#cetacean captivity

[orcinus-veterinarius]

When horses end up with severe leg/hip injuries, they are almost always put to sleep. The odds of recovering full mobility from such injuries are slim and the odds of reinjury are high, so even if the horse is perfectly healthy in all other aspects, it is generally recognized to be more humane to put them down than to keep them alive just to live the rest of their lives limping around a small paddock or stall. A life for a horse in which s/he cannot gallop, leap, explore and play is no life at all. Why not apply the same logic to cetaceans? A life for a cetacean in which they can’t dive hundreds of meters, make meaningful autonomous choices (“should I play with the rubber ball or the puzzle feeder today?” is not a meaningful choice; research has shown that autonomy is crucial for animal welfare), echolocate and experience the rich biodiversity of the ocean is no life. I really don’t understand why it’s so horrible to think it more humane to euthanize a confused and sick orca calf if there is no chance of rehab and release than to take her/him permanently into captivity. It’s not disparaging or hateful to cetacean trainers to say so—I know they care about animals—it’s simply a logical ethical stance. Instead of searching in vain for orca conservation organizations that aren’t “radically anti-captivity”, maybe pro-caps should look inwards and ask themselves why all the major orca organizations (Center for Whale Research, Orca Behavior Institute, OrcaLab, Wild Orca, Orca Conservancy, Far East Russia Orca Project, etc.) as well as some cetacean organizations (ex. Whale and Dolphin Conservation, Cetacean Society International) oppose captivity. Is it because all of these esteemed groups, which if you look them up are all staffed by credentialed scientists, have been duped by the “animal rights agenda”, or could it be because maybe, just maybe, they know what they’re talking about? If captive orcas are so different from wild ones that wild orca biologists have no credibility to speak about their welfare, then that’s a clear indictment of captivity already.

Hi. I'm sorry for not answering right away, I was still at my externship when I got your ask, and I wanted to be able to sit down and give you a proper answer. So unfortunately, I don't think what I say will satisfy you. I don't expect to change your mind, nor is that my goal here. I only want to explain why I believe the way I do, so that you or others reading this can at least understand that it's not a position I take lightly, nor do I think it's infallible.

(Long post below the cut):

To start off, as an (almost) veterinarian, there are absolutely plenty of circumstances where I find euthanasia to be the correct decision. Euthanasia is our final gift to our patients, a swift and painless death in the face of prolonged suffering or poor quality of life. A large dog with debilitating osteoarthritis. A cat with terminal lymphoma. A down cow. A raptor with an amputated leg. Or like you mentioned, a horse with a fractured hip. These animals would live in a constant state of pain that they don't understand, and death can rightly be considered a kindness to them.

But an otherwise healthy orca calf? I would consider that a false equivalence. I agree that life in the wild should be prioritized whenever possible, and that captive orcas lead very different lives than their wild counterparts. But if that orca cannot return to the wild (orphaned and unable to be reunited with its pod, habituated to humans, non-painful disability such as deafness), and there is a facility willing to take it on, I do not think euthanasia is an appropriate option. In human care, that calf can still swim, breach, and dive, even if not to the same depths as the ocean (it's also worth noting that these are all costly behavior energetically and are not performed for no reason). It can still socialize and form family bonds with an adopted pod of whales. It can still (theoretically) mate and rear calves. It can still engage its big brain in problem-solving through training and enrichment in the place of hunting. And as a bonus, it will never go hungry and has access to veterinary care if ill or injured.

This is not a wild life. This is not the same life they would've, or should've known. A pool, no matter how well-appointed, is not the ocean, and we should not claim they're comparable. But I don't think it's a fate worse than death. I truly don't. But if it is... if freedom really is worth more than life, then all captive whales need to be euthanized. Even in a sea pen setting, they will not be free. They will not choose their food, their companions, their enrichment, their comings and goings. Those choices will still be made on their behalf by caregivers, and they will still have pretty much the same levels of autonomy as in their tank habitat. They will still be captive. (While some people do advocate for this, I don't think it's a popular outlook. Even SOS Dolfijn, a historically anti-cap organization, recently announced plans to build an aqauarium as a permanent home for non-releasable cetaceans rather than continuing to euthanize them).

Speaking of autonomy, yes, it is very important. But I truly don't think the orcas are distressed by the lack of meaning in choosing between enrichment devices. I think that's why we disagree on this topic... we have different worldviews. We both see orcas as beautiful, intelligent creatures, but I do not see them as people. They are animals, and for all their complexity, I interpret their behavior the same way I do any other species... they are motivated by food, reproduction, and (since they're highly social) companionship. Because of that, I still think we can give them a good life in human care, which is why it frustrates me to see the zoo community throw up their hands and give up rather than trying to improve our current less-than-ideal setups (*shakes my fist at the Blue World project*).

Now, I don't think it's wrong to be emotional about animals. I most definitely am! And it's very clear to me you love orcas and care about their wellbeing deeply. I admire that about you, and I appreciate your passion.

On to the next point... in the cetacean world, I've found that there is an unfortunate divide between researchers and caregivers who work with cetaceans in human care and those who study them exclusively in the wild. And that schism far predates the Blackfish era. Most of those organizations you listed are indeed legitimate, and I fully support their vital work and encourage others to do the same. A few of them, though, share things like this:

I think you can understand why this hurts me. And it's a lie. I've now interned at three aquariums (two of them AZA-accredited) that house various species of cetacean, and it's impossible for me to reconcile what I know and have seen to be true and what Whale and Dolphin Conservation wants the public to believe: that these unbelievably loved, vivacious animals are drugged and tortured by their greedy captors. It's not true, and I do not appreciate WDC for spreading this creepy artwork around. Nor do I think that fighting captivity is a beneficial allocation of resources when there is an overwhelming number of genuine threats to the survival of wild cetaceans.

Anyway, back to the scientists. Personally, I don't consider researchers who work exclusively with wild orcas to be either superior or inferior to those who work with captive whales. And sometimes I wonder how much of their position is a self-fulfilling prophecy: if someone opposes captivity on moral grounds, they won't work with captive whales, so they'll never get to know what their lives and care are like beyond maybe a single tour of the park or memories of how things were done in the 1960s (like Dr. Spong, who worked with some of the very first captive orcas at the Vancouver Aquarium).

I also don't think it diminishes the expertise of wildlife biologists to say that they are not experts on husbandry, training, or medical care... those are very different fields, and ideally, they should all inform each other. And of course, there are folks who work with both wild and captive whales. One of the reasons I linked SR3 in my previous post is they have staff with backgrounds in both managed care and research of free-ranging populations (I actually have no idea what the organization's official stance on captivity is, it's not something they address).

Maybe I'm wrong. I try my best to keep an open mind, but I know I'm also swayed by my own preconceptions and experiences. When I started this blog in December 2020, I was a first year vet student with minimal actual experience outside of domestic animals and some herps, and had only recently adopted the pro-captivity outlook. Now, I'm much more deeply involved in the zoo and aquarium world. These are people I know and respect, people who have written me letters of recommendation and comment on my Facebook posts, people I've had dinner with and showed up with after hours to care for a sick animal. And I recognize that biases me. The zoo world is often resistant to change, especially folks who have been in the industry for many years. And that doesn't do anyone, especially the animals, any good. I don't want to get stuck in an echo chamber, so I make it a point to read anti-captivity literature, even when it upsets me. If there is anything I can do to improve their lives, I want to learn about it, regardless of the source.

I try to adapt to new information. For example, in the past few months alone, I've become a lot more favorable toward the idea of sea pen habitats. My concerns about "sanctuaries" are more logisitical* and philosophical** rather than the idea that artifical habitats are inherently superior to pen habitats (they're not), especially when plenty of traditional facilites already make great use of ocean pens or enclosed lagoons. There are pros and cons to both, and a lot of it depends on the needs of the individual animals.

*funding; maintenance; lack of land-based backup pools and fully-equipped medical facilities; introducing immunologically naive animals to pollutants and infectious agents; disruptions to native wildlife; staffing activists and wildlife biologists rather than those with relevant husbandry experience

**villainizing aquariums; promoting the project as a "release to freedom" to the public when it's really another form of captivity; claiming the animals' lives will be "natural" when they will still require training, artificial enrichment, contraceptives, and social management if done correctly; downplaying or completely denying the very real risks of such a transition and insisting the animals will automatically be better off when Little White and Little Grey have proved that's not the case

If you made it to the bottom, thanks for reading. I wish all the best for you, and I mean that genuinely ❤️ even if we disagree, I hope you can appreciate our shared love for these animals and a desire for their wellbeing. Best of luck in all your endeavors!

#also no hard feelings if you unfollow me #I understand #orcas #killer whales #dolphins #cetaceans #marine mammals #animal welfare #cetacean captivity #pro captivity #anti captivity #aquariums #answered asks #anonymous

[leoparduscolocola]

the simple fact that it is impossible to keep killer whales in captivity without causing the same gross anatomical deformity in over half of them should make it plainly obvious that they shouldn’t be kept in captivity at all. ALL adult male orcas, and a considerable chunk of females, whether captive-bred or wild-captured, have collapsed dorsal fins—in the wild, collapsed dorsal fins almost always occur only in orcas who are starving to death or have been injured in some way. and we don’t know if the collapsed dorsal fin has any health, social or behavior impacts! we just don’t know because captive orca facilities have stuck their head in the sand ever since they first started keeping orcas captive and refused to do any research on the phenomenon whatsoever!!! pro-captivity people will tell you in a cheerful, nothing-to-worry-about-folks tone that it doesn’t have any negative impacts, but that’s a lie, because at the end of the day, we don’t know. all we know is that something about captivity clearly causes it; we don’t even know the exact cause. in my opinion, it’s honestly ridiculous to suggest that a male killer whale’s most prominent secondary sex characteristic being totally deformed would have no bearing on his health or social status at all, but that’s just speculation too because nobody has ever looked into this phenomenon at all. that right there should prove that seaworld and their fellow captive killer whale facilities do not care about scientific research or about their animals’ welfare. if any other species experienced a gross anatomical deformity due to captivity (for example, if all male elephants’ tusks fell out, as well as some females’ tusks) and the facilities that held them refused to study it, the zoo industry would be outraged. but because it’s seaworld and they have a huge amount of money and they’re apparently the “world’s foremost experts on killer whales” (despite repeatedly ignoring the hard science from wild orca biologists that makes it obvious that their practices, such as separating moms from calves and restricting their movement, are incredibly harmful), the entire zoo industry just takes their word for it that this deformity is not harmful even though they’ve done no research on it. the dorsal fin issue makes me feel like i’m going insane; seeing smart, animal-loving people fall for this nonsense is very disheartening. it is genuinely shameful that captive killer whale facilities are so willing to overlook a blatant issue because acknowledging it would mean that—gasp!—they’d have to admit that their practices are not perfect and infallible. it would be laughable too if it wasn’t so depressing, because the welfare of these animals is being ignored. but remember kids, seaworld cares! your ticket pays for rescue and research! consume our product to save the earth!

#orcas #cetaceans #orca #killer whales #killer whale #cetacean #animal welfare #zoology #dolphin #dolphins #seaworld #cetacean captivity #orca captivity #katherine speaks

[veganpropaganda]

empty the tanks international is may 13th-14th this year, here's a list of events taking place around the world

#anti captivity #emptythetanks #animal rights #animal liberation #cetacean captivity #vegan #veganism

[namu-the-orca]

Regarding the anti-zoo post I have a question: wouldn't roaming be considered a form of enrichment tho?

Surviving, planning, hunting, thinking for themselves and having new experiences every day, family, herd dynamics, etc. I can't imagine an animal that is "built" to travel long distances and taking care of itself being happy with lying around all day with little to nothing to do. Prey animals might be content, but I can't imagine the same for predators.

Yeah for sure! But this is exactly why a strong enrichment programme is such a crucial part of any good husbandry plan. What kind of enrichment, and how much, depends of course on the needs of a species. But caretakers and trainers work very hard to make sure both the physical and mental needs of their animals are met.

To focus on cetaceans, this can start with the environment itself: some oceanic habitats have the influence of waves and tides, and are often filled with live fish and other naturally occurring wild animals. These provide ever-changing surroundings with lots of "entertainment" and even hunting options. But also a seemingly boring plain tank environment isn't always the same. The weather changes, birds may perch on the edge, there could be cleaning activities going on or special visits from groups/tours.

In a more barren environment the use of EED's (environmental enrichment devices) can be an important part of keeping its occupants entertained. At the Dolphin Academy in Curacao where I volunteered for a short while, the EEDs weren't very exciting and only seldom used because the dolphins could entertain themselves all day within their natural enclosures. But in other facilities, making EEDs for the animals has been turned into an artform. (See for example these contraptions!)

Training, husbandry sessions and shows are all a form of enrichment too! It allows the animal to get a physical workout, while putting their brain to work at the same time. It's also very rewarding for dolphins just for the social interaction of it: I've seen fully milk dependent calves desperate to join a session, without there being any food reward involved for them. And, not to forget: they still live in a social grouping. The interaction between their peers, social structure and hierarchy, play, fights, cooperation... this enriching aspect of social life still exists in a zoo or aquarium.

So in essence, animals under human care definitely "lose" some enriching aspects of their wild life. However, if cared for well, this void is filled up with new and different activities that keep them physically and mentally healthy. There's a whole science dedicated to making sure animals under human care lead interesting lives! Sea World Australia has a great page about all the ways they use enrichment to keep their animals happy and shows examples (plus many more) of the things mentioned above.

#I hope this answers your question a bit! #if not feel free to shoot another ask #also if anyone with more/better/actual experience working in a zoo or marine park wants to add to this - please do! #my knowledge of cetacean care and welfare is mostly theoretical and only a small bit practical #zoos #cetacean captivity #animal welfare #namtalk

[local-hellhound-steals-spaghetti]

Hi I read in one of your reactions to a question I asked about Ric O'Barry & I am quite interested in that book you mentioned where he bragged about developing a cattle prod to hit the dolphins when they misbehaved. Do you have any idea which book it is & approximately where that information is located?

Hi there, I believe it was Behind the Dolphin Smile and To Free A Dolphin as the main sources of some pretty nasty stuff. Also a lot of gross racism.

Ocean on Twitter took these screenshots while going through the books:

I think this is Behind the Dolphin Smile

Ric asks his buddy to make a “dolphin prod” for Patty who had “gone too far”:

Then he brags about the time he punched Patty - literally no one is making him do this and he seems to actually relish it yuck:

I mean it’s no surprise the guy thinks dolphins get abused in human care - he seemed to enjoy punching a dolphin in the back!

Then in his other book about freeing dolphin he bragged about breaking laws, cutting nets and called dolphins in human care “chubby little clowns” that were all overweight and that’s why he didn’t think the ones he threw out into the wild with no prep weren’t emaciated.

So what is it Ric? Are dolphins in human care starved to perform or are they overweight and getting free food for nothing?

This is Buck after he was rescued btw

Then he implies that it’s easier for the dolphins to just “escape accidentally” rather than get permits ti release

He knew the dolphins who had “escaped” were hungry, he knew they were dependent on people. He thought he could starve them out.

Ah yes 4 days of being forced out into the wild is totally enough time to evaluate whether they can make it out there or not. Not like dolphins have massive blubber reserves they can use if they can’t feed themselves for a few days.

Also he has beef with the Sarasota Dolphin Research project that Randy Wells is in charge of because he doesn’t like that they’re getting data of dolphins dying in the wild

It’s wild to me that people read his book and still worship him. So so gross.

#Ric O’Barry #the dolphin project #behind the dolphin smile #cetacean captivity #anti cap #pro cap #blackfish #cetacean welfare

[whaleexpertsanonymous]

This is the biggest pile of hot, steaming garbage I’ve ever seen, and I’m extremely disappointed in BBC Earth. A wild-born adult orca, released after less than a year in a sea pen, is completely incomparable to a multi-generation captive-born whale raised entirely in a manmade environment. And disparaging the work of accredited zoos and aquariums is never a good look. Absolutely shamefully misleading. What in the world.

#seething #orcas #killer whales #cetaceans #marine mammals #cetacean captivity #Youtube

[notherefortheanonhate]

I, an uneducated idiot, am going to give my opinion in cetacean captivity, specifically regarding orcas. Specifically specifically regarding SeaWorld.

It's bad that it happened. It's bad that it ever happened in the first place, and when I get to hell I am going to hunt Ted Griffiths for sport for getting the whole thing off the ground.

(more under the cut because this is getting long)

I don't like the commercialisation of SeaWorld. Surely they can study the orcas without making them do tricks for large audiences.

"But Lauren, they stopped doing that!"

Yes, because the public outcry made them stop. They are a for profit company. They did not stop any of this on their own. They did not stop capturing orcas because they felt bad or realized it was wrong. They did not stop breeding orcas because they felt bad or realized it was wrong. I am not anti-zoo, or anti-conservstion. I am strongly anti-capitalist though, and I think SeaWorld as an amusement park needs a whole lot of side eye.

"So Lauren, you think the orcas should go back in the ocean, right?"

Honestly, I don't know. I am just an uneducated idiot, and I wouldn't presume to tell people what to do about it when they might know more than me. Also, historically, I'm going to be honest that it doesn't work well. We did Keiko dirty.

In a perfect world, I would call for wildlife rehabilitation facilities; huge, enormous ones, where all the whales that are family (really, truly family, so mothers would be reunited with their children first and foremost and then we go from there) in captivity could be reunited in sea pools, near enough where wild orcas (of their specific grouping/language) can call to them and they can call back while humans teach them the skills they need to survive in the wild, then release them. This scenario also relies on thriving fish/mammal stocks, which uh. Hmm. An issue for another time, but like I said, this is my idea for a Perfect World. In a perfect world, the other pods would snap up their old and new members easily. We know from Keiko that it is not entirely likely to happen. I also wonder if the captive orcas have their own kind of language borne from different pods being forced together, or at the very least if the younger ones do. The pods of their grandparents might be confused by them, at the very least!

"Lauren, that's not a solution. That's a pipe dream."

Yeah. Kind of. Honestly, it doesn't seem like there's any way to right a lot of these wrongs. It seems that it's a damned if you do, damned if you don't kind of thing; we don't want the whales left in stagnant pools of glass and concrete; if nothing else, they don't have the room they're used to as migratory animals, and they don't have the ecosystem to interact with. We can't release them, they don't know how to be a wild animal anymore. And we aren't kind enough to the natural world to let them figure it out as they go along because they have lost the time they would have otherwise spent learning those skills.

"But Lauren, we know so much more about them now!"

I mean, I guess? Like I said, I am suspicious of the conservation efforts of teaching them tricks for our amusement, and how the captive breeding program that SeaWorld was running seemed to be more for SeaWorld's benefit than for bringing more orcas into our seas. I also don't know how much we can learn if the variable of captivity is there. Does this orca prefer fish because it was from a resident pod, or because they were primarily fed fish by their humans? If they were originally from a transient pod, was the transition to a fish-based diet difficult for them? Would it be difficult to go back? It seems so individual that we cannot possibly know.

BUT I acknowledge your point. Would we have cared to learn as much about them if we didn't have this experience? This capitalist push behind them? I don't think we actually would have. Look at sharks. They have less than 150 marine biologists dedicated to them right now, counting post grad students if I remember that YouTube video essay correctly. We wouldn't know to love orcas if we hadn't done this; hell, they might have been treated like the Great White Shark! It's good that we love orcas and we care about them! It means that we might make better efforts regarding the Chinook Salmon that the Southern Pacific Resident pod thrives on, or reducing pollution, or any number of things. I can't say what knowledge we have lost or gained because of specific actions. Again, it seems so variable that I cannot say. How many marine biologists today were taken to SeaWorld as a child? That seems quantifiable, but how many people didn't go into marine biology as adults because their experience wasn't as good; the weather was bad, their parents fought, the whales weren't performing as well as they did some other day? That the experience was coloured in some way in their perception, pushing them from the field? That's less quantifiable.

So that's my opinion on it. It's not good, and quite honestly it shouldn't have come this far in the first place. But there's really not much we can do about it now, except maybe letting them die with their loved ones.

#cetacean captivity #controversy #orcas #killer whales #discourse #look im really not trying to start anything im just giving my opinion

[snototter]

The eye (and ear opening) of a Beluga whale (Delphinapterus leucas)

by Eric Heupel

#details #beluga whale #whales #cetaceans #delphinapterus leucas #delphinapterus #monodontidae #cetacea #artiodactyla #mammalia #chordata #captive animal #mystic aquarium

[cipher-the-sidhe]

If any of y’all thought I was over exaggerating how bad the holding facilities are in What the Tide Keeps, I want to show you this:

The holding pools at the Miami Seaquarium, which were retired only this week after decades of use 🙃

I wish I was kidding or exaggerating

#what the tide keeps #WtTK au #miami seaquarium #marine animal captivity #anti cetacean captivity #this is the park that held Tokitae for 50+ years until she died #*seethes through scathing fanfic depictions*

[enter-the-phantom]

“Toki was an inspiration to all who had the fortune to hear her story and especially to the Lummi nation that considered her family.”

…weren’t the Lummi on the forefront of the fight to free her?

The Miami Seaquarium daring to even mention an Indigenous nation whose sacred animal they have kidnapped, abused, neglected, and let die in a tiny concrete tank is perhaps the most laughably disturbing part of this whole charade. It stinks of performative allyship and it stinks of racism.

It just stinks.

#this hit me like a truck when I read those words and I could not believe #the sheer audacity #animal rights #cetaceans #tokitae #anti captivity #empty the tanks

[franki-lew-yo]

In case anyone's wondering, I'm pro-captivity in theory and mostly in practice. Every zoo or sanctuary has the ability to be bad at their job, but ordinarily I trust AZA for telling me what places are trustworthy with animals and what ones aren't.

Still, I'm side-eyeing any standard zoo that has these particular animals, given that I'm not certain every* zoo/aquarium is equipped to take care of these speciess' specific needs:

Great Apes (chimps, bonobos, orangutans and gorillas. idk about Gibbons)

Dolphins and orcas

Hippos

Whales (belugas, narwhals, ect)

Rhinos

Elephants

Polar bears

Cassowarries

Emperor and Adele penguins

Whale sharks

Basking sharks

Tigers

this isn't to say these animals can never be held in healthy, happy man made environments. I just think there's a big different between taking care of a small herd of cows vs a rescued elephant, let alone several rescued elephants. Elephants are traumatized+ill and need to best treatment after years of abuse in shows. They need socialization and LOTS OF lots of space, even more than cows or other grazing animals that are mostly independent and just need a vet to come up to them every now and then.

And then you have animals that need a really good upkeep of what they'd have in the wild to not be miserable, like any animal from the poles or cetaceans, who need so much space, cold air and food and it's abuse to keep them in anything lacking in these areas.

#franki's features #captivity #cetaceans #zoos #animal captivity #rescue animals #ramble

[orcinus-veterinarius]

This piece by Dr. Jason Bruck, published just today in a special issue of the journal Animals, explores the logistical and philosophical challenges surrounding the proposed use of "sea pen sanctuaries" for zoological cetaceans. Dr. Bruck addresses the issues of space, human contact, birth control, and funding, as well as the prioritization of "ending captivity" above individual welfare and continued conservation efforts.

Dr. Bruck is a professor of biology and PhD research scientist focusing on dolphin communication, cognition, and welfare, both in the wild and in human care.

The full text can be accessed free of charge by downloading the PDF provided at the link above.

#dolphin #dolphins #cetaceans #marine mammals #animal sanctuary #cetacean captivity #zoos #aquariums

[leoparduscolocola]

hey, it's me. i'm not coming back to tumblr permanently, but i figured i'd post this here as a virtual diary entry of sorts (and because i don't know anyone irl that wants to talk about cetaceans at the moment). maybe this post will change people's minds, or at least get them thinking. this isn't directed at anyone or anything; it's more to clear my mind and hopefully inform others about orca captivity, seaworld, etc.

the past six months have been very difficult for me. i'm doing better now, but i'm just not at the place in life i thought i would be at right now. throughout my struggles, one of my biggest sustainers has been my passion for animals, and orcas have been my predominant obsession for a while now. the felidae family, especially lions, will always have my heart—they're the first animal i fell in love with, and they will always be incredibly fascinating and awe-inspiring to me. however, orcas have seized hold of me in a way that i can't really describe. everything i've learned about them has blown me away, from their uniquely stable, mostly nonviolent and matriarchal social structure to their incredibly diverse hunting techniques to their cultural behaviors to the wide diversity of their physical appearance. i just love them so much.

as such, it is inevitable that i would encounter debates about captivity in the course of my internet travels in search of ever more information about these animals. for most of my life, i was unapologetically pro seaworld, viewing them as no different from any other zoo or aquarium and their critics as simply having been bamboozled by the film blackfish (although i staunchly refused to actually watch the film until a few months ago, only listening to how seaworld and its supporters depicted the film to me). by the time i started this blog, i had grown more critical of them, as reflected in my pinned post. at that time, i was more critical of killer whale captivity in general than of seaworld specifically. however, after i had to leave my former college in the middle of the semester due to my mental health, i found myself with a lot of time on my hands before the start of the semester at my new college, so i started doing some more research. as a history nerd, i have always been interested in the history of human interactions with wildlife, and the history of human interaction with orcas is unique from an anthrozoological perspective. i became particularly interested in the era just before and after the release of blackfish in 2013—how seaworld, the scientific community, the animal advocacy community, and the public at large responded, and the lasting reverberations of that era today. i fired up the wayback machine and began painstakingly examining any website i could find from that era that had to do with that topic, from awesomeocean.com to seaworldofhurt.com (neither of which are credible sources, btw: awesome ocean is basically a seaworld-funded buzzfeed clone and seaworld of hurt is run by peta). what i found blew me away in the worst way possible.

the website i spent the most time on was askseaworld.com/ask.seaworldcares.com (https://web.archive.org/web/20160110084856/http://ask.seaworldcares.com/). i cross-checked the information posted there with a little-known website i urge everyone to check out, https://www.seaworldfactcheck.com/ (which i didn't have to use the wayback machine to access, because seaworld has attempted to purge pretty much everything related to the blackfish era from their websites whereas anticap websites haven't). only a handful of the sheer volume of questions they received were fact-checked by seaworldfactcheck, so i had to check a lot of them myself. i was flabbergasted by the responses seaworld posted on askseaworld. they ranged from just your typical corporate pr messaging to outright lies. a common thread running through all of them was a complete refusal to admit that they ever did anything wrong in their entire history. that's something that the entire zoological field has trouble doing, but never had i seen it on such clear display. for example, they audaciously claimed that kohana's calves weren't inbred, and that the degree of relatedness between kohana and her calves' father, keto, is standard practice in ex situ breeding programs. meanwhile, the aza says that inbreeding is to be avoided here and here. additionally, these two pages, while they focus on pedigree dogs, stress that a coefficient of inbreeding (the likelihood of having identical alleles from a common ancestor on both sides of the pedigree) over 5% leads to problems, and kohana's calves had an inbreeding coefficient of 6.25%. i'm no geneticist, but sw's response to that question is questionable, to say the least. when asked about the whales they captured from the wild, they only used the word "collected", which came across to me as corporate doublespeak attempting to obfuscate the trauma and utter cruelty of ripping these complex, cultural, family-oriented animals from their families permanently for the primary purpose of entertainment—which, regardless of their current messaging, was undeniably the purpose of seaworld when it was founded (see page 9 of that link, which is also an incredibly well-researched and well-referenced argument against marine mammals in captivity that cannot be dismissed out of hand just because it comes from an anticap source). they refused to offer even a semblance of regret for how those captures were carried out—even a halfhearted "society's standards for animal welfare were different back then" or "at the time, we had no idea how this sort of thing could impact these animals" would be better than what they said, which was simply that "those were a long time ago". ok, but just because we didn't know it was wrong back then doesn't mean it wasn't wrong. it was just as wrong then as it was now, and seaworld doesn't even say it would be wrong for them to do so now; they just repeat the same line over and over about their last captures being decades ago.

however, none of these are as bad as the askseaworld response that appalled me the most. it genuinely made me question every positive thing i had ever heard about seaworld. unlike most of the questions, the name of the person who asked it was not stated, giving the impression that seaworld perhaps posed it to itself as a sort of preemptive strike. this was their response:

this is one of the most unacceptable and heartrending things i have ever seen written by any person or entity related to animals. nonhuman animals are not a monolith; there are millions of species of animals out there, each one with its own unique behaviors, social structures (or lack of social structures), role in the broader web of life, and ways of thinking. to suggest that the social dynamics of all the animals in the world are so similar that they can be crammed into the word "most" is utterly presumptuous and incorrect. at the risk of sounding like a vegan activist, i will dare to say that this statement enforces a harmful anthropocentric worldview that implies that humans are the only species that could experience distress at the loss of a loved one. by declaring that most animals just get over a member of their social group dying without a second thought, seaworld dismisses years upon years of science revealing the social lives of animals from cows to rabbits to, yes, orcas. including parents in this statement is especially ironic, considering that mother orcas undeniably demonstrate some of the strongest bonds with their children in the animal kingdom, arguably even stronger than humans—after all, when's the last time you met a human who has never left their mother's side their whole life? with this statement, seaworld revealed a callous indifference to the rich inner lives of their animals, focusing on the grief their human employees feel when an orca under their care dies over the far greater grief the orcas themselves probably feel when a member of their actual family dies. orcas have inherent worth and dignity and that deserves to be acknowledged, not dismissed so we can all go back to empathizing with the trainers. i'm not dismissing the trainers' grief in any way; i'm not trying to say the reverse of what seaworld said. rather, i'm saying that their grief shouldn't be seen as more important or more valid than the grief of the orcas.

some might say that this single response, no doubt composed with the help of a public relations firm, should not be taken as representative of seaworld or its trainers as a whole. to that, i would say that while individual employees (i.e., orca trainers) of seaworld may not agree with this statement, it can be presumed that this is or was at the time the official stance of the corporation that is seaworld parks and entertainment, incorporated. personally, i do not think it is possible to separate support for the trainers from support from the larger corporation running the show, as financially supporting seaworld inevitably supports the corporation (which has asked its employees to do some pretty unethical things) and its stakeholders, not just its employees. customers' money is not going into the pockets of trainers; it's going into the corporation first and foremost to pay the CEO and stakeholders before a paltry amount per dollar is redistributed at the company's whim to their trainers and rescue efforts.

as i processed this response, i decided to do some more research into the anti-cap side of things. i found that, despite seaworld's constant claims that they are a science-based organization, i could not find a wild orca biologist (meaning somebody who researched orcas exclusively in the wild, without a personal connection to seaworld or any other captive entity) who supported keeping orcas in captivity in general or seaworld specifically. of course, i don't know all of the wild orca biologists in the world, so i could be missing somebody, but all of the big names who conducted the most groundbreaking research on orcas in their natural habitats condemn orca captivity, as these links show: michael bigg, alexandra morton, ken balcom, deborah giles, naomi rose, paul spong, erich hoyt, and ingrid visser. these are not peta activists—they are experts in their field with phds and decades of experience! pro-caps often accuse anti-caps of only listening to their emotions instead of science, but how is it valid to dismiss all of these esteemed scientists as being biased when their research and experiences in the field with orcas are the reason why they are against captivity? seaworld tends to portray itself as objective and rational and their opponents as emotional and irrational, but how can all of these orca experts who have nothing to gain financially from opposing seaworld be completely incorrect when it comes to captivity and the corporation that profits off of having them in captivity be completely correct? the most praise directed towards orca captivity from a wild orca researcher i could find was robert pittman referring to them as "sacrifical animals" who display obvious signs of poor welfare but need to be kept in captivity anyway so the public will fall in love with their species; hardly a glowing endorsement. in her presentation at the california coastal commission, naomi rose said something (starting at 10:36) that really opened my eyes. she said that she does not believe that seaworld and its trainers are being intentionally cruel to their animals, but that they simply do not understand them: "if they don't know what normal is, then they cannot know what abnormal is." she's saying that in order to build a solid foundational understanding of a species' normal behavior, one must spend as much time as possible observing that species in its normal, evolutionary, default way of living, i.e. "the wild". without doing this sort of firsthand research or drawing upon the scientific literature produced by those who have, one cannot claim that an animal of this species in totally abnormal conditions is displaying normal behavior. the aim of captivity for any species should be to replicate an animal's normal way of living as much as possible to allow the optimal amount of normal behaviors to be expressed, and what the scientists i have mentioned claim is that orca captivity is failing at replicating this way of living.

the institution of orca captivity in its current form takes away almost all elements of what would be considered an orca's normal lifestyle, from hunting to staying in their matrilines to communicating with other orca pods to moving large distances on a daily basis to choosing who they mate with and when to experiencing changes in water depth, light level, pressure, salinity, currents, waves, and weather. they destroy their teeth , exhibit increased aggression levels with each other (compared to their remarkably stable social structure in their natural habitat), and experience dorsal fin collapse, a phenomenon that seaworld has declared has no implications for these animals' well-being despite conducting zero research on it (seriously, imagine if all male lions' manes fell out in captivity and zoos shrugged their shoulders and said it was fine without ever exploring why). manmade enrichment and training can supplement this, but in my opinion it can never replace it entirely because these animals live such active and complex lives in the wild. basically the only natural thing that they are allowed to do in captivity is breed (but again, they can't always choose when they mate and with whom). i and the above scientists believe that orcas' welfare is already so compromised in captivity that removing this element is worth it to protect future orcas from having to endure this and to reduce demand for wild captures as genetic diversity in breeding programs runs out (to my knowledge less than 30 orcas worldwide are part of captive breeding programs) and, as we're seeing in china, new parks opening demand more orcas faster than they can be born. more and more and more breeding (chimelong has been breeding especially rapidly, forcing katenka to have 3 calves in just under four years when a wild orca would only have one calf in that time frame, and shanghai and kamogawa sea world are breeding as well) does not quell the need for wild captures; it drives it. the success of seaworld parks in the usa is likely a major factor in why businesspeople in other countries (china, russia) have started majorly investing in capturing orcas in the past decade.

that brings me to something that has really disturbed me lately. over the months since chimelong spaceship opened in china, i have seen a continual backwards shift in what the pro-cap community has considered acceptable. the number of pro-caps that i have seen praising chimelong while giving mere lip service to the fact that most of their orcas were traumatically ripped from their families is astounding. you cannot praise a facility while ignoring the source of their animals, and you cannot condemn the fact that these orcas were wild-caught while throwing your support behind the industry driving demand for these captures. i highly doubt people come to a theme park that is literally shaped like a giant spaceship with any intention of being educated or supporting conservation; they come there to be entertained, just as people came to seaworld solely to be entertained for much of its history. also, pro-caps must not ignore the fact that spaceship's parent company, chimelong, operates a deplorable circus, chimelong international circus, that abuses wild animals and forces them to perform dangerous and demeaning tricks. chimelong also operates zhuhai chimelong ocean kingdom, at which cruelty and neglect have been documented (china cetacean alliance may be connected to animal rights groups, but that doesn't mean the results of their investigations are completely invalid). this report about chimelong and shanghai, including concerning animal behavior and misinformation being spread by chimelong trainers, is also incredibly concerning. even if no outright orca abuse has been recorded at shanghai, chimelong, or other new facilities yet, it is still concerning that their sister facilities engage in such blatant abuse with other animals. if three out of four restaurants in a chain have been caught on camera serving moldy, spoiled food to their customers, it's a pretty safe bet that the fourth one will eventually be caught doing so too.

anyways, that about wraps up what is by far the longest post i have ever made on tumblr. nobody i know irl really cares about cetacean captivity, so i wanted to vent here. i am not the most anti-cap anti-cap out there for cetaceans, but i definitely am more so than i used to be. heck, i'm not even universally opposed to something like the whale sanctuary project being constructed—wikie, inouk, and keijo are likely going to be transferred out of marineland antibes soon, and even though the sanctuary model is totally unproven, i can't help but feel that their welfare would be better there than at the places they are rumored to have been sold to: kobe suma sea world, kamogawa sea world, and port of nagoya public aquarium. the former two feature tank complexes that are barely bigger than tokitae's infamous "whale bowl", and kamogawa still does waterwork. also, it is rumored that marineland antibes wants to split up their orcas between these facilities, which wouldn't happen at the wsp and would make the stress of the move even worse. however, i absolutely cannot stand the wsp's messaging; they spread a lot of poor-quality information. as many others have said before, the sanctuary model could be super risky, and it's doubtful they could construct it in time if the french government allows the orcas to be moved, considering marineland antibes wanted these orcas gone yesterday. as usual, captive orcas are stuck between a rock and a hard place.

however, i want to make one thing clear: i'm not an expert or a scientist, nor do i wish to portray myself as such. i'm just a bored college student who is obsessed with animals and has too much time on her hands. i try to get as much of my information from experts and scientists as possible, but i do not claim to be an expert and i'm always willing to learn from the scientific literature and from people who can engage in respectful discussion. in regards to captive orcas, i would certainly love to be wrong.

#katherine speaks #orcas #orca #killer whale #killer whales #seaworld #cetacean #cetaceans #zoology #animal welfare #chimelong spaceship #shanghai haichang ocean park #cetacean captivity #orca captivity

[vampirechatroom]

You should try a dolphin swimming place, I did one in Cancun that was super fun. The dolphins kiss you!

i was not protesting against cetacean captivity outside the gates of seaworld at 14 years old to go swim with imprisoned dolphins :'(

#i very much appreciate that it was fun for you but i am firmly against all cetacean captivity #anti-captivity #cetaceans

[local-hellhound-steals-spaghetti]

Finally we have more media actually publishing skepticism towards sanctuaries - rather than the usual uncritical puff pieces and feel good stories.

Jason hits the nail on the head here is saying that the concept of a “sanctuary” is a way to assuage human guilt about the original sin of capturing the dolphins from the wild. And it makes the public decide they no longer need to worry about the animals in a sanctuary because they’re Safe there.

This allows sanctuaries to get away with not actually proving that their facilities are an improvement to welfare. We see this a lot with the lax husbandry standards in terrestrial animal sanctuaries. Things that would never be accepted in accredited zoos get a free pass because it’s a Sanctuary.

#cetacean welfare #blackfish #SeaWorld #dolphin #whale #dolphin captivity #anti cap #pro cap

[0cean-warrior]

#ocean #sea #cetacean #marine life #animal #orca #orca whale #killer whale #whale #stop captivity #anti captivity #They don't belong in Tanks #Sad