The only way to save animals is by decree a land where human do not have any rights to go their.
The only way to save animals... [set them free, blah, blah, blah]
Then why the white rhinos are still endangered? Will survive the californian porpoise four years more? I, and many other people, seriously doubt it.
The whales and dolphins are not happy to do the show. This is proven and give them drugs (http://www.dauphinlibre.be/le-zoo-de-nuremberg-drogue-ses-da...) to kept them happy. Nice professionalism there.
Many other species lack diversity and therefore suffer from genetic diversity, they need to exchange species between country in order to grow the diversity, new sickness are born but yes they are professionals.
There's not real reason to stay in the old menagerie system, animals have rights to live and if we need food we need to protect them. Point barre, like we say in French.
Any real expert in dolphins can tell you that dolphins can not be safely sedated because, unlike us, the breath in cetaceans is voluntary. Basic zoology principles. Yes, zoologists and vets are professionals for something. They studied a lot of years and know their stuff. Surgery in dolphins is always a risk. If you put a dolphin to sleep, the dolphin "forgets to breath" and dies quickly.
Therefore the author of the article wrote some very unlikely accusations without any clear proof (and obviously do not know much about real dolphins). The idea of sedating dolphins regularly in a show for any extended period of time just because they "don't feel like dancing today" is ludicrous. This kind of defamatory articles are sadly as common as successful collecting money from their naive public.
I don't understand any french so I can't say much about that article, but as a local from Nuremberg, I can support the prior statement about them using drugs to keep their animals in check. I'm also not so sure about your statement because I found a paper regarding the effects of diazepam use on captive bottlenose dolphins [0], explicitly stating that:
"It is very tempting to use these medications as a management tool. They can be used to help mask the problems of poor husbandry, and of inappropriate and depauperate environments."
and:
"There is considerable potential for diazepam to be misused and the welfare of animals compromised. It may be used to help cover up serious deficiencies in management and husbandry, and there is strong evidence of it being misused in dolphinaria."
So this practice most certainly ain't as unheard of as you are implying.
They use psychotropic drugs, along with a rather long list of 20 other medicaments to keep the animals alive in those sorry living conditions [1], the data on the medication came straight out of the zoo's files. The zoo's director himself argued that giving dolphins diazepam is a totally normal thing to do to increase their appetite [2].
Even as a kid I never liked that place, seeing these animals perform tricks in a sterile indoor pool, with their back fins hanging down, felt unnatural and made me feel sorry for these poor creatures. They also had a hippo there that was housed in a tank that's barely been bigger than the hippo itself. I'm not an animal expert, but I have empathy and that was and still is enough to recognize what's happening there ain't good or healthy for these animals.
[0] http://endcap.eu/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/Diazepam-its-use...
[1] http://uk.whales.org/news/2012/07/german-zoo-data-reveals-ca...
[2] http://www.sueddeutsche.de/bayern/tierschuetzer-kritisieren-...
And of course "Is very tempting to use it", "There is considerable potential for diazepam to be misused" and "It may be used for evil things" is not the same thing as "It was used for evil things". Almost anything could be harmful. There is considerable potential for coffe to be used for evil things also, but this is not its common use.
If, as the author claims, "there is strong evidence of their misuse in dolphinariums" please, show us the evidence.
In your third link in deustch says that the Berlin Zoo director Dag Encke claimed the accusations of drugged dolphins as being "bullshit" and "defamation" and that of course any ill dolphin is treated instead to let it die; an idea that seems sensible and do not supposes any moral problem to me.
Keep in mind that this is the very same director (he's director of the Nuremberg Zoo, Berlin doesn't have any dolphins) who demanded a dolphin breeding program gets started in Nuremberg to attract more visitors, even tho nobody on the staff had any experience with something like that. [0]
The very same director who thinks staff shouldn't intervene when dolphins attack each other because "that wouldn't happen in nature" [0], never mind that in nature these animals have quite a bit more room to evade each other than a somewhat bigger swimming pool.
[0] http://www.zeit.de/2015/04/delfine-tierschutz-delfinarium-nu...
But what's described in the press briefing is already bad enough. On page 4 and 5 they list examples where dolphins got treated with Diazepam and even males with synthetic progestogen (female hormones) to influence their anti-social behavior resulting from the poor living conditions They even administered Diazepam to pregnant dolphins, the calf needed to be treated with antibiotics regularly because the mother would keep hurting it and in turn, the mother would get Diazepam in an attempt to tone her behavior down.
Because the anti-social behavior is so common dolphins regularly have to be isolated, furthering their mental issues.
Tbh none of this is surprising to me, in nature these animals are known to make 4.000 km journeys, 90 km a day, diving down to 500 meters. In Nuremberg 9 of them are stuck in shallow concrete pools with the total area of 1/4th of a soccer field. No room to evade social conflicts, nothing exciting to discover so, of course, these very intelligent animals are going crazy in such an environment, I know I would.
[0] http://de.whales.org/sites/default/files/pressebriefing_nuer...
Think of zoos as the world's DR environment.
[1] http://gvzoo.com
[2] http://www.miss604.com/2012/04/vancouver-history-stanley-par...
[3] http://www.miss604.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/...
He claims we are not adapted for eating meat, then backpedals by saying we have adapted for eating meat since the Ice Age, then pretends like this trend can't continue
He claims we aren't adapted for hunting meat, relying solely on physical features to back this claim and ignoring our mental capacity, specifically the capacity for organization and tool use.
His 2nd point is "We don't need it to survive". No shit. We're omnivores.
I couldn't continue because the first two points were clearly conjecture and one-sided and render the likelihood of the validity of the rest to be approaching zero.
Would you like to explain your reasoning in your own words?
There is ample space for the animals to roam, and they are shielded from the elements and predators.
As a result of sustainable rationing, a family doesn't eat meat each night but maybe once a week or month.
Do you truly consider this scenario oppressive?
Yes, because you have violated the free agency of animals and their own right to exist unmolested by humans. It's the treatment of sentient creatures as mere commodities, justifying the means for an end, that's the source of great calamity and suffering. Non-human persons aren't on this planet for the satisfaction of humans. To think so is to basically be stuck in Christian-inspired attitudes which are old and deprecated.
The concept that using animals for any form of resource is oppressive, even if a fair bargain is struck and the animal's needs are met, is highly idealistic in it's own ways, even if they aren't related to Christian values.
People have been cooperating with other animals for much, much longer than Christianity has been around. So yes, that notion is very, very old. I wouldn't say it is depreciated, however.
Animals also commit infanticide and lick their own buttholes. What we do to animals is not cooperation. It's a holocaust.
I'm just glad that a good portion of humanity has the intelligence to understand which evolved behaviors are and aren't appropriate. Maybe eventually we'll all figure it out. Your argument just doesn't stand up because, like humans, some animals have homicidal tendencies and others don't.
The global corporate food industry is a behemoth, but I still don't understand how the scenario I provided to you above, or sanctuaries, or zoos, are "holocaust". Please elaborate.
Further reading: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mutualism_(biology)
What right to exist unmolested by humans?
Tools are a product of culture, not evolution, thus are not a reliable indicator of what our species' natural diet is. We're frugivorous apes, so the appropriate food is fruit.
> Furthermore, we lack the natural tools for killing and eating prey – we lack the requisite speed, agility, claws and teeth for taking down any prey of sufficient size to be useful
is the subject of my criticism. It is not relevant to any discussion about diet, either. And it ignores our intelligence as a "tool".
Most captive animals exist because we tend to them. Are you suggesting that we let them die of starvation or simply eliminate them (as PETA does with many of their 'rescued' animals)?
A reasonable person might suggest we not purposefully birth 150 billion+ animals every year just so they can be killed. The "let them starve" argument is a strawman, since the whole world would not eschew animal products overnight, but rather as a gradual progress.
You suggested gradual elimination, which is an elimination process. I would argue that neither fallacy apply.
I wonder what proportion of animals would chose non-existence over existence if they could understand such concepts. That's quite the decision to make for them.
May I suggest you look at some footage from slaughterhouses to make that determination for yourself? Or, if you're particularly stoic, I dare you to watch Earthlings.