First, a confession: I was once on ShamuVision, the big screen overlooking the tank where SeaWorld’s orca Shamu did his (or her—see below) tricks. I can even remember the question I guessed right: whether Shamu gets his power from the downstroke or upstroke of his big tail. (Downstroke, which is why, when he surfaces, his tail is curved down.)
There were thousands of people in that audience, so it was cool that the camera landed on me, and also cool that I got a tough-ish question right. (Not like those softballs the little kids got. “Is Shamu black-on-white or white-on-black?” C’mon!)
But here’s what I didn’t know at the time: ”Shamu” was a sham. SeaWorld basically stuck the name on a series of orcas at the San Diego and other parks, encouraging the public to think that each park housed one long-lived and presumably happy orca, instead of many short-lived and presumably miserable ones. And I, and many others, bought into it.
Here’s what else I didn’t know at the time:
- Captive orcas live, on average, a fraction of their natural lifespans. Many die of some combination of disease and stress, after having lived their entire lives in solitary or near-solitary confinement in the orca equivalent of a bathtub. [Edited b/c many captives, tho not all, do have some companionship.]
- Some captive orcas wear their teeth out from constant stress-chewing on their enclosures.
- Some are fed antidepressants.
I also didn’t know that SeaWorld trainers masturbated (yup) male orcas and harvested their semen, which they used to impregnate females so that SeaWorld could exhibit the resulting calves. (You can see this in the documentary Blackfish, and yeah it’s gross. But a lot of animal exploitation centers on similar reproductive grossness.)
Finally, I didn’t know that some orcas attack the humans they supposedly enjoy working with. The original Shamu was “retired” after she attacked a SeaWorld employee, and numerous other incidents followed. This fact was blown out into the open in 2010, when the orca Tilikum attacked and killed trainer Dawn Brancheau. It was the third death that that particular orca had caused.
In hindsight, it seems the height of delusion to think that a human could swim safely in a tank with a 12,000 pound predator—especially one who’s known so much trauma and abuse at the hands of humans. But when an OSHA investigation after Brancheau’s death concluded that SeaWorld was an unsafe work environment, SeaWorld appealed. (Organizations that abuse animals typically not being all that concerned with the safety and welfare of humans, either—and, btw, SeaWorld’s lawyer was Eugene Scalia, son of the late and unlamented Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia. Nice family.) SeaWorld lost the appeal.
In any case, soon this will all be moot. Recently, after decades of protests and other activism, SeaWorld announced that it will be phasing out its orca theatrical shows and also captive breeding of orcas. This is a huge victory for animal activists, and the frosting on the cake is that SeaWorld will also be adding vegan and humane options to its menu.
Of course it’s not a total victory: it’s too late for poor Tilikum, whose death is imminent, and whose life has been a tragedy from start to finish. And SeaWorld’s other orcas will remain in captivity (and, presumably, performing) even though cetacean experts want them retired to coastal sanctuaries. (They can’t be released into the wild because they wouldn’t have the skills to survive.) And there are still other orcas trapped in other parks, and other species also requiring liberation. But I know my animal activists: they’re indefatigable and won’t stop till every cage is empty.
I predict that, in the not-too-distance future, SeaWorld will be presenting IMAX Shamu attractions, and maybe soon after that, virtual reality shows where you can watch Shamu up close, swim with Shamu, and maybe even be Shamu. (This is pure speculation by the way—I have no special knowledge. What’s your guess?) And I have a feeling these shows will be incredibly more interesting and educational than watching a coerced orca swim in circles around a tank.
And the orcas themselves will finally be left in peace.
MazeDancer
Good factual update. Thanks.
Those SeaWorld apologia commercials seem to run often. Hope the message “Do not go to SeaWorld” is getting through somehow.
Punchy
Is Shamu more Utah or South Central?
/runs away and cries, having no idea how to answer the “softball” question
Emma
I have always hated these things. Went once as a teenager and never again. There’s nothing more amazing than watching orcas track their prey in the wild.
Hillary Rettig
@Punchy: awww Punchy. didn’t mean to pressure you.
Brachiator
Sadly, what is more likely is that most animals will go extinct (largely as a result of human stupidity) and that phony virtual reality shows (and 3D video games) will be the only way that anyone will be able to see an animal. These shows won’t be particularly educational, and will be rather shabby.
Except maybe the ultra rich, who will be able to house rare animals in private zoos.
ETA: I live in Southern Cal, but never had any desire to go to Sea World to watch the sordid show.
Face
There’s a line that, when I awoke this morning, I would have bet the entire house, car, and family that I would not be seeing today. Good thing the bookie wasn’t around.
Going to cross off “SeaWorld trainer” from my list of bucket jobs.
Hillary Rettig
@Emma: have you seen them in the wild? that would be amazing.
CONGRATULATIONS!
Only in California. The Texas and Florida facilities will continue business as usual.
I grew up as a JOC at Scripps Aquarium here in San Diego. It was well know that Sea World ran a world-class marine mammal rescue unit, but what happened afterwards with those animals was not nearly so great. Lived here almost fifty years. Been to SeaWorld, the park, once. It was appalling. People putting their hands in the tidepool tanks! You NEVER do that, you dump a mess of bacteria into the tank and make ’em sick or kill them all outright.
Little know fact: in the late 70s, they got hold of a grey whale calf and had plans to ramp up to using captive greys. I hate to say this, but thank God the little critter died.
They need to release all the orcas and dolphins that can be released, and not just in CA but nationally, RIGHT NOW, and then they need to retire all the rest from public shows and let them die as best they can. They’ve been trafficking in animal misery for decades and it needs to stop.
ETA: I’m not an animal activist and hate most that I’ve met, but what SeaWorld has done has always been senselessly cruel…needs to end. The activists have done good work here. I could go on but will spare you all.
Dork
@Face: Perhaps off the list of bucket jobs and onto the list of hand jobs?
/tip your waitress
slag
@Punchy: You’re not alone. It’s a weird question as it implies that Shamu is a different color underneath one of her/his visible colors. Which I suspect is true, but I would then assume that Shamu would be black and white on red. However, I’m not an orca anatomist.
Hillary Rettig
@Brachiator: Of course I hope you’re wrong, but I understand the worry.
Lots of variables here. As energy and esp. gas prices increase we should see some consolidation around population hubs. (There was a book called something like Oil at $20/Gallon that explored this.) Perhaps that + the Rewilding movement will help preserve species and ecosystems.
Hillary Rettig
@Face: My work here is done. :-)
Mingobat f/k/a Karen in GA
I’ve never seen “Blackfish.” No desire to — I don’t think I could stand it. I’ve also never been to Sea World, and I’m happy about that now.
I know a lot of zoos and aquariums (aquaria?) do good work re education and conservation, but I often can’t get past the fact that enclosures simply aren’t these creatures’ natural habitats.
But hey, I often wonder if my pets are truly happy living with me or if they’re just suffering from Stockholm Syndrome, so that tells you something about how my brain works.
Hillary Rettig
@CONGRATULATIONS!: well, WOW
First of all I thought it was all of SeaWorld – I hadn’t heard that it was only SD.
Secondly that story about grey whales – horrible, horrible, horrible. it’s like a metaphor for depraved capitalism itself – anything goes, anyone suffers, any unnatural act is excused as long as you make a buck.
Hillary Rettig
@slag: stop being grownups you guys! basically whichever way the kid voted was the right answer
peach flavored shampoo
@CONGRATULATIONS!: I have a contrarian view, however unpopular. Yes, the Orcas in captivity are unhappy and perhaps “unnatural”. But if there’s any hope to saving these animals and their natural habitat, the greater population is going to need to care about them. Same for penguins and polar bears. In a sense, the zoo’d animals’ freedom is sacrificed so that education, intimacy, and awareness for their plight is built up with the greater populace, and thus there is a much stronger driver to protect them and their mating grounds.
If the public cant see or experience the animal, my guess is that there’s almost no emotional attachment to help preserve the species. Captive Orcas are a travesty in the short term, but help to preserve their brethren for the long term.
Major Major Major Major
HILLARY RETTIG IS WORSE THAN HILLARY CLINTON HOW MUCH MONEY DID SEA WORLD PAY YOU FOR THOSE SPEECHES RELEASE THE TRANSCRIPTS #WHICHHILLARYRETTIG #WITCHHILLARYRETTIG
Hillary Rettig
@Mingobat f/k/a Karen in GA: I’m suspicious of for profit organizations that claim to do conservation or any kind of work that should be nonprofit. (Another example would be greenwashing.)
Ditto, nonprofits that act like for profits, etc. So not a fan of zoos, animal theater, etc., even though I know good people can work for those organizations. But there’s an inherent and serious conflict of interest.
re your companion animals I wonder about that, too. we can only do our best, tho, in an often cruel world.
Hillary Rettig
@Major Major Major Major: LOLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL
Emma
@Hillary Rettig: I have. A few years ago I was invited on a photo trip to Alaska by a friend. Instead of one of the big cruise ships we went in a converted fishing trawler. One of the things we did while going from island to island was to drop mics into the water and listen for the whales. A one point we were watching a pod of humpbacks (listening to them “talk” remains a great joy in my life) when the Captain pointed out two dark fins moving behind the pod. Orcas hunting stragglers. They followed the pod for hours but I don’t think they had much luck.
Pics https://www.flickr.com/photos/emmacuesta/albums/72157600033636612
add: the last photo is of whales bubble feeding.
Marc
Twitter: Just Say No.
Zoos actually have a really important conservation role for some species, and they can provide reasonable habitats for many animals. This obviously doesn’t hold for large marine mammals, however, so stopping that aspect seems reasonable to me. If Arctic sea ice melting expands, however, zoos may end up being pretty important for the survival of polar bears as a species.
Hillary Rettig
@peach flavored shampoo: interesting take…that’s basically the take SeaWorld’s CEO took in his announcement. but hopefully technology will make your point at least somewhat moot by creating terrific virtual experiences that help people identify with the animals.
beyond that, we could have a big discussion on how much these parks and zoos have really aided conservation, especially relative to other (often cheaper) methods
however i think it’s ethically wrong to sacrifice an individual in the way you describe, especially when you don’t have to and especially when the individual is so highly intelligent and highly social
muddy
@Dork: They are large animals, a bucket might still be needed.
Hillary Rettig
@Emma: great story, and pls, how does one do this: “we went in a converted fishing trawler”
dedc79
@peach flavored shampoo: In a world before the internet, HD television, digital photography, movie theaters, air travel, etc… I could maybe buy that argument. Back then, a zoo might have served the purpose you describe
Emma
@Hillary Rettig: I added a photo link, here it is again https://www.flickr.com/photos/emmacuesta/albums/72157600033636612.
There are a number of small charter/sail tours that take people whale watching. It’s worth finding one.
CONGRATULATIONS!
@peach flavored shampoo: Not buying it. Never had to go to SeaWorld to know that whales and dolphins were awesome and ought to not be hunted to death. All you need are some still photographs of them in the wild to know that.
Now we have the BBC series and all this wonderful footage.
The parks should be closed, leveled and left empty as a monument to all the sentient cetaceans that we’ve murdered through a desire for entertainment.
rdldot
@Emma: beautiful pictures!
Hillary Rettig
@muddy: wow you guys are really going “there” :0
Hillary Rettig
@Emma: Awesome! Definitely on my “list.” (This thread may have ruined the term bucket list for me forever.)
raven
@Emma: My friend did her dissertation on whale watching groups.
Major Major Major Major
@Emma: Those are grand pictures.
Is that *gasp* film??
@Hillary Rettig: Have… have you been here before?
Emma
@Major Major Major Major: Yep. Last time I used it, believe it or not. Nikon 6006 plus two lenses. I was traveling with near-professional photographers, felt underdressed the whole time!
Msilaneous
Loved the bit about Eugene Scalia, though I kind of feel sorry for him. In Italian culture (old school) the father is the center of the family universe. The mother serves the father, the children both serve and aspire to be like him. Old Antonin appeared to be very old school, so poor Eugene probably never stood a chance of developing into his own person. He’s Antonin 2.0.
raven
I’m also just about done with this
A Naturalist Goes Fishing: Casting in Fragile Waters from the Gulf of Mexico to New Zealand’s South Island
Emma
@raven: That’s an interesting subject. Downloaded it for later read (I am a dissertation junkie on a number of subjects).
Major Major Major Major
@Emma: A woman after my own heart :) Why, now I’m going to go out and shoot some film today, why not! I use a first-run Asahi Pentax K1000.
raven
@Emma: I did the life histories of GED grads.
Pengie
The breeding ban is going into effect at all SeaWorld locations:
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/18/us/seaworld-breeding-killer-whales.html?_r=0
At first it was just going to be in San Diego because California had imposed it as a condition of issuing permits to build an expansion to the park, but SeaWorld eventually bowed to the pressure and is phasing them out entirely.
Punchy
@Emma: Orcas feed on Humpbacks? Whoa, did not know that. Do Orcas eat anything?
Germy Shoemangler
Does anyone remember the Beluga Whale who mimicked human conversation?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MovG8WvYonY
He was a captive, and he tried to communicate with the humans, and they found it hilarious:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VNz01X8XlmA
Bill
@peach flavored shampoo: Agree.
Also, I worry that the elimination of Orca shows is going to cut down on a viable source of funding for awareness and preservation.
Side note, but I’ve never understood “OMG they masturbate the whales” argument. This is a common practice among animal breeders, and is often done to protect the animals for whom breeding may be a dangerous.
scuffletuffle
@Mingobat f/k/a Karen in GA: the difference being that dogs and cats have largely evolved into a symbiotic relationship with humans, whereas aquatic creatures largely have not. Also too, most of my present cats came in from the cold and chose to live with me, rather than me choosing them.
CONGRATULATIONS!
@Pengie: Jesus, I want to strangle every SeaWorld exec after reading that. Yeah, no more breeding. No, we’re not releasing them, we’re keeping them until they die.
Absolute bastards.
@Punchy: Yeah, and they will also kill just for fun, big or little. There’s a horrific scene in one of the BBC docs where a pod kills a baby grey. VERY hard to watch. They aren’t quick or nice about it and they just kill the poor critter and leave it there. Don’t eat it. They’re not Lassie of the Sea. I’m frankly stunned that the body count of trainers is as low as it is; killing is what they do.
Hungry Joe
If anything can make me feel optimistic about humanity it’s our rapidly evolving view of other species. Not much more that two hundred years ago, bear baiting, dog fights, and burning cats alive were all popular entertainment. The writer David Brin has pointed out that a hundred years ago, if word got out that pilot whales were stranded on San Diego beaches, people would have descended to the shoreline and beaten them to death, just for the hell of it. Today, people would rush to save them.
More and more of us are coming to the conclusion that the planet is for sharing; humans may be dominant, but we don’t have to be jerks about it. Same-sex marriage and $15/hour minimum wage show how fast public perception can flip, so there may still be time to save this place. (My optimism allotment for the month of March couldn’t cover this, so I’ve borrowed from April.)
muddy
@Hillary Rettig: “YOU STARTED IT!!!!”
raven
@Hungry Joe: Gander pulling
Ella in New Mexico
@CONGRATULATIONS!:
Thankfully, not forever:
Although far, far too late for many of these beautiful creatures.
I believe we CAN accomplish the task of preservation and conservation of wild animals, and meet their physiological and psychological needs while in captivity AND engage the public so that we create the empathy and support necessary to change attitudes world wide. There are a few, outstanding, well-managed and animal-centric zoos/ organizations that are capable of this. Yes, they’re far and few in between, so we might have to lose the “convenience” of every single city having a crappy, half-assed local zoo to go to on Sundays. But there is still a place for the good ones, and we should protect and build them up.
And I totally agree with Hilary: no for profit organization will ever have the soul to be able to do this. Some non-profits won’t either. It’s our job to know who the good guys are, and support them financially.
Keep fighting to make our great zoos and animal sanctuaries a place of peace and happiness for these creatures, operated in the interest of their health and longevity of their species.
Poopyman
@Punchy:
Mostly just seafood. (“See? Food!”)
muddy
@CONGRATULATIONS!: I saw that, I think it was on Blue Planet. They deliberately drowned it and I think one ate the tongue and then they just let it drop. It was horrifyingly pointless.
Poopyman
@Bill:
There’s a Republican joke in there, but I’m not gonna.
Paul in KY
I think they should be released. Maybe we underestimate them, in terms of their ability to survive in wild.
Cermet
@CONGRATULATIONS!: As I understand it they do eat the tongue but that is it; hence, it appears they leave the animal without eating it.
Emma
@Punchy: As far as I can tell, they will eat anything. Though I was told that in the Northwest the “local” orcas preferred salmon while the “transients” loved sea lions, seals, and minke whales.
Amir Khalid
@Paul in KY:
I don’t know, man. The human experts don’t seem to think that’s wise.
Cermet
@Paul in KY: They can’t – zero chance. It is a death sentence by slow starvation. They are doomed to a life of captivity or have to be put down.
Paul in KY
@muddy: Maybe the presence of the ships, etc. weirded them out & they left due to that?
Ken
@CONGRATULATIONS!:
Sort of like the bans on whaling except for research purposes, which led to a considerable increase in research – the main topic of research being “How many whales can we kill in a day,” as Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman put it in Good Omens.
Paul in KY
@Cermet: Ones that came from the wild, think they could make a go of it & would exhilarate in the freedom. I guess ones who were raised in captivity have to stay in captivity (in their bathtubs).
Cermet
@Hungry Joe: Your view is narrow and does not generally apply to the vast majority of humans. Some are getting better (for now) but that isn’t gonna hold as AGW releases the dogs of war as people flight to eat, find drinkable water or try and hold on to what they have. The future is bleak and frankly, we are doing less than nothing to change this terrible course.
Uncle Ebeneezer
@CONGRATULATIONS!: Yeah I’ve never bought this reasoning either. We’ve managed (humans) to create anti-whaling treaties and other protections for large marine mammals that have never been held in captivity, so it’s not like there is a requirement for captivity to get us emotionally invested in protecting a species. I’m highly skeptical of the fact that people who do the work of studying and conservation of animals were motivated by trips to exploitive parks. I’m sure some were, but I doubt the dropoff we’d see in a world without SeaWorlds would be big. As you and others mention, tech makes it really easy for people to see and experience these glorious creatures nowadays. And also, it’s not like we are going to suddenly, collectively forget the threats that these animals face or take a let-them-be-sushi attitude towards conservation when we have the Blackfish story and documentation of the long history of exploitation of these animals at our fingertips. Is there any evidence that Animal Rights victories leads to complacency and disinterest, after said victories?
Gex
@Msilaneous: I’m just struck by how that feature of Italian culture isn’t really so unique.
Cermet
@Paul in KY: Without their original pod they’d also starve; but as I understand it (not sure), Sea World doesn’t have wild Orca’s now (or the few they do have where far too young at the time of capture to have learned how to live in the wild, much less find and be accepted by the Pod.) Don’t know about that, through.
bluefoot
Quite a few years ago I read a memoir by Richard O’Barry, the guy who trained dolphins for the show “Flipper.” He talks about how his contact with cetaceans made him come to believe that none should be in captivity and his work to develop programs to “rehabilitate” those that have been in captivity. He talks about how we keep dolphins in these small bare tanks, when they normally swim *miles* and “see” with their sonar – it’s like putting a human in SuperMax in a cell with mirror walls, floor and ceiling. No wonder the animals get stressed and sick and aggressive and suicidal. It’s horrifying.
Hillary Rettig
@CONGRATULATIONS!: happy to report it’s actually all orcas in all SW parks. From Naomi Rose of the Animal Welfare Institute, a leader in the campaign:
“The original California Coastal Commission decision to allow building Blue World if SW would stop breeding would only have affected San Diego. This corporate policy decision announced on March 17 affects not only all existing SeaWorld parks but the whales they have in Spain (over which they retain control and ownership) and any parks they may build in the future, including abroad. They are phasing out the display of orcas, period. No loopholes.”
Hillary Rettig
@bluefoot: Supermax is a GREAT analogy. Thanks for sharing that.
dedc79
@Hungry Joe:
Most people on the planet are still in a daily battle for food and shelter. They don’t have the luxury of being able to set land/resources/widlife aside.
The evolving view you’re describing is most common in the portions of the western and eastern world where we’ve already destroyed/developed a large portion of our wildnerness and are getting nostalgic for what we’ve lost (Western Europe most of all).
Miss Bianca
@Emma:
That was my understanding as well, as gleaned from this book, “Beyond Words”, which really brought home to me what amazing creatures orcas are, and what a twisted tragedy our relationship to them and other sea-going mammals have been.
ETA: I agree with you about Alaska being a “must-visit” if possible. I went up there when I was 20, and spent time in Homer as a “spit rat” before shipping out to Bristol Bay. Saw bald eagles, puffins, otters, seals routinely. No orcas, alas. This was a few years before the Exxon “Valdez” spill wrecked the place.
Uncle Ebeneezer
Also there was a meeting (I believe in Dec 2014 or early 2015) of a world organization of Biologists who study Cetaceans (can’t remember the name of the org) and this topic (Orca captivity) was one of the featured discussions. I haven’t seen any news of them releasing their conclusions yet, and I know these things take a long time, so I was just curious if anyone here might have info on that? It seemed the sort of thing that would finally establish a firm scientific consensus on the matter. I believe the meeting took place in New Zealand or Australia.
Hillary Rettig
@Cermet: Yes. Dr. Rose says the current SW orcas probably lack the skills and social connections to survive in the wild.
Also, don’t believe the myths about Keiko aka Free Willy. SW promoted the idea that he was unhappy and unhealthy in the wild. But he actually lived free and healthy for five years.
Mnemosyne
I can see a practical argument for not keeping orcas in captivity in addition to the emotional one: it’s hard to keep a large animal that has a large natural range in such a small space. It’s like trying to keep an elephant in a 10 foot by 10 foot box. I’ve noticed at our local zoo that they’ve started keeping Asian elephants (which are semi-domesticated and have a smaller range) and built their enclosure with a series of paths so they can walk as much as they want within an otherwise limited area.
My question for folks here is, what do you do with individual animals that have been habituated to humans? At the San Diego Zoo, they had a sea lion that had been found hanging out in human areas several times, with the last time having somehow gotten himself into a dentist’s office. They kept releasing him back into the wild, and he kept coming back. So now what? A sea lion is a large animal with a lot of teeth, so it’s not safe for anyone for him to be hanging out in office buildings. Do we just euthanize him since he’s been ruined for the wild?
We had a famous example here in So Cal with Meatball, a brown bear who was caught three times hanging out in people’s garages. Normally, he would have been euthanized, but since he was famous and hadn’t hurt anyone, he was captured and now lives in an animal refuge in San Diego. So would it have been kinder to simply kill him instead of having him live out his life in a cage, large and comfortable as that enclosure may be?
Paul in KY
@Cermet: Maybe that would be better than what they endure now. Sad situation all around.
Msilaneous
@Gex: So true. Donald Trump Junior is a good example.
muddy
@Paul in KY: I think this was a known behavior but the first time they caught it on film? When I have seen the program again I always FF that part, so I can’t swear to that though.
I just remember that they seemed unconcerned with the camera, and just as soon as they had killed it they lost interest. My cats will continue to poke a dead mouse hopefully, but I guess the orcas are smarter than that.
Face
Let’s be honest; that fix is very necessary to reflect reality.
Mnemosyne
@Paul in KY:
Predators like to practice, so they’ll kill even when they’re not hungry. It’s horrifying to us, but very common. A lot of cat owners can tell similar stories.
Emma
@Major Major Major Major: I can go you one better. I still have my father’s old Minolta SRT101 with the original lenses. I bought a second body later on. It’s too bad that here in Miami I can’t find a film developer worth using.
Mnemosyne
@Face:
You might be surprised — animal issues are one of the few things that often cut across political lines. My mom watches Fox News every day, but she also used to leave scraps for the coyotes in Arizona and bread for the quail. My lifelong Republican father was a member of Ducks Unlimited, which is a hunter’s conservation group.
peach flavored shampoo
@muddy: But from what I’ve seen, the carcass will drop to the ocean floor, where it will feed a whole host of other fish, eels, etc. So pointless, sorta. But as part of the greater food chain, perhaps necessary.
boatboy_srq
@peach flavored shampoo: Not that you don’t have a point, but it’s worked out not so well for other species.
muddy
@bluefoot: @Hillary Rettig: Speaking of prisons: now they are doubling up people in solitary. The only thing that could make solitary worse would be being trapped in such a confined space with an inescapable single other not of your choosing.
boatboy_srq
@Mnemosyne: It’s one way to break the rational Republicans out of the GOTea. My parents were old-school (moderate) Maine Republicans: socially moderate-lib, fiscally conservative. Mum was Sierra Club, Nature Conservancy, WWF, the works – and still voted GOP. Her wake-up moment was when I asked her “you DO realise that you’re sending all these donations to all these nature preservation charities because they have to fight the people you keep electing, right?” Next election she was all Dem all the way down the ballot.
Emma
Hillary, I found the trip: http://www.yachtalaska.com/
It sails out of Petersburg.
*wanders away considering next year’s vacation plans*
Major Major Major Major
@Emma: Nice.
That’s a little surprising. We have scads out here in California. Maybe mail it in somewhere?
Paul in KY
@Mnemosyne: Good point, Muddy’s too.
Mnemosyne
@peach flavored shampoo:
I’m okay with saying that it’s impractical to keep orcas in captivity — they’re just too large and need more space than a facility can reasonably give them. You can have a large wild animal park where elephants can roam pretty widely, but you can’t have a similarly-sized enclosed space of salt water.
Personally, I don’t have a huge problem keeping smaller and/or less active animals in captivity as long as it’s spacious enough to keep the animals satisfied. Yes, it’s unnatural, but how “natural” is anything else we do? What’s “natural” about commenting on websites from small computing devices?
Cermet
@Hillary Rettig: Glad he had that even through no Pod accepted him.
I went to the Atlanta Aquarium to see the central attraction – the Whale Shark. The tank was huge but I was appalled by how big the Shark was and how inappropriate the tank was despite its size. This isn’t proper and I was sad I paid to help support that arrangement. Worse, they had two (smaller) Whale Sharks in with it. That was sick. Unlike Orca’s, they are not social and space is at a premium in that tank.
Gex
@boatboy_srq: Well played!
Miss Bianca
@boatboy_srq:
Wow. That’s the quickest, completest “Road to Damascus”-style conversion I’ve ever heard of. Well-played, indeed!
Face
@Mnemosyne: But they’ll vote for Cruz, who is promising to eliminate the EPA, and certainly the Clean Water and Skies Acts and whatever else might even have a scent of conservation attached to it.
Just imagine what will happen if there’s no EPA. Beijing conditions, writ large, in many major US cities. Sorry, I don’t buy the argument that the GOP can be considered eco-friendly.
Cermet
@muddy: But those are just human’s so it is OK; especially to save $$$ – besides, what do people care about those “low life’s” in prison? Worse, mostly black criminals so a double win …yes, I know, sick. Torture, it isn’t just for Nazi’s anymore thanks to the cheney regime.
Major Major Major Major
@boatboy_srq: Or she told you that to shut you up ;)
Linnaeus
@Face:
The free market will take care of it!
slag
@boatboy_srq: I agree with this. Environmentalism has been a gateway into liberalism. I’ve seen it happen more than once.
That said, the lines have been drawn such that this may be no longer the case. I’m thinking 80s/90s conversions. Do people still convert these days?
Mnemosyne
@Cermet:
Monterey Bay Aquarium has been having some success with limited captivity of young Great White Sharks — basically, they put them in the aquarium for a couple of months and then release them back out into the wild. So far, they’re the only ones who have had any success with keeping Great Whites in any kind of captivity, and they seem to realize it’s the temporary nature of doing it that’s making it work.
They suspended the program while California was deciding whether or not Great Whites would be put on the endangered species list, but I’m not sure what the outcome of that was.
Mnemosyne
@Face:
Well, my dad died in 2013, so he’s only eligible to vote in Chicago. And my mom has never voted in her life.
But, as boatboy noted above, even lifelong Republicans can have breaking points where they finally stop voting for them, and animal advocacy can be one of those breaking points.
Origuy
I’ve been on whale-watching trips out of the San Francisco area. The Oceanic Society runs them to the Farallon Islands and out of Half Moon Bay, further south. They always have a naturalist and usually other researchers on board. Some other whale-watching trips are just done by people with fishing boats supplementing their income. Nothing wrong with that, but I think you get a better experience with the Oceanic Society.
Cermet
@Mnemosyne: Interesting; hope it doesn’t shorten their life span – shark populations are under terrible pressure; and an aside, shark is also a food for Orca’s (only creature that, besides humans, can hunt down and kill even the biggest sharks.) Since we are sucking all the best large fish Orca’s look to be in trouble besides all the other issues of pollution, nets, and AGW.
Roger Moore
@Mnemosyne:
I think groups like Ducks Unlimited show both the potential and the limitations of that kind of group. Yes, they show that people like hunters, who we usually don’t think of as pro-conservation, can be convinced of the value of nature. But at the same time, they’re limited because they’re primarily about utilitarian aspects of conservation rather than ethical ones, so they are likely to limit their interests to species and places that have obvious value rather than favoring preservation for its own sake.
Cermet
@Origuy:Not totally true – the noise can cause whales issues as does all the traffic along their ancient routes. Not that this doesn’t have (I’d think) only a minor impact compared to all the other ship traffic but it does do harm from the studies done on boat traffic/noise on whales.
Patricia Kayden
Great post, Hillary. I grew up going to Marine Land in Niagara Falls, Ontario, and never thinking that it was abnormal for sharks, whales and seals to “perform” for the audience. It seemed cute back then. But I’m glad that animal rights activists have succeeded in getting these shows shut down, for the most part. No different than ending the abuse of elephants, bears, lions and tigers in circus shows. Human beings do not have to brutalize animals for our entertainment.
Punchy
For a sad point, that’s just wicked funny.
Aleta
Always seemed odd to think of predatory orcas invited to hunt, splashing up huge waves to wash the little people-seals off their rocks for eating, while audiences were encouraged to see what cute and lovable “performers” they are.
Mnemosyne
@Roger Moore:
True, but my dad did really love the outdoors, and Ducks Unlimited let him express that without having to rub elbows with all those unwashed hippies at the Sierra Club (apparently rubbing elbows with unwashed rednecks was just fine). I think it’s good to have both types of organizations.
Mnemosyne
@Punchy:
It’s very much in the spirit of my dad — he thought Michael Moore was hilarious even though he disagreed with him on politics.
Calouste
@Hillary Rettig: There are a number of companies that provide whale watching tours in Washington and British Columbia on weekend days between April and October.
Bill
@Roger Moore: In my experience Ducks Unlimited is much more a “guns are awesome” organization than a “let’s protect nature” organization.
trollhattan
Have seen orca pods in Puget Sound from time to time and they were the biggest wild creatures I ever saw until seeing gray whales at Pt. Reyes and more recently, humpbacks at Maui.
The first captured orca was Namu, a local attraction when I was a wee land. His intended mate was the first Shamu, sold to Sea World in 1965 and starting the whole shebang that’s just now hitting the final lap. Namu’s sister was reported still alive in 2010, while he lived but one year in captivity, dying in 1966.
It’s been an interesting political battle, with Sea World taking out numerous full-page ads in the Sacramento paper, presumably as a direct lobby aimed at the capitol in hopes the state legislature didn’t craft a law specific to their orca facilities. Today’s kumbaya ad is co-sponsored by Sea World and the national Humane Society, basically “It’s all good, man.”
BTW, the amount of industrial chemicals accumulating in orcas is a fright. Headcounts don’t tell a reliable story of their relative health as a species.
Mnemosyne
I’m still hoping someone will answer my question about what to do with wild animals like bears and sea lions that insist on living among humans: kill or keep in captivity?
Mnemosyne
Also, if you’re someone who’s always dreamed of swimming with dolphins but get squicked out by captive ones, there are several places around the world that have programs in coves that wild dolphins like to frequent and check out the hairless apes in their water. WildQuest is one in the Carribbean (Bimini).
trollhattan
@Mnemosyne:
Can you frame the question more concisely?
Sea lions very occasionally take off into populated areas but are more common around boat docks, etc. Wildlife regulations are quite clear about what one can and cannot do to and for them, and wildlife personnel will help round them up. They don’t become problem animals in the fashion of bears that become habituated to human food and I can’t envision a situation where killing one would be an ethical option, unless it was grievously sick or wounded. Fishermen shoot and otherwise molest them (illegally) because they’re competing for fish. It’s a yooge federal rap if they’re caught.
Habituated bears are primarily a people problem of 1. building homes in wildlands and 2. not securing food and garbage. Trap-and-relocate is the first step, only when they’re a threat are they killed. But again, it’s a human problem, not a bear problem per se. American black bears are not a threatened species, but grizzlies are in some regions. Those are the only bears that I never want to see anywhere I’m not enclosed in a steel and glass box. Or polar bears. Or pizzly bears.
bluefoot
@Mnemosyne: In Richard O’Barry’s book, he spends a chunk of the book describing his group’s efforts to develop a rehab program. (I wish I could remember what they were called.) He says one of the first things they had to do was to teach the dolphins not to expect attention from humans. That is, the humans would hang out near the dolphins but actively ignore them. Which he said was really, really difficult for both the humans and the dolphins at first. Both groups were used to getting attention and reward from each other.
There were a lot of other things they had to do – finding ways for the dolphins to get in better physical shape to be able to swim in open ocean, de-habituating them from eating dead fish and teaching them how to catch live fish, etc etc. They did release some dolphins into the wild after the rehab.
He did say that he didn’t think it would work with older animals who had spent most/all of their lives in captivity. IIRC, the book was written in the late 80s, so there may be more information out there.
Mnemosyne
@trollhattan:
Well, I brought up two examples in my initial comment: a sea lion that was found in human areas multiple times (including, finally, a dentist’s office) and a bear that was getting into people’s garages in Glendale, CA, not exactly what most people consider a wilderness area. (And note that I’m talking about LA suburb Glendale, the one that’s 10 miles from downtown LA, not the unincorporated one up north that someone once asked me about.) The bear earned the nickname of “Meatball” because he figured out how to open someone’s garage freezer and eat the Costco meatballs he found there.
So my question to the animal lovers is, are you okay with those habituated animals being euthanized because life in captivity is by definition worse? Obviously, I’m okay with putting those animals into refuges or zoos, and I don’t see any rational alternative other than euthanization if zoos and refuges are inherently cruel.
Doug R
@Mnemosyne: Great point. I think there can be a role for zoos and aquariums holding rescues and recoverys and dangerous problem animals. I think life “in prison” is much better than death.
CONGRATULATIONS!
@trollhattan: US Humane Society are the same people who signed off on Michael Vick, and did a commercial with him about how awesome he was after he gave them a million dollars. They are scum.
Roger Moore
@Mnemosyne:
That doesn’t necessarily mean much, since Meatball wasn’t found in downtown Glendale. He was on the edges where the city pushes up against Angeles National Forest, which is exactly the kind of area where bad human/animal interactions are most likely to happen.
Part of the problem here in the LA area is that the boundary between developed and undeveloped areas is so abrupt. In most places, you have a gradual transition, with ever bigger properties and lower density until the developed areas just peter out. The people in the lower density areas closer to the wilderness expect to have more wild animals, and the lower density means fewer people are exposed. Here in the LA area, the boundary between a moderately dense city and the forest can be as narrow as a backyard fence, so a lot more people are exposed, especially for animals like bears that can get a fair distance into the city once they cross the boundary.
Mnemosyne
@Doug R:
Another local LA example — some jackasses tried to keep an alligator as a pet and then dumped him in a local park (yes, in the middle of the city!) when he got too big to handle. It took the parks department about a year to catch him and he now lives at the Los Angeles Zoo as Reggie. Idiots with exotic pets are a problem, and it seems kind of hard on the former pets to decree that they should all be euthanized since they can’t be returned to the wild.
Mnemosyne
@Roger Moore:
Yep. The Griffith Park mountain lion is in the middle of a highly populated area, but so far there’s no need to move him because he has plenty of deer and rabbits (and the occasional koala) to feed on.
My attitude towards wild animals is basically, “I won’t bother you if you don’t bother me,” and that holds true even for apex predators. That’s why my question is so specific to habituated wild animals.
Sad_Dem
@CONGRATULATIONS!: Agreed. Grew up in San Diego, have gone to Sea World and seen the tide pool tanks and the captive animals. Depressing as hell, made more so by the happy happy theme park atmosphere. People need to keep the pressure on Sea World to drastically change its ways, and as usual the only thing its owners care about is the bottom line.
Gindy51
Next up for getting shut down should be the dolphin show at the Indianapolis Zoo. They have to be fed anti acids daily because they are so stressed out. My daughter had a girl scout overnight there and saw the bottles of anti acid right by the tanks when the kids were touring. Guess they forgot some smart gals were going to be visiting because several asked why the animals had stomach aches… they were hustled out PDQ.
J R in WV
Here in WV we have lots of black bears, and our small cities back up narrow strips of flat land against hills. Over the hill is woods, usually for miles.
A female black bear was captured by WV DNR in the Kanawha City neighborhood of Charleston, the state’s largest city (~50K people) a couple of times. They first took her to the other side of Kanawha State Forest, which is like a state park but with fewer protections.
The second time they took her to McClintock Wildlife Management Area, which is 50 or 60 miles NW of Charleston on the Ohio River. A couple of days later DNR got a call from a tow (boat with barges moving bulk cargo on the river) on the Ohio, telling them that they thought they may have run over a bear on the river. Several days later the female bear was found in a Cincinnati OH suburb. having passed through or around numerous large scale lock and dam facilities and covered something like 150-200 miles of big river.
They tranked her again, and this time took her her further into the woods. This time it appears to have taken. I imagine the river travel was such a bummer, with another trank capture at the end, she decided to stay where she found herself when she woke up.
Friends of ours have a 3 story home, with lots of food preservation giong on in the basement, steps up to the kitchen/living room floor, and 4 bedrooms on the top floor. One day they woke up to large noises in the basement. The bear was into the freezer, and the only egress was a double door at the foot of the stairs down from the kitchen. They couldn’t get into the basement with the bear between them and the doors. They stacked furniture on the door at the top of the stairs down to the basement and out waited him.
After he left, full of beef and pork from their livestock, they added much reinforcement to those basement doors to the outdoors. The bear escaped unharmed. We haven’t seen a bear at our house – yet.
TallPete
Zoos are one step above a traveling circus. There are animal ethical issues with even the best run zoos. Sea world is espescially cruel for such intelligent animals to essentially be imprisoned. Anyone – even kids – will learn way more (and be more impressed!) with any of David Attenborough’s many documentaries on animals in nature.
Paul in KY
@Mnemosyne: They frequent a cove on landward side of Sanibel Island sometimes. Near the bridge that gets you to island.
Jamey
Camus the Existentialist Killer Whale is both black and white.