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Comment by jamesgagan | Hacker News Reader

"They killed our orcas" - really? 2 Belugas just died in captivity at that aquarium -it wasn't environmentalists who killed them, it was the aquarium. I have been to that aquarium and it was just depressing. Watching the Orca swim upside down around and around in circles was the saddest thing I've ever seen. Making intelligent creatures perform tricks for profit is hardly a noble enterprise. Have you seen Blackfish? http://www.blackfishmovie.com/ Watch it and then come back and tell us that Tilikum had any kind of good life. These animals belong in the wild. They don't need to be "rescued". The idea that gawking at magnificent animals in captivity is somehow required to instill respect for them is ridiculous. The best way to respect all animals is to leave them alone.

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Counterpoint: The animals they are rescuing would have died in the wild.

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.

Despite the claims that these animals are all "rescued", those claims are hard to prove, and a number of these mammals are actually born in captivity. I do agree with the rest of your comment.

The determination on which animals in Canada to rescue, and which can be returned to the wild is done by the Department of Fisheries, so there is neutral oversight provided by a government entity. Those claims are easy to prove.

here's a list of where their animals come from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vancouver_Aquarium#Animals_at_...

Counterpoint: The animals they are breeding in captivity would not have died in the wild.

> 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?

>is it not better to die free than live long in a cage?

From an instinctive and evolutionary standpoint, definitely the latter.

Yeah, as long as you're talking about permanently domesticating an animal so they'll be 'cage dolphins' or whatever. Otherwise that's absolutely not true.

You misunderstood. The point is, an animal will always attempt to keep living regardless of how painful or hopeless the situation. It's a basic instinct.

Well that's what we've perfected in animal farming isn't it. Cows, pigs, chicken injected with vaccines, given food and hormones that makes them live long enough to produce offspring and maximum human consumable resources. Their emotional and psychological needs are the least of our concerns.

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.

> Counterpoint: The animals they are rescuing would have died in the wild.

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, ...

Is this a joke? Most would prefer prison over execution.

What right do we have to decide that captivity is a better fate?

Blackfish is not so innocent as we could think. You could find this webpage interesting also: "blackfish is full of black lies".

http://awesomeocean.com/2014/07/05/blackfish-full-blacklies/

whether or not blackfish was totally truthful or not has little bearing on the real situation. so i am not exactly for sure what propaganda against blackfish hopes to accomplish. and i read some of the "lies". there is clearly an agenda on that site. for example, the note about the age of orcas denies a claim with no references to scientific studies.

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.

> whether or not blackfish was totally truthful

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

> note that orcas are some of the most social and familial animals in the world

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.

That's the equivalent of putting somebody in solitary confinement for life, which does more mental harm than good, we already have plenty of scientific evidence for this not just for Humans but many other social animal species. Pigs for example tend to be very clean and smart animals, that is until you hoard too many of them in too little room, then they start to act nasty towards each other because of the stress that situation represents to them.

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 suppose people should parse the claims independently but that website is literally just a copy-paste from Seaworld's site followed by one of the more absurd statements I've ever read;

> I think that all this criticism against Tilikum is hurting him more than anything.

Come on..

Blackfish was a very damaging documentary to the vancouver aquarium, because it casts all marine life centres as cruel cages for animals. in fact, in their theatre, they pre-screen a short video now that basically says 'wtf we're not monsters, here is what we do' because of the social media activists.

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.

Keeping whales and dolphins in a big fish tank for people to gawk it is anything but noble. People keep repeating this myth that the animals are "rescued". Some of them are bred in captivity. Do you really think it's noble to breed whales and keep them captive? Edited to add that they also loan out animals so other institutions can breed MORE whales and dolphins to be kept in captivity. To me, that's pretty awful.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vancouver_Aquarium#Animals_at_...

If an animal is bred in captivity, such that said animal learns no wilderness survival skills by adulthood and thus would no longer be capable of surviving in the wild... then yes, I would call it "rescuing" the animal to give it as comfortable a non-wilderness home to live in as is possible. And I would definitely not call it "rescuing" (like PETA does) to release the animal into the wild, where it will immediately die.

Surely your comment is a joke. Breeding whales in captivity = rescuing them? Really?

> Breeding whales in captivity = rescuing them? Really?

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.

No, I said, taking whales that were bred in captivity from bad caretakers, and moving them to good caretakers, is rescuing them.

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 actually an open question for many people. The Vancouver park board (authority of VA), however, banned breeding of non-threatened species in 2014.

Counterpoint:

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.

You seem to be projecting human emotions unto animals. Captivity for animals is not the same as for humans.

Stop repeating the "for profit" lie.

Unlike SeaWorld, it's a non-profit. All proceeds are directed back into rehabilitation and education programs.

Non-profits can still make money and not even the Vancouver Aquarium itself claims that "All proceeds are directed back into rehabilitation and education programs". In 2015, only 15% of revenues went to Conservation, Research and Education. http://www.vanaqua.org/annualreport2015/assets/dist/pdfs/ann...

A non-profit can't produce profit, however they can pay their mgmt too much money.

Is that what you're accusing the Vancouver Aquarium of doing?

Not OP, but I work in nonprofit finance -- Their financials are here:

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.

Your argument is vacuous because you aren't translating between "revenue" and "profit." If that "15% of revenue" was also "100% of profit", then they're doing exactly what you'd expect a non-profit to do. The real questions are:

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.

OP said "All proceeds are directed back into rehabilitation and education programs." This is not true.

"Proceeds" is a synonym for profits, not for revenues. That was my point: "15% of revenues" might very well be the entirety of the proceeds, making their statement true. You have to do some accounting to prove or disprove that.

Pedantry fail. You know very well what "proceeds go to charity" means.

http://www.businessdictionary.com/definition/proceeds.html

Nearly every non-profit in the world has expenses to cover first.

There are plenty of non-profits that do questionable things. PETA clinics euthanize more animals that humane centers run by municipalities:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/02/05/pets-shelter-euthan...

If PETA had billions of dollars and spent all of it on building animal shelters for every single dog and cat, breeders and feral animals would quickly replenish the missing "stock". There will simply never be enough "animal shelters" to house every animal ever born. PETA offers euthanasia services because of this truth. I see nowhere on their website that states that they set out to provide shelters for all pets. There are many rational criticisms of PETA, but this is not one of them.

Animal shelters will always have to put animals down. I don't think people deny that.

But PETA appears to spend more effort putting them down than attempting to re-home them.

Blackfish is one side of the argument with no counter argument. Don't make that your only education on the subject.

"Don't make that your only education on the subject." Kind of presumptuous, no?

Did you read the comment? These aren't wild orcas/dolphins they're rescues with no wild instinct. The alternative to taking care of them is to let them die, would you rather have that?

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.

Actually, the belief that all the marine mammals at the Aquarium are/were "rescues with no wild instinct" is incorrect. From wikipedia: "The Aquarium also housed two beluga whales. Qila was born in captivity, whereas Aurora was captured from the wild in waters near Churchill, Manitoba in 1990.[20]" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vancouver_Aquarium#Animals_at_...

>2 Belugas just died in captivity at that aquarium -it wasn't environmentalists who killed them, it was the aquarium.

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.

Well, what it said was they died from a toxin from an unknown source. http://bc.ctvnews.ca/vancouver-belugas-died-by-toxin-from-un...

One interpretation of that could be they were intentionally poisoned.

I just find it to be a lot of smoke hanging around for nothing to be burning.

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.

There haven't been any orcas at the Vancouver Aquarium since 2001. Whatever experience you're basing your opinion on is hopelessly out of date.

The Vancouver Aquarium is a non-profit organization, and has much different goals and priorities than Seaworld.

Ok, first off, the whale deaths that sparked this recent controversy happened in 2016. Orcas and Belugas are both types of whale. Second, I lived in Vancouver for a number of years and visited the Vancouver Aquarium a bunch of times. While the upside down Orca was disturbing, I also have seen the Beluga and dolphin shows there. So my opinion is not "hopelessly out of date".

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_...

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