Arrogance, Intolerance, and Stupidity

Before the Sea World/OSHA hearings were adjourned, the fun park's executives stated that they intended to put trainers back into the water with Orcas in the future. They claimed that such "water work" is essential for the emotional well-being of these highly sociable animals.

Wait! What? Say that again. It is incredible that the presumably intelligent human beings who own and operate Sea World could proffer such a deceitful and self-serving defense. If indeed they truly cared about the 'well-being of these highly sociable animals' they would not imprison them in tiny concrete tanks where their dorsal fins droop, their minds grow numb, and their souls die even sooner than their bodies (the average life expectancy of a captive Orca is 10 years versus 50+ in the wild).

Are these men and women so obsessed with greed that they have lost every shred of decency and humanity that their parents taught them as little children? The arrogance, intolerance, and stupidity of Sea World's owners and management are a sad testimonial to the ignobility of which we humans are capable.

It is all so sad...so very, very sad.

We Can Kill Their Souls

This past week in a U.S. District Court in Orlando, Florida, attorneys for the U.S. Department of Labor's Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) defended the government's job safety citations against Sea World. The government claims that the fun park's management operated an unsafe work environment for its employees who work with Orcas. At issue was the tragic death last year of a Sea World trainer in the jaws of Tilikum, a six ton male Orca that had been involved in two previous human deaths.

As might be expected, the fun park's attorneys vigorously defended their client, claiming the woman's death was simply an unfortunate accident in which Tilikum unintentionally drowned her after her long ponytail drifted into his mouth. Government witnesses countered that the huge dolphin (yes, Orcas are dolphins not whales) grabbed her arm not her hair, and attacked her viciously causing injuries far too graphic to repeat here. As in all such legal cases of "we say, they say" the truth is hard to determine; and in fairness to Sea World's legal counsel, they are not being paid to find the truth, only to defend their client's definition of what the truth is.

Testimony will not resume again until mid-November; however, one salient fact is clear, a loving and lovely young woman is dead, and her killer remains trapped in a tiny concrete tank barely twice as long as his body. This troubled behemoth is freed only briefly to perform stupid tricks before audiences who are either oblivious to the cruelty inherent in the actions of his mercenary owners, or apathetic to them. Keeping Orcas in captivity is a tragedy of limitless proportions and I think Ms. Diane McNally, a cetacean rights activist and writer, said it best in her recent Victoria Times Colonist article titled, "Orcas wont' eat us, but we can kill their souls" (see link below).

Sea World is killing the souls of every Orca they keep, and each time the public goes to one of their fun parks they become accomplices to Sea World's crimes of crass and commercial inhumanity. Perhaps one day, after the lawyers have gone home, and the trainers have gone back in the water, and the next human being is killed by one of these tormented souls, then maybe finally, we the people will rise up and say, Enough!


http://www.timescolonist.com/technology/Orcas+kill+their+souls/5441202/story.html

Brutal Facts About Captive Orcas

BRUTAL FACTS:
* The average adult American drives 32 miles a day and is free to travel around the world.
* An adult Orca in the wild can swim 100 miles a day and is free to travel around the world.
* An Orca at Sea World can swim 50 yards across the show tank before having to turn around.

* The area of an average American home is 2,700 square feet.
* The area of the world's oceans is 139 million square miles.
* The minimum area set by the government for a captive Orca's tank is 1,800 square feet, with a diameter of 48 feet. An average adult Orca is 24 feet long. (Proportionally, this is the same size as cells for murderers on death row).

* The average life span for an American is 78 years.
* In the wild, Orcas can live up to 80 years.
* In captivity, Orcas have an average life span of 10 years.

CONCLUSION:
You tell me, is keeping Orcas in captivity cruel and unusual punishment? If you agree that it is, here is what you can do about it:

* First, stop going to Sea World or marine parks like it. And tell two friends to stop, and have them tell two friends. Soon the message will reach thousands of like-minded people.
* Second, express your views on Facebook or YouTube or on any and every forum to anyone who will listen.
* Third, teach your children that to keep intelligent and sentient beings in tiny cement tanks barely twice as long as their bodies, and force them to perform stupid animal tricks for our entertainment is wrong. Just plain wrong.
* Fourth, write your Representative or Senator and ask them to introduce a bill in Congress to outlaw the keeping and breeding of Orcas in captivity. (For those of you outside the U.S. do this with your respective government representatives.)

THE HOPED FOR OUTCOME:
Releasing captive Orcas into the wild is problematic and most likely a death sentence. As such, those already in captivity are doomed either way. However, if we stop going to Sea World and to all the parks like it; and/or if the government outlaws this inhumane practice, then the owners and management will stop breeding them or buying them. They will be forced to end the shows and allow their captives to live out the rest of their lives in peace. And eventually, in 10 years or so, there will be no Orcas left suffering in cement tanks anywhere in the world.

NOTE: I will be traveling for a few weeks and unable to post. I'll see you on the flip side.

Gloomy Update On Captive Orca

My previous posting noted the sad story of a young female Orca captured a year ago in the North Sea and kept in a small cement tank at the Dolfinarium at Harderwijk in Amsterdam ever since. Animal rights activists have brought legal action against the Dolfinarium to prevent them from selling her to an amusement park in Spain and the matter is currently under review by a Dutch court. The Orca was given the name 'Morgan' which means 'from the sea' in old Welsh but it is unlikely she will ever see the ocean again.

Unfortunately, the latest news out of Amsterdam is not good. According to a report by nzherald.co.nz the Dolfinarium's management have still not moved Morgan into a larger tank with other dolphins as ordered by the judge, and New Zealand Orca expert, Dr. Ingrid Visser, believes Morgan's mental state is deteriorating rapidly.

That she might be going insane should not come as a surprise to anyone who cares about these magnificent beings. It is a fate suffered by many other captive Orcas who lead foreshortened lives of mind-numbing boredom, physical distress, and mental anguish at sea parks around the globe.

The harsh reality is that this little Orca's future is dim whether she is released or not, and time is running out...

Captive Orcas: Doomed Either Way...

Pending further study, a court in Amsterdam has blocked the sale of a young female Orca (named Morgan by the Dutch) to a Spanish amusement park but the court stopped short of ordering her to be returned to the North Sea where the then-sick animal was rescued a year ago. While freeing Morgan instead of condemning her to a life sentence in a concrete tank in Spain is a romantic notion, the harsh reality is that this resilient little being is doomed either way.

These are highly social animals: their family group is everything to them; providing food, comfort, and safety, to the exclusion of Orcas from different pods. As such, even if the court rules in favor of Morgan's release, the likelihood of her handlers being able to find her family group is slim: barring that, she has little chance of surviving on her own. Arguably, the alternative is even worse.

Female Orcas can live 80 years in the wild but only 10 years on average in captivity. There are over 40 Killer Whales in marine parks around the globe; two-thirds of these are owned by Sea World. While the Company's management and owners wax eloquent about how their actions have contributed to mankind's knowledge about the species, the truth is that captive Orcas are big business, pure and simple. If millions of people didn't spend hundreds of millions of dollars each year gawking at Orcas as they perform stupid animal tricks, we wonder how quickly Sea World's corporate altruism would fade?

Whether a Killer Whale is captured in the wild and sold into captivity, or born there, they lead foreshortened lives of mind-numbing boredom, physical distress, and emotional anguish. On several occasions, this has led to Orcas killing their trainers as happened at Sea World Orlando last year when a 12,000-pound male named Tilikum attacked his trainer, drowning her. It was the third such death involving this particular animal.

Sadly, Morgan is doomed no matter which way the Dutch court rules. And meanwhile, the owners of Sea World, and all the other marine parks like it around the world, keep raking in the money...

Orca Watching Is Cool, Eh?

First, let me state that I was born in Canada and although I have lived in the United States for most of my adult life I still love the land of my birth. There are too many good things about that majestic country north of the 49th parallel to list here...but the regulations that the Canadian government currently has in place regarding Killer Whale watching are not among them!

Fisheries and Oceans Canada has so far not announced whether they will adopt the same regulations recently put in place by the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration: specifically, starting next month all boats are prohibited from approaching Orcas any closer than 180 metres(commercial vessels are exempt which is another story)whereas in Canadian waters boaters may still come within 100 metres.

Since Orcas know no international boundaries, I hope that the Canadian government will adopt the same restrictions, and I urge the many Canadian readers of this blog to contact Fisheries and Oceans Canada and urge them to do so.

Watching Orcas from a boat or kayak is cool: I know because during the summer that I worked in Namu, B.C. when I was in college(a very long time ago), I got up close and personal to Orcas many times; but if I were to do it today I would do so from afar. Let's hope everyone, Canadian and American alike will follow suit.

Killer Whale v. Great White Shark

What's the difference between a Killer Whale and a Great White Shark? Some of you might answer, a brain; but you would only be half right.

Orcas are intelligent, sentient, sociable beings capable of reasoning, planning, problem solving, thinking abstractly, comprehending complex ideas, learning quickly, learning from experience, collaborating through communication, and perhaps most intriguing of all, playing, as a triathlete in New Zealand recently discovered. While swimming 80 meters offshore she looked down and saw "a big black and white face looking up at me." After frantically getting back on land, she realized that the Orca was simply curious and wanted to play. On the other hand, Great White Sharks are little more than a life support system for a gruesome mouth, and had this woman's encounter been with one of these mindless eating machines it would have ended differently; horribly so.

Having said this, Great White Sharks possess something that far too many Orcas do not, which is freedom. This is because these sharks die immediately in captivity and cannot be kept in sea parks. Orcas also die in captivity, long before their time, but not right away. Instead they are doomed to suffer years of mindless boredom, physical hardship, and mental anguish. And lest you think that the capture of Orcas in the wild is prohibited, both Japan and Russia have recently begun allowing it again; dooming more of these magnificent creatures to a slow and cruel death, all for our entertainment.

And that, my friend is the real difference between the Killer Whale and the Great White Shark...FREEDOM!


P.S. I'll be traveling for a few weeks and unable to post...see you on the other side.

Arrogance, Intolerance and Stupidity

According to Chuck Tompkins, curator of zoological operations for Sea World parks, steps are being taken to get trainers back into the water with Killer Whales, one year after Tilikum, one of the captive Orcas in their Orlando park, killed a trainer (see my blogs in February, 2010). He says that they have spent tens of millions of dollars on safety equipment to protect the trainers, as well as on 'retraining' the Orcas. All this is being done despite findings by the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA)that Sea World was reckless in allowing humans into the water with the Killer Whales: a finding Sea World is currently fighting.

The tragedy in all this goes far beyond the caring and talented woman who died last year doing what she loved;

-beyond the magnificent creatures doomed to spend foreshortened lives in tiny concrete tanks performing stupid animal tricks;

-beyond the gawking audiences who are either oblivious to, or apathetic about, the physical hardships and mental anguish these animals suffer;

-beyond the employees of these parks who mean well and do not intentionally inflict harm upon their captives;

-beyond the owners and management of these parks who must answer to their shareholders who expect a positive return on their investment;

Sadly, the greatest tragedy in all this is that we as human beings have deceived ourselves into believing that we are the only intelligent, sentient beings on this planet; and that we have the God-given right to do anything we want, whenever we want, to the earth, and to the skies, and to the seas.

As I wrote in my morality tale, 'The Tempest's Roar',"...when we have all been dead ten thousand years, there will be nothing left to mark our passing except barren lands and empty seas; and in between on lonely shores, living stones will cry out in silence the three words that will serve as our collective epitaph; Arrogance, Intolerance and Stupidity."

Plus que ça change...

Plus que ça change, plus que c'est la même chose - the more things change the more they stay the same.

Hi there...I'm back. It's been nearly nine months since I last posted on this blog but I have decided to start again. My love of whales and dolphins, and my anger and sadness at the way we treat them, has brought me back to speak out on their behalf.

Sadly,a quick survey of the headlines shows me that very little has changed since I left, to wit:

SeaWorld continues to deny that keeping Orcas trapped in tiny concrete tanks is cruel and unusual punishment, and the root cause of numerous attacks on trainers that have occurred there and elsewhere over the years; and now they are seeking to have a Federal judge seal forever from the public eye the testimony of experts in the investigation of the fatal attack that occurred one year ago this week in Orlando. If they are so sure of their position, what are they afraid of?

The Sea Shepherd Conservation Society is taking credit for the Japanese cutting short this year's whaling operations in the Southern Ocean, as perhaps they should. However, if anyone thinks that this is the end of whaling by the Japanese they are sadly mistaken. It was never about the whale meat. It is about what they see as an assault on their culture and they will be back. Count on it...

Some blue crab fisherman in Florida butchered the carcass of a Pygmy Sperm Whale that washed ashore. He said he planned to eat it. Perhaps if there is reincarnation, he will come back as a sea lion pup in South Africa's Shark Ally when the Great Whites are feeding...

An aquarium in Hong Kong plans to capture up to a dozen Beluga Whales and doom them to a life of captivity in what the CEO of the park claims is an effort to build public support for the conservation of these magnificent creatures...Wait! What? Run that by me again.You're doing this to save the Beluga...why not start by saving these twelve?

I could go on but that's enough for now. You catch my drift. Whales and dolphins keep struggling to survive in the face of human stupidity, greed, and worst of all, simple apathy. We can't do much about the first two, but along with others who care, this blog will attempt to address the latter.

See you next time....

A Tragedy For Us All

The tragic death of a trainer at SeaWorld in Orlando, Florida, yesterday is a brutal reminder of what can happen when a wild creature that is free to swim through all the oceans of the world is captured and placed in the narrow confines of a concrete tank, where it is doomed to spend the rest of its life performing stupid tricks for human amusement. May God be with that woman’s family and friends. Below is a posting from last November that bears repeating on this sad occasion:

Spectacular Cruelty

The next time you and your family go to a marine park to gaze and gawk at the Orcas as they are made to perform demeaning tricks, I want you to remember this. The average life span of Orcas in the wild is forty years, and females can live well into their seventies and eighties. Now contrast this with the following fact: the average life expectancy in captivity of an Orca captured in the wild is less than six years. Yes, you read that correctly—six years! And for Orcas born in captivity, it is not much longer. The only blessing for the latter group is that they at least have never known the joy of freedom. Add to this disturbing statistic the fact that of the nearly two hundred Orcas held captive in man’s liquid prisons since 1964, less than one third lived longer than ten years, and only forty-one are alive today. If there is any shred of decency in you, how can you interpret these facts as anything but spectacular cruelty?

Spectacular cruelty.

The next time you and your family go to a marine park to gaze and gawk at the Orcas as they are made to perform demeaning tricks, I want you to remember this. The average life span of Orcas in the wild is forty years, and females can live well into their seventies and eighties. Now contrast this with the following fact: the average life expectancy in captivity of an Orca captured in the wild is less than six years. Yes, you read that correctly—six years! And for Orcas born in captivity, it is not much longer. The only blessing for the latter group is that they at least have never known the joy of freedom. Add to this disturbing statistic the fact that of the nearly two hundred Orcas held captive in man’s liquid prisons since 1964, less than one third lived longer than ten years, and only forty-one are alive today. If there is any shred of humanity in you, how can you interpret these facts as anything but spectacular cruelty? Sadly, I know that my voice, and those of the many caring humans who share my views, are but whispers on a stormy sea. But perhaps one day our whispers will become the tempest’s roar that will put an end to this atrocity forever.

The PICWW: Three kinds of Orcas.

This begins my Politically Incorrect Whale Watcher feature, in which, I will occasionally give you my candid views on my fellow beings. Today we will start with the ones you call Killer Whales. First, let me set the record straight, all whales and dolphins are killers. We all kill to live, so do you. But let us not go there. There are three kinds of Orcas: first are those you call Residents. They live in coastal waters, stay close to home, and eat only fish. Among their own, they are very social, caring, and loving. Hence, I refer to them as Sissyboys. Next come Transients. These guys are mean, hard, and highly taciturn. They roam all cold-water seacoasts and only eat mammals; including other whales, so obviously I call them Cannibals (not to their faces because if I did I would be dinner). Your whale experts are correct in saying that they do not eat humans but it is only because you are bony, stinky, little creatures and killing you is not worth the effort. And finally, there are those you call Offshore Orcas. These guys are really, really cool. They live far from land and never interbreed with the other two kinds. They mostly eat sharks, especially Great White Sharks; so it should come as no surprise that I call them Heroes. So there you have it: the PICWW on Orcas. In the future, I will give you the scoop on other whales and dolphins. If there are any in particular that you want to hear some gossip about, let me know.