#dolphin welfare

[local-hellhound-steals-spaghetti]

New academic takedown just dropped 🥳

This paper absolutely tears to shreds the Jacobs et. al paper that claimed dolphins were suffering brain damage from captivity. Of course, such a claim gets snapped up by the media despite the paper having zero evidence and data to back this up.

So please read this paper, which actually has citations for data to support themselves. Dolphins in modern zoological facilities do not live in impoverished conditions

[daisylovesrumble]

Urge These Resorts to Stop Offering Cruel Dolphin Experiences! | PETA

Hawks Cay Resort in Florida and The Kahala Hotel & Resort and Hilton Waikoloa Village in Hawaii are supporting the abuse of intelligent dolphins by partnering with notorious Dolphin Quest or Dolphin Connection. These companies cruelly confine dolphins to tiny lagoons so they can offer tourists “swim with dolphins” experiences for profit.

[orcinus-veterinarius]

Are dolphins still being captured for aquariums/parks and is it ethical (or complicated?)

Thanks for the ask! Yes, captures unfortunately do still occur in unregulated countries, though far less frequently than in the past. One of the most infamous examples is the annual dolphin drive in Taiji, Japan. While the main purpose of this hunt is to kill animals for meat, a small number of young, attractive dolphins are kept alive each year for sale. Nowadays, only unaccredited institutions purchase these dolphins, and even the Japanese Association of Zoos and Aquariums now prohibits its members from acquiring captured dolphins. Although Taiji is the most well-known, the majority of cetaceans captured from the wild in the 2000s/2010s came from Russia, which recently prohibited the practice.

Western parks and aquariums have not purchased wild-captured cetaceans in decades. The last captures in US waters occurred in 1989, and the last foreign imports were in the early 1990s (long before widespread public sentiment turned against dolphinariums). I do not believe the practice was ethical, and almost all my colleagues would agree with me. Some of them were indeed brutal affairs, such as the infamous Penn Cove captures, in which several young Southern Resident killer whales (including the famous Tokitae) were taken. Multiple animals were inadvertently killed, and the hunters clumsily attempted to hide the deaths by stuffing the whales’ corpses with rocks. The bodies resurfaced, and following public backlash orca captures were no longer performed in the US.

As awareness of animal welfare grew amongst scientists and the general public in the 70s and 80s, collections of smaller cetacean species became considerably less vicious. They were typically supervised by a veterinarian, and care was taken to ensure animals were not physically harmed. However, these were still undeniably stressful to the animals.

I’m glad the practice stopped. Dolphins are not endangered, and I don’t think we can justify the trauma of removing healthy young animals from their pods. Of course, I make exceptions for individuals that are ill, injured, or a danger to themselves or humans (like Clearwater Marine Aquarium’s Izzy)—and these situations are never taken lightly. And if a species ever became endangered (highly unlikely for bottlenose, but a possibility for belugas), that would also be cause for reevaluation.

Dolphins do quite well in modern accredited aquariums. In the United States, all managed dolphins were either born in human care or have been out of the wild for over 30 years (excluding non-releasable rescues). While there are valid concerns about cetacean captivity, ongoing wild capture is not one of them.

[namu-the-orca]

Here's an interesting article from Nature. The title is a bit generic and makes it seem like there's nationwide dolphin attacks happening, but in reality it's about a single male Indo-pacific bottlenose dolphin that has been frequenting a bay for some years, seeking out human contact, and now there's increasing conflict.

Solitary sociable cetaceans are not a new phenomenon, they have been known for decades, and from all around the world. There's regular reports going back to the 1800's, and Pliny the younger even wrote of a solitary dolphin in 109 AD.

Wherever they go, these solitary dolphins (often bottlenoses) attract attention. In some rare cases a good, mutually beneficial relationship develops, as with Fungie the Dingle bay resident (who sadly passed away in 2020, aged over 40).

However, often things get out of hand, not in the least due to media attention and all manner of people seeking "that special bond" and "magical experience" of meeting a dolphin in the wild. They are so friendly and angelic and surely this one must love to interact with me because why else are they here?

But dolphins are wild animals, and they can and do regularly harm humans. Even when they seek out these interactions themselves, when both parties don't know how to conduct themselves around one another, injuries happen. Often, in the end, it's the dolphin that pays the price. Frequently their life is cut short by propeller blades, or they are otherwise injured by human activity. In rare cases there's a happy end, where either equilibrium is found, or the dolphin rejoins their conspecifics. I think it is an interesting observation (and perhaps 'antidote') in this time of "meeting dolphins in captivity = bad and they must hate people, meeting dolphins in the wild = amazing interaction with a free spirit that can't possibly go wrong".

For further reading, here's an interesting overview of known cases of solitary sociable cetaceans, and some of the concerns.

And if you want to read of a very interesting individual case: here is an initial report of attempts to "educate" JoJo the solitary bottlenose dolphin from the Turks and Caicos Islands, on proper human interaction etiquette. The intervention was successful as JoJo continues to live there to this day, and has been assigned a personal human guardian who is trained to provide him with the social interaction he needs. This way his aggressive and sexual interactions with other people has been mitigated.

[leoparduscolocola]

Happy Empty the Tanks Day! There’s no beauty in stolen freedom🐬

Image credit: Empty the Tanks, Animal Welfare Institute, and Oceanic Preservation Society

[typhlonectes]

Just Comics

[vintage-tigre]

[oediex]

Petition!

The world is a dark place for captive whales and dolphins -- stolen from the oceans or born in a tank:depression marks their lives as they swim endless circles in tiny tanks, often all alone. They are denied to live long and emotionally complex lives with their pod family and friends and die prematurely after a time of suffering and pain. We have a chance to save whales from captivity and breeding for good in the US! Lawmakers are proposing a new law: The Strengthening Welfare in Marine Settings (SWIMS) Act -- to keep these gentle giants out of water parks and aquariums captivity and save them from lifelong misery. As a global community of millions, we can make sure that the SWIMS Act passes and inspires governments everywhere to do the same, paving the way for a world-wide ban on whale captivity. Will you join us in protecting whales from captivity?

[serioussideblog]

Many people don’t understand animals as much as they think they do. Here are a few interesting and important facts about zoos, aquariums, and marine animals:

🐠 Some aquatic animals, like jellyfish and starfish, don’t have a brain. Instead, they have a bunch of neurons randomly distributed throughout their bodies. This is not to say that they don’t matter - of course they matter - but they don’t exactly think. A starfish has no concept of wanting to be in the ocean, because they don’t have concepts.

🐬 Many other animals, like fish and whales and octopi, do have brains, and therefore, they do think. What they think about probably varies, but ultimately, we know they think. Good zoos and aquariums provide enrichment for such animals, such as cool plants and rocks to look at, and for the more advanced sapient creatures, puzzles!

🐠 Sea star wasting disease (SSWD) is a disease of starfish and other echinoderms that causes mass death in populations. Symptoms include lack of eating, listlessness, white lesions, limpness, losing the ability to grip things, body fragmentation (limbs twisting and falling off), and death. The limbs that come off can move independently for a while, because of the starfish’s neurological structure, but they will obviously not be healthy, and the limbs will die, too. The rest of the starfish will eventually become an unrecognizable, disintegrated, white, mushy, dead blob. It’s cause isn’t fully understood. Aquariums have found a treatment for the disease. It’s not a cure, but it’s leagues better than nothing.

🐬 Zoos and aquariums (reputable ones, anyway) are wonderful places for animals to live. They get food, healthcare, protection from predators, enrichment, protection from humans who would harm them, nice living quarters, and more. They provide a place to live and thrive for animals that wouldn’t survive in the wild (like that blue lobster). Many animals in zoos and aquariums are born there.

🐠 Good zoos and aquariums fund important conservation efforts, including research, anti-poaching measures, habitat restoration, and more.

🐬 Researchers have not proven whether or not a starfish can feel pain, but it’s hypothesized to be possible.

🐠 Fish lack eyelids (except for some sharks), so they don’t sleep the same way we do. However, many fish will rest periodically, and some can be alert for potential danger while being somewhat asleep.

🐬 Dolphins dream! They don’t dream as much as we do, but they do dream. Also, only half of their brains sleep at a time.

🐠 Sea turtles have been on Earth for around 100 million years. There are seven species. Six of those are endangered.

One thing that pisses me off is people seeing fish in aquariums (the establishments, not home aquariums) and being like “It’s so sad because the ocean is so big and the tank is so small and they’ll never know freedom blah blah blah-“ I’m not talking about sharks and marine mammals here but the majority of fish are not at all bothered by being in an aquarium instead of the open ocean. Like, I personally would love to be a little clown fish in one of those big reef tanks. Fed regularly. Whole team of people monitoring my health and well-being. No predators. Medicated if I show signs of illness. Aquarium fish have cushy gigs in comparison to their wild companions.

[local-hellhound-steals-spaghetti]

Great news for marine mammal welfare! While longevity is only one piece of the puzzle when monitoring welfare it’s great to see how long term standardised data collection in zoological facilities can be used to indicate overall improvements in longevity!

And I hope this will be used to inform legislation - rather than the baseless claims used by lobbyists.

[daisylovesrumble]

petition: Someone Fired Bullets into a Young Dolphin's Heart, Brain, and Spine

Found on a Louisiana beach riddled with bullets. The person who did this is a straight up psychopath.

[orcinus-veterinarius]

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

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

(Long post below the cut):

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[local-hellhound-steals-spaghetti]

This is why it drives me crazy when people get really mad about dolphins in marine parks doing "unnatural" behaviours. My dude, the dolphins don't care how "natural" the behaviours are. They think it's fun and they'll do them if they want to!

Every time we were training new behaviours and wrapped up a session, the dolphins I worked with were like "yo check this out" *attempt at the new behaviour* "YEAH DID YOU SEE THAT?" And we went wild clapping and cheering for them. Then they would squeal and go and do it again.

Even out of session the dolphins would try out the behaviours they learned because they enjoyed it. So yeah, a breakspin or a tail walk or a slide out isn't natural. But the dolphins don't care.

I think one of my favorite things about cetaceans (whales and dolphins) is the way they exhibit little signs of culture varying from pod to pod. For example, in the 80s there was a wild dolphin named Billie in Adelaide who was placed in dolphin rehab after being injured, and she spent some time amongst captive dolphins while recovering. Just from watching the Marineland dolphins, Billie learned to perform a trick called “tail walking” which is a behavior that dolphins don’t really do in the wild. However, when Billie was released back into Port River after her recovery, she loved tail walking so much that she taught it to all of the other wild dolphins in the pod as well as her daughter. Billie would regularly race up to boats and tail walk alongside them to the delight of passengers

There was a period for several years where pretty much all of the dolphins in Port River were tail walking on a regular basis until the fad eventually wore off, as fads do. Billie herself though never stopped exhibiting the behavior until her death in 2009 from renal failure. What a remarkable animal she was; I love what her story tells us about dolphin behavior and cognition.

[leoparduscolocola]

the thing i fear pro-caps will never understand is that no matter how luxurious a captive cetacean’s surroundings are, it’s still fundamentally wrong to hold them in captivity due to their socioemotional capacities and their clear sense of self. one could argue that no animal should be forced to meet an arbitrary human-made definition of “personhood” in order to qualify for liberty, and i would agree with that. however, in order to start the massive task of bringing about a paradigm shift in the way the general human public views nonhuman animals (from “something” to “someone” and worthy of equal consideration instead of being legally considered underlings), we should start by achieving that shift for nonhuman animals that are charismatic and that humans easily relate to before tackling the more difficult task of enacting that shift for animals that we’ve been taught all our lives to view solely as curiosities, pests, or sources of food. no matter if a cetacean is being held in a cramped solitary confinement pool barely bigger than their body, a spacious lagoon with plenty of conspecifics and enrichment, or somewhere in between, their status as a captive is still inherently immoral. that’s not to say that all captive situations are the same; the cetaceans in the lagoon are definitely happier than the lonesome one in the tiny pool. rather, i’m saying that even the best possible captive situation is still wrong, so perpetuating the institution of cetacean captivity is also wrong. most captive cetaceans probably can’t be released, but we must try to prioritize their autonomy and make their lives as similar to the wild as possible. i find it deeply ironic that pro-caps claim to love these animals on a deep level that can only be achieved by interacting with them in confinement rather than observing them in their natural habitats, but their love consists of denying them everything that’s important to them. pro-caps refuse to acknowledge their personhood, eagerly attempt to “debunk” cetacean intelligence studies, and support the violation of cetaceans’ freedom of choice through capture, artificial insemination, transfers between facilities, et cetera.

[trendynewsnow]

Investigation into Butchered Dolphin Remains at Jersey Shore

Investigation Launched into Disturbing Dolphin Discovery at Jersey Shore Federal wildlife authorities have initiated an investigation following a shocking discovery on a Jersey Shore beach: the partial remains of a dolphin that, according to a marine animal rescue organization, “appeared to have been butchered.” This unsettling incident has raised concerns among conservationists and the local…

[typhlonectes]