#? not as much

[orcinus-veterinarius]

So... it seems I accidentally deleted an ask rather than answering it. To whoever asked "is it okay to visit SeaWorld? Does the money go to giving the orcas good care?"... here is your answer!

The SeaWorld parks, as well as Busch Gardens, Discovery Cove, and a few others, are operated by the recently renamed United Parks and Entertainment, a for-profit theme park company. Like any other corporation, their first goal is to remain profitable. Obviously, a large portion of that goes to corporate leadership and shareholders. But that's far from unique to United, or theme parks in general. It's a byproduct of the greedy world we live in. If you're willing to buy a ticket to Disney or Six Flags, then buying a ticket to a SeaWorld or Busch Gardens is no more immoral.

According to the AZA, approximately 46% of their members are for-profit. And while AZA zoos certainly vary in quality (anywhere from "acceptable" to "exceptional" in my opinion), for-profit status does not cheapen or detract from the work they do. In fact, for-profit institutions often have more financial freedom for animal care and conservation efforts than their non-profit counterparts. Non-profit zoos and aquariums are wonderful places, but believe me when I say there's a startling amount of politics in every aspect of their management. Non-profit status does not automatically make a zoo better, and for-profit status does not automatically make a zoo worse.

Now... do SeaWorld ticket sales go toward giving their orcas (and other animals) good care? Yes.

While it's certainly simplistic for parks to claim, as they do, "just by buying a ticket today you're helping save animals in the wild!"... it's not exactly a lie. Being for-profit, SeaWorld doesn't ask for donations to fund park operations or outreach endeavours. That revenue is generated by selling tickets, merchandise, food, etc. The same goes for their wildlife rescue and rehab program, Rising Tide conservation program, Coral Rescue Center, and the SeaWorld-Busch Gardens Conservation Fund, as well as partner organizations like OCEARCH and the Hubbs-SeaWorld Research Institute.

Take ticket sales away, and they can't care for their animals, or continue to fund conservation projects. While I don't know the whole story of what exactly is going on with Marineland Antibes, it appears that the park is in a dire financial situation due to plummeting attendance, to the point that they can no longer maintain their killer whale habitat and are trying to offload their animals onto an Asian aquarium or, potentially, an as-of-yet non-existent third party sea pen. While certainly well-meaning, years of boycotts against Marineland ultimately put their animals in a position where they are not being properly cared for. And it would be horrifying if the same thing happened to SeaWorld. I don't think many people, in their fervor to punish the parks for their perceived misdeeds and save the animals, thought about what the reality of driving a zoological facility into financial ruin would look like.

Don't get me wrong, SeaWorld's shift toward promoting itself as a thrill park that also does conservation rather than a marine facility that happens to have roller coasters annoys me. I would have rather they built a separate, neighboring park for the rides, or at least integrated them into the existing park less obtrusively (Disney's Animal Kingdom, for example, seemlessly integrates the theme park and zoo elements, although they have the benefit of the incredibly talented Imagineering team behind them). But as tiresome as the constant roller coaster announcements are, they are what kept the company afloat financially in the years immediately following Blackfish, drawing in a crowd that previously had no interest in the parks, and for that I'm grateful. Thankfully, SeaWorld is in a better spot nowadays. But the only way to convince them that their animals, not their roller coasters, are what people want to see... is to visit and see the animals.

In short, yes, part of your SeaWorld ticket funds care for their orcas and their many admirable projects. Now if only more of it went to giving their staff better salaries.

[tinogiehd]

thinking about how crazy dnf were last night. they’re so happy together and they’re so obviously boyfriends they don’t do well at hiding it tbh 😭

they aren't trying to hide it :,)

[manofmanymons]

Who's your favorite digi girl out of my top ten?

Boy version.

[tariah23]

My bro just got attacked by our neighbors dog (the kid let the dog out while my bro was emptying the garbage) and there’s blood all over the house, outside on our porch and sidewalk (his hand got bitten) and blood got all over our kitten as well.

[yoongihan]

is it fair to complain?

[elfecassepied]

For the love of God I'm gonna become violent.

PLEASE FUCKING STOP TO PUT UNRELATED AESTHETIC FUCKING IMAGE IN YOUR FUCKING FANFICTION/HEADCANONS POSTS ON TUMBLR.

Seriously I can't take it anymore it make me crazy! I SPECIFICALLY use the picture filter to watch FANARTS or EDITS and SPECIFICALLY NOT FANFICTIONS or HEADCANONS. I swear even with the filter 3/5 of the posts are fanfictions!

I have nothing against fanfictions, I love fanfictions. But seriously when my feed got SATURATED with fanfictions when I specifically use a filter, all of that because the authors put some band-cut-unrelated-somehow-aesthetic-or-for-some-other-shitty-reason-sakura-flowers-or-cute-dress at the top of their fanfiction that make me want to smash things.

You want your post to look cute and pretty. I get it, really. Put there is other ways that don't shoot a ball in the foot of non-interested users' experience. I don't know you can use the colors of your text or the police, I promise it will look cute enough.

In my country we say "my individual liberty stop where begin the one of my neighbor". It's mean that when we live in a society we need to respect other people's boundaries and rights. So right now your freedom of putting pictures in your fanfiction is an obstacle to my freedom of not wanting them in my feed when I use the picture filter.

Once again it wouldn't be such a deal if it was 1 or 2 on 10 posts... But it's 3 on 5.

[hauntingrabbits]

comic

[asoftspotforangels]

some of my favorite woven tapestries, by Cecilia Blomberg:

Point Defiance Steps

Mates

Rising Tides

Vashon Steps

[bugsinthebayou]

cunty sukuna

[demadogs]

this happened months ago. i cannot keep it in any longer. a while ago i went on a porn site ive never been to and it asked if i was over 18 and i misclicked and said no and it automatically sent me to google images of puppies and kittens. i still cannot get over how funny this is.

[ceaselessbasher]

I swear to god one of these days were going to see a video of Amaury Guichon and he's going to be making some wings and they are going to look dope as hell, the detail of each feather will be breathtaking, he'll spray paint them to perfection, but as the video goes on, he's not building any sort of winged creature, just the wings. And then there's a human-sized harness (also made of chocolate, somehow, he can do it). And he's attaching the wings to the harness. And he's putting the harness on and he demonstrates how he can flap the wings. And then he'll be off. Out the window and up and up and up. And we'll be looking at the livestream (it's a livestream now) and we'll scream "No, Amaury, the sun! It's going to melt the wings!". But he knows this already. And he is free.

[koobiie]

shoutout to everyone who wants to infodump but cant string together coherent thoughts to form sentences and instead just look at you like this

[takeshi-no-uta]

You know, now that I think about it, just having done my good night post, just before 3am, having gone to bed at 0:30, having an alarm set for 8:30…

Is Ace Attorney to blame? As far as I remember, it was the first game I binged past my bed time in like 2016 or whatever

If you ever find yourself playing an ace attorney game at night thinking "I'm near the end of the case I can keep going" no you're not go to bed

[square-opossums]

watching gen z and millennials make fun of gen alpha has been torturous. "But they're actually stupid" 1. theyre middle schoolers 2. isn't that what older gens said about us? don't you remember being 11?

it truly is just "impulse reaction to cringe <- has not yet unlearned shame"

the cycle continues let me out of here

guys. guys I think we should kill cringe culture

[stillgotscars]

this part of stevie nicks’ interview with rolling stone is taking me out