#captivty

[jerrsterrr]

wild fish judge some domesticated aquarium loser

slight redesigns of my old Raised in Captivity Self Insert :3

In honor of mermay

[terrorfam]

On a scale of one to ten how alpha are you?🐺🐺🐺

what

if your refering to real wolfs and who's the alpha? no one that's weird and we aren't wolfs also real packs of wolfs dont have alphas like that that was studyed from wolfs in captivty witch is a bad way to research the athor of the book that said this tried to take it back

[former-proffessor-and-policeman]

I am thou, thou art I. Thou hast acquired a new vow. It shall become the wings of rebilllon that breakth thy chains of captivty

Thou who art willing to perform all sacrilegious acts for thine own justice! Call upon my name, and release thy rage! Show the strength of thy will to ascertain all on thine own, though thou be chained to Hell itself!

[saccharine-suffering]

Whumptober - Mercy

(doing an alt bc i just didn't vibe with the actual prompts kekw)

~

"Please... please, have mercy," What a sight to behold: the stoic and defiant Whumpee, on their knees, forehead to the ground. There was no tremor to their voice nor a tremble to their form. An earnest request.

They were begging on behalf of Whumper's newer, smaller captive. The poor thing was terrified out of their mind as they were dragged away to be hurt for the very first time. They weren't blind to Whumpee's scars and injuries. They knew damn well what was in store for them with Whumper.

"Hurt me if you must, but please, please spare them," Whumpee raised their head from its position on the floor. The genuine desperation in their eyes practically made Whumper light up, "Please, please, please try to find compassion. Please have mercy."

[cetaceanawareness]

Recently, Empty the Tanks - Capitulo México volunteers went to investigate dolphinariums within the state of Quintana Roo, a tourism hotspot where you can find places such as Cancun and Cozumel. Shockingly, this small area has 19 marine parks that profit off of the exploitation of cetaceans (whales, dolphins, and porpoises).

In an article from the Dolphin Project, founder of Empty the Tanks, Rachel Carbary, describes what volunteers found at “Delphinus”, a company that operates several marine parks in the region under the same brand name. Poor water quality, pollution in the animals environment, blatant falsities to guests in regards to how dolphin family units work, noise pollution and shockingly small tank size were just some of what volunteers found.

Dolphins were documented to have abrasions on their rostrums at a location in Playa Mujeres due to the constant foot work that occurs in dolphin interactions. At another location in Cancun, the cetaceans were found to have excessive rake marks (teeth on skin gashes) across their bodies:

“Rake marks such as what we see on the dolphins in captivity are well beyond what is seen or documented in the wild. There is a Delphinus facility inside The Interactive Aquarium in Cancun, and there were obvious signs of tank mate bullying taking place there. On each of the visits to that location, volunteers witnessed a single dolphin being bullied so badly it would jump out of the water and onto the edge of the tank to get away from the other dolphins. Again, in the wild these animals have the entire ocean when they need to flee, but in captivity they are trapped.”

These are just two examples of the shockingly horrible conditions volunteers found at Delphinus parks. To read more, please check out the full article published above.

[just-a-whumping-racoon-with-wifi]

Let’s Hang Out - Silver

[Woooo Whumptober! I... uh I don’t have many but I have this one!! We’ll see, I guess.]

CW: noncon drugging, restraints, tiny whumpee, non-human whumpee, captivity/cage, escape attempt, non-con touch, wing whump

[Masterlist]

Silver woke with a start. Corwin was looming above his cage, smiling stupidly.

“What is your problem? Go away,” Silver yelled, closing his eyes and settling his head back on his arms. It was getting better, but he was supposed to be asleep during the day. But no, stupid giant Corwin had to come and wake him up and make him go to the awful game booth. No one had won last night, but a kid had gotten close and hit Silver in the stomach with the ring. His ribs still hurt, and he didn’t wanna get up.

“Come on little bug, let’s go.” Silver rolled his eyes and hissed back like a cat.

Corwin just laughed and opened the wire door. Silver bared his teeth, but it wasn’t even a threat after the man had started wearing leather gloves. That bothered Silver. It bothered him because they weren’t even work gloves, just soft leather riding gloves. He sulked, but allowed Corwin to pick him up.

Easier to tell himself that he allowed it rather than Corwin did it to him.

But today, Corwin didn’t leave the room. No, he turned and started for the work bench.

“Wh-what are you doing?” Silver asked, voice rising a little with anxiety. He scrambled uselessly at the gloved hand that held him, eyes widening. He looked up to see Corwin smirking.

“I like you. I think I’ll keep you around a little longer, up with me at the booth. Good little demonstration sprite to get people interested. So,” he explained as he opened a drawer and pulled out a spool of wire, “You’re going to be still while I work on this.”

Silver made a face of disgust, partially at the man’s words but also at the implication that he would be still for any amount of time ever. He bit and chewed on the leather, but it held firm. The man shook the hand that grasped the nitebright, dazing and confusing him. As Silver tried to get his bearings, the man plopped him down on the wooden tabletop.

“You’re gonna be still, because if you are, I’ll untape your wings.”

That got Silver’s attention. He shook his head to get rid of the last feelings of dizziness and snapped his attention up. Corwin laughed again, and Silver huffed. Oh, oh he didn’t want to. He wanted to bite the man so many times he would be nothing more than an itching, swelling ball of a human, but he needed his wings. He needed them bad. If he had them, he might be able to slip away.

It wasn’t a situation he wanted to be in, but he was already there.

“Fine,” he said as he crossed his arms. Corwin laughed, and it was the worst sound in the world. He was so tired of hearing it.

“Oh, you’re cute.”

Silver’s blood was boiling. He jumped up, temper raging.

“Shut up! Just shut up! What, you think I want to hear all of this? No! I don’t! I’m sick and tired of it, so just shut your stupid giant mouth and let me go!” Corwin just smiled down at him, and Silver shrieked wordlessly in fury. In a split-second decision, he ignored the impulse to fight and darted off to the left.

The work table was tall, but there was a bookshelf next to it. From there, he might be able to grab something to get him to the floor, then he could just hide under something or squeeze into a space too small for the human.

He didn’t even get to the end of the table before he was pinned to the wooden surface by a hand. He struggled and screamed, but it was too strong.

“What did I just say about staying still? Fine, let’s do this the easy way.”

Corwin grabbed him roughly, and Silver remembered once again that his ribs were still very much sore. He wheezed in the tight grip, dragging nails that barely scratched the leather’s surface.

He was dumped into another jar, relieved beyond words that it was empty. He was relieved, but still incredibly angry and frustrated. Before he could try and escape, something covered the opening. Silver clawed at the sides, knowing there was no point. He couldn’t claw through glass. He couldn’t bite it or break it or even scratch it. He screamed in rage, frustrated beyond words.

He pounded a tiny fist against the glass and noticed something. The glass was fogging. He looked around, confused, to see that there were gray tiny droplets forming on all sides. The air was different, too; it smelled sweeter.

The lid seemed to be the normal one with the little air holes, so he wiped a circle clear of condensation and looked to try and see. He couldn’t quite tell through the warping of the glass, but he could see some sort of tall canister and a hose that connected it to the jar.

A gas canister.

“What, what are you doing?! What is that!?” He screamed, breath coming faster and faster. No, idiot, don’t breathe faster, that’ll only make it worse. He tried to calm down, but the scent of peaches was all around him and he could feel it in his lungs. It wasn’t air. It was heavier than that. It made his body feel heavy, made his eyelids droop down and his knees begin to buckle.

Silver tried to find grip on the smooth glass once again, but when he fell to his knees there was no resistance against the surface. Even through his panic, his breathing was getting slower and his vision began to blur.

“No no nonononono,” he muttered, before he wasn’t able to keep his eyes open at all.

~

Silver woke up disoriented. He was laying on his stomach, nose pressed into the hardwood of the workbench. He groaned and sat up. He didn’t hurt, but he still felt off. He moved onto his hands and knees and heard a strange sound behind him.

He looked down and his stomach rolled.

Wire was coiled around his ankle; a little loose, but not even close to loose enough to slip off. It was soldered together to form a cuff, a length of delicate ball chain hanging down. The skin around it still felt warm and uncomfortable, but he didn’t think that he had been burned.

Corwin’s shadow loomed, and Silver balked.

“There you go, now you won’t be getting away. Now I- “

“What the hell did you do? You, you bastard! How is this ever supposed to come off!? This is stuck on me forever you absolute rat bastard!” Silver interrupted, lighting up as he worked himself into a rage. He stood and took a step towards the human, wings starting to raise to increase his size. He-

Wings??

Silver stopped his tirade abruptly and flexed his wings. They were free! He could open them and stretch them. The flood of relief overwhelmed his anger and he reached back to run his fingers across the thin membranes. As much as he hated to admit it, Corwin had done a good job wrapping them. Even with all the damage Silver had taken, his wings were in perfection condition.

Corwin laughed at how quickly he became distracted.

“Like I was saying, I untapped your wings. I would suggest not trying to fly right away. They’ll be a little weak, but I can help you strengthen them again.”

Silver’s head snapped up, face contorted with disdain and offence.

“Like hell you will! What, you think that I can’t take care of my own wings? Listen here bastard-“ His wings buzzed behind him with his emotions, and his breath caught. It was like his back had been stabbed, sharp pain coming directly through his chest. He gasped and tried to breathe through it. His eyes squeezed shut and he grit his teeth. Ow ow ow ow.

“See? You’ll sprain them that way. Just calm down and stretch them out slowly.”

The little sprite glared as Corwin reached down and picked him up. The chain was quite long, attached with a small lock on Corwin’s belt. He placed Silver on his shoulder, looking over at him with fondness.

It was enough to make Silver’s stomach roll again.

He scrambled and bit Corwin’s neck, trying to get as much venom in as he could. Corwin cursed and slapped at him, but Silver was able to get another bite in before Corwin grabbed the chain hanging off him and pulled.

Silver flew back and off Corwin’s shoulder, dangling upside down by one ankle. He shrieked and yelled and fought, but all that did was make him swing lightly, wings fluttering painfully behind him.

Wings free, but useless.

~

@thehopelessopus @just-a-racoon-in-a-party-hat @insanitywishes @susiequaz12 @pine-lark

[Pls let me know if you would like to be added or removed from the taglist!]

[whumpsday]

On the topic of vampire blood. Vampires can't pass out from blood loss, but do they still feel the effects of heavy blood loss? Ex: Dizziness, fatigue, shallow breathing, drowsiness, etc

hmmmm i guess i'll go with yes! kane already experiences most of that (particularly fatigue and drowsiness) due to his extreme starvation in captivty, so not much changes for him when heavy bloodloss gets added to the mix.

[averyrogers83]

I had nightmare on Peggy Carter forcliy sucked on Steve's cock as he holds her for captivty for 4 days after days of lust and Sex toys which break Peggy's mind into Steve's toy as she called him Master

You call that a nightmare some might call a dream.

[greenleaf-starbright]

The Navarone Ship Manifesto (part 1)

Classic Saturday afternoon men-on-a-mission WW2 classic The Guns of Navarone (1961) is a love story.

This fandom has about eight people in it, and I think that’s a tragedy. 

Soft spoilers throughout

Miller/Franklin – 10/10

Canon. It’s really hard to imagine what the cast and crew thought they were doing, if they weren’t writing a love story. This was not what I expected to find when I first watched this film, but it single-handedly makes me understand why people ship, and I’ve never experienced anything like it again. I’d really like to participate more in fandoms which have other people in them; but this is my high watermark and it is, in every sense, what is meant by the term OTP.

It’s hard to say much about this ship because we see so little of it; at the same time it is the literal plot of the film, the still center around which everything else turns. If you would like a fuller ship manifesto, there’s a 2hr video about it and it’s called The Guns of Navarone (1961)

So canon that the director and Gregory Peck are both on record describing the film as a love story. Why the world is sleeping on this lost queer classic I do not understand.

Stavros/Mallory – 9/10

Trash fire angst ship. The can’t live with each other, can’t live without each other, moving as one like a well-oiled machine, so intimate as to be telepathic, ecstasy of love-and-death disaster. The “I have sworn to kill you when the war is over” ship. The “in an act of Freudian displacement, I have accidentally killed your wife” ship. The “so widely known to be fucking that HQ sends him straight to your hotel room, but you’re such an effective pair that we turn a blind eye to it” ship.

I struggle to see this as a happy ship, and perhaps that’s my failing. There’s a reason why the film is centered on breaking up this relationship and getting both halves into a healthier pairing. This clearly runs on cold-dark-nights-on-stakeout lust and mutual admiration for the others’ tactical brilliance.  They’ve both gone off the deep end with war, and maybe need Maria and Miller respectively to pull them back towards humanity. They cannot lie to one another, but then again, they do not need to.

Still, given MacLean’s fondness for “with one motion, everyone in the squad knew exactly what to do, responding perfectly in time to dispatch the whole unit of unsuspecting enemies with grim efficiency” descriptions, can you imagine the pornography?

Stavros/Maria - 8/10

i.e. the ship for bisexuals whose primary orientation is killing Nazis. Love-at-first-sight relationship of few words and deep feeling, and honestly? I love it. Both are taciturn Greek underground fighters who, perhaps more than any other characters, know what it is to live under occupation, and what must be done to resist it. Maria is the only person to make Stavros smile on screen – she’s straight-talking where Mallory is duplicitous, and they have a shared grief for Greece as an actual place, not a war prop. I see this as probably the most healing relationship in the film, and like they have a future as a legendary antifascist power couple.

& I think it’s also significant in terms of Stavros’ character arc that he ends the film with someone who wants to go back to Navarone to rebuild its destroyed cities and protect civilians from the vengeance of its occupiers, rather than just killing and killing for its own sake.

Anna/Maria – 7/10

Resistance babes. Resistance leader Maria is maternal, protective, trying to live up to the shadow of her father, and wears her heart on her sleeve. Anna’s orientation is trauma, shaped by her time in captivty, unable to speak, and refusing to show her bare skin where she is scarred. There is so much you can do with the limited setup we have; from the way their relationship changes pre- and post- captivity, to the challenge of writing survivor sex (or non-sexual romantic intimacy) in a way that’s compelling and non-cliche, to adventures in spying, distributing aid, and blowing up bridges.

Anna/Mallory – 2/10

Canon. There’s more chemistry between Miller and his comedy explosive rat prop. Please, somebody stop the heterosexuals making films.

To be continued in Part 2

[ofgalaxiesandstars-archive]

Zao needs to unwind. He was quietly sneaking up behind his brother— aiming to snatch the plate of breakfast from him. Sojiro raised a brow as he watched, but said nothing. Perhaps gave a small smirk.

However, upon just getting close enough to enact his master plan, he bristled when Haruki suddenly spoke up, “Don’t even think about it.”

The redhead blinked, swinging around to sit in the booth seat across from the blond, “Shouldn’t you be resting, Zao? You got fairly banged up— and you did say you wanted to go back in later today.”

“... How’d you know I was there?”

“How d’you think?”

The dracopire gave a puzzled noise, and Haruki chuckled as he sat back a bit and adjusted his sunglasses, “I’ll give you a hint— You know Toph, from Avatar?”

Zao’s eyes widened, “You learned how to see through vibrations like Toph..?!”

“I had to. My mask doesn’t exactly have eyeholes, and I can’t take it off to walk without my eyes getting affected. It helps outside the metaverse too— on days where my eyes are a bit worse off than usual.”

Zao watched Haruki, the blond taking a drink from his coffee. The older brother gave a knowing blink, smiling a bit as the younger stared at him, “Want me to teach you?”

The redhead grinned, nodding, “That kind of ability would help in so many ways..!”

Haruki chuckled, “Alright, I’ll show you... On one condition.”

“Huh?”

“You have to be my guinea pig.”

Zao blinked. Well this sounded familiar, “Uhhh, you’re not trying to pull a Takemi here, are you?”

“Not really, but sort of. I’m doing some experimentation with plant magic, and I’m thinking of trying to make some potions and charms. I just need some help testing them when I get started.”

Definitely familiar. Zao laughed a little. He... Kinda missed this. He held up a hand, giving his brother a grin, “It’s a deal.”

Their hands clasped, and a familiar bond tugged at Zao’s heart.

I am Thou

Thou art I

Thow hast acquired a new vow

It shall become the wings of rebilllon that breakth thy chains of captivty.

With the birth of the Tower Persona, I have obtained the winds of blessing that should lead to freedom and new power...

“Alright... Now just don’t poison me, okay? Dad’s already on my ass about almost dying so often.”

Haruki laughed a bit at Zao’s words, “I’ll do my best. Now go rest already. And stop trying to steal my food!”

[ahchyam]

IN THE LAND OF THEIR CAPTIVTIES THEY SHALL REMEMBER THEMSELVES!!!

[endcetaceanexploitation]

Addressing the argument that captive cetaceans don’t need to travel long distances

I’ve seen a lot of discussion recently regarding the pro-captivity argument that captive cetaceans don’t suffer in a restricted environment. These arguments suggest that because captive cetaceans have their food provided they don’t need to travel the long distances seen in wild populations. The argument suggests that other captive animals (other larger wide ranging carnivores specifically) don’t travel unless they actually need to, and are quite happy to stay in once place without experiencing undue stress. 

This position is not supported by science. Here is a link to a great article which examines the potential stressors of captive species. 

Firstly, it is important to know that a source of stress in captivity is caused by “ interference with or prevention of animals’ engagement in species-typical behaviors for which they appear to have a ‘‘behavioral need.’’” .The concept of behavioural need states that animals exhibit behaviours which appear to be internally motivated, occuring regardless of environmental conditions, and that preventing animals from performing is detrimental to their wellbeing. 

Basically species have innate, instinctual needs which have evolved over time, such as hunting, foraging for food, and travelling or migrating for long distances. These needs are inbuilt, genetic and cannot be removed by a captive environment. 

There are limited studies with regards to cetaceans but studies have been conducted on other species such as carnivores, pinipeds and primates. An example in the linked paper states: 

“In one study of the impact of captivity on 35 different species of carnivore, infant mortality in captivity and stereotypic locomotion in the form of pacing was found to correlate positively with species home range size in the wild (Clubb and Mason, 2003, 2007), suggesting that the impact of enclosure size on captive animals is a matter of natural history to some degree “

Therefore species with a natural tendency to move in large home ranges fared poorly in captive environments compared to species with smaller home ranges. 

The graph above is takes from this paper and shows a positive correlation between home range size and the frequency of stereotypic behaviours in carnivores.

The paper also looks at species innate desire to forage or hunt, and that many animals are not content to have food directly dumped in front of them. 

“Many studies have shown that animals will perform work to obtain food (Coulton et al., 1997; Inglis and Ferguson, 1986; Inglis and Shepherd, 1994; Menzel, 1991; Reinhardt, 1994), even when the same food is freely available to them. This phenomenon has been called ‘‘contrafreeloading,’’ and some data suggest that animals in barren environments are particularly likely to display it. For example, in one study of laboratory rats, animals reared in enriched environments showed little or no tendency to contrafreeload, while rats reared in impoverished environments showed a strong preference to work for food over obtaining the same food when it was freely available (Colburn and Tarte, 1976). Such data support the argument that foraging is an inherently rewarding appetitive act, and one for which animals may have a behavioral need.”

There are loads of examples, for example in walruses:

Providing a walrus with a trough of rocks in which to forage reduces stereotyped swimming and increases species-typical foraging behavior (Kastelein and Wiepkema, 1989). 

Of equal importance seems to be the opportunity for natural food handling:

“Finally, provisioning with commercially prepared, easy-to-eat diets allows little opportunity for captive animals to engage in species-typical food handling or processing. Particularly for carnivores, thwarted hunting prospects appear to be stressful. In comparison, providing some opportunity for species-typical hunting behavior has been beneficial for fishing cats (Shepherdson et al., 1993), polar bears (Markowitz, 1982), and cheetahs (Lindburg, 1998). Providing live fish in a pool reduced stereotypic behavior in captive tigers, and provisioning with horse leg bones did the same, both for lions and tigers (Bashaw et al., 2003)” 

Therefore as captive orca have the majority of their food throw directly into their mouths it is a potential stressor that they cannot fulfill their natural hunting instinct. Kalia hunting birds  is a great example of a captive born orca expressing her innate desire to hunt.

The paper goes into lots of detail and I urge you to give it a read. 

Now this idea of “behavioural need” is not without its controversies in the scientific community, however there is a large amount of evidence which suggests that different species have specific requirements for movement, and if these are not met it results in stress, indicated by stereotypic behaviour, self harming behavior, immune suppression, unsuccessful breeding and reduction in overall display of natural behaviour such as extended logging (sound familiar for many captive cetaceans?)

Therefore suggesting that any animal is fine in captivity as their food is provided thus negating the need for travel is a blatant disregard for the scientific evidence to the contrary. When Ingrid Visser and other cetacean advocates argue for an orcas need to travel long distances they don’t do so in ignorance.

Other papers worth reading: 

Link between carnivore ranging behaviour and surviorship/stereotypies in captivty 

Carnovire home range and sterotypical behaviors 

[saccharine-suffering]

Whump Written by an AI

So, there's this website called Talk to Transformer, and it's basically an AI that will finish a writing prompt. So, I plugged some whumpy words into it so see what it would come up with.

Some turned out great, like these ones. Some turned out hilariously wrong, which I will also post if y'all wanna see that.

Bold is the prompt I gave it, normal text is what the AI finished with.

(Under a cut because there's several)

He whimpered, curling up into a ball. He kept his eyes shut tight and his hands closed over his head.

"Please- please don't hurt me..."

Virtually every bone in his body ached as his ribs were slowly and surely breaking. Every single sinew, muscle, ligament and vein would be severely torn by the trauma he was suffering from, now. The trauma to his internal organs, as well, but the amount of damage to his other organs had been far less.

He tried to roll onto his side to see what he could do, but the tears made that difficult as well.

He was crying, he could tell that much. He was also afraid. Very afraid.

~~~~~

The basement he was being held captive in was cold. The chains bit painfully into his wrists when he tried to pull against them, and his foot was being slowly crushed to the point where he began to lose his will to fight back. He tried to move, to reach out to her, but the cold stupor held him firmly in place.

It was then that he saw his chance. A slight cough from one of the naked men, and he knew that if he coughed, he would be given air to breathe. It was his only chance. He coughed, and was instantly gagged and lifted up. His heart beating madly, he kicked furiously as he fell. The chains holding his feet to the ground were stronger than he’d anticipated, and though his body was being abused.

~~~~~

Electricity shot through his veins. The pain was getting unbearable at this point, and slowly, his power faded until he was only able to feel like a person. Until he was able to feel his fear.

It was then that his memory returned. And his brain, they couldn’t contain it anymore.

He remembered that yesterday. He remembered feeling the wrath of a god of something like mass destruction. He remembered being powerless. And he remembered…

He cried out, releasing a continuous cry of agony.

Though he was in so much pain that he was screaming in agony, that did not stop him from trying.

He was no hero. He didn’t want to die. He wanted to live, to live to fight, to live to see.

~~~~~

“Please, have mercy on me, your highness…” He begged. The queen’s powerful gaze did not falter. The older man did not deserve the mercy she was about to show him.

Elvira’s back to him, she paused to catch her breath. The look on her face betrayed that she did not like the idea.

“Do you really wish to end your life here? In the Palace? In front of your family and friends?” She asked him with a stern look on her face. “You already took them away from me.”

He wanted to answer her, but his throat seemed to have thickened up. He couldn’t speak. He tried to, but it came out like a whispered whisper.

“You have come here for one reason only: to beg for your life. You are the most foolish of all of us. Do not make me regret this decision.” She stared back at the old man, her gaze both scolding and merciless.

~~~~~

“Wait! Take me instead- please, hurt me, not them.”

And so he did.

When Caleb died, he died fighting for all the people out there who’d be living in fear, afraid to speak up for themselves. He died so that these people could finally be free of the stranglehold that Adam had on them. He died so that people like me could finally be free of fear, free to live.

[csnews]

Animal rights activists and dolphin zoo set aside enmity to collaborate on sea sanctuary  

Naaman Zhou - June 14, 2020

On the north coast of New South Wales, two traditional enemies have put aside their longstanding differences for a common goal: dolphins. As the impact of coronavirus has hit the Dolphin Marine Conservation Park in Coffs Harbour, the zoo’s owners and animal rights advocates have come together to propose a radical plan – housing the animals in a semi-open sea enclosure.

Under a proposal from the marine park, the group Action for Dolphins and World Animal Protection, the zoo’s dolphins will be released from their concrete pools and live into a sectioned-off area of the Coffs Harbour marina. Terry Goodall, the managing director of the Dolphin Marine Conservation Park, said it was like “polar opposites working together”.

Jordan Sosnowski, advocacy director of Action for Dolphins, said it was a “very unique collaboration” between the marine park, and her group, which opposes keeping animals in captivity.

“I don’t think there’s anything like it anywhere else in the world,” she said.

“They were our nemeses in the past,” Goodall told Guardian Australia. “Now we are holding hands and walking down the road together, trying to solve the problem. It’s just a complete and utter turnaround. We don’t agree on everything, but we agree on the wellbeing of the dolphins.”

The marine park currently houses three bottlenose dolphins: Zippy 32, Bella, 15, and Jet, 11, and it has been hit hard by closures enforced by Covid-19 restrictions. Because all three have been raised solely in captivity, they cannot survive in the wild, Goodall said. After becoming manager of the park in August 2018, Goodall said he spoke to Sosnowski, who proposed the idea of the open sea enclosure. This would give the dolphins 10 times the space they currently have, and visitors would be able to see them in the marina.

“We have had a long-running battle with them over the past few years, quite a few years in fact. When I came on board, I met with Jordan from Action for Dolphins. I invited her in, and we just sat down talking.

“They had always wanted the dolphins released back into the wild. I said they simply can’t be released back into the wild. They had never seen a shark. So they wouldn’t last two minutes … Ideally, they would be wild in the ocean, but they can’t be, so the sea sanctuary is the next best option.”

Sosnowski agreed the dolphins could not be safely released into the wild because they didn’t have the necessary skills needed to survive.

“A sea sanctuary is a humane compromise which will allow the animals to live in the ocean and have a lot more autonomy, whilst still ensuring they are looked after and fed by caregivers,” Sosnowski said.

Together, the groups have been approaching the government for funding, and promoting the benefits of the idea. He said that as well as being a tourist attraction, the enclosure could act as a “halfway house” for the rehabilitation of stranded wild dolphins or whales.

“This little park generates something like $15m a year into the local economy,” he said. “So we don’t want to lose it. A sea sanctuary like this one has huge potential for the city of Coffs Harbour, providing much-needed jobs in the aftermath of the pandemic, boosting tourism and most importantly, providing a better life for the dolphins,” Sosnowski said. And as they wait, the dolphins have been missing their human visitors during Covid-19, Goodall said.

“They do like human interaction. Far be it for me to more anthropomorphic about this, but you can see it. They swim around looking out of the pool all the time. They have balls they play with – they throw them out, expecting people to throw them back in. They end up playing ball with themselves.”

The unlikely allies have made several approaches to the local federal MP Pat Conaghan, the state MP Gurmesh Singh and the local council.

“You have got to build the breakwalls, you have to build the nets – so we are probably talking $9m to $10m,” Goodall said. “We are probably going to end up putting a Go Fund Me program together.”

But both the park and the activists are determined to push ahead.

“We can’t release them into the wild because it would be a death sentence, so what other options are there?” Goodall said. “Nobody wants to see them swimming around in concrete lagoons. Whilst it is expensive, and politically fraught, it is a solution. And it’s a bloody good one.”

[blacknnucifera]

captivity

"On the basis of my history, what subject would you say I was best qualified to teach?"

I blinked and told him I didn’t know.

“Of course you do. My subject is: captivity.”

“Captivity”

“That’s correct."

-Ishmael

[melissafirst-animal-science]

Zoo Story

I started reading a book called Zoo Story: Life in the Garden of Captives, and from what I can tell (I'm 5 chapters in) it's a good relatively unbiased look at what really happens in zoos. It starts with the story of elephant culls in parks in Southern Africa due to elephant over population. It then follows the journey of 11 young elephants from two parks in Swaziland sold to the San Diego Zoo and Tampa's Lowry Park Zoo. It talks about the issues facing conservationists in Africa and the roles these two zoos played in preserving the 11 and the issues presented by PETA and other activist groups. It's very interesting and something everyone interested in the issues of animals in captivity needs to read.