#marine mammal training

[orcinus-veterinarius]

Learning anything about marine mammal training will make you re-evaluate so much of your relationship with your own pets. There is so much force involved in the way we handle domestic animals. Most of it isn’t even intentional, it just stems from impatience. I’m guilty of it myself!

But with the exception of certain veterinary settings where the animal’s health is the immediate priority, why is it so important to us that animals do exactly what we want exactly when we want it? Why do we have to invent all these tools and contraptions to force them to behave?

When a whale swam away from a session, that was that. The trainer just waited for them to decide to come back. If they flat out refused to participate in behaviors, they still got their allotment of fish. Nothing bad happened. Not even when 20-30 people were assembled for a procedure, and the whale chose not to enter the medical pool. No big deal. Their choice and comfort were prioritized over human convenience.

It’s almost shocking to return to domestic animal medicine afterwards and watch owners use shock collars and chokers and whips to control their animals. It’s no wonder that positive reinforcement was pioneered by marine mammal trainers. When you literally can’t force an animal to do what you want, it changes your entire perspective.

I want to see that mindset extended to our domestic animals.

[seoulmatez]

there’s this sea otter on tiktok named tofino and i think u should all look her up bc she is just the cutest! 🦦

[dogitraining]

If you want to train your dog well in 7 days then LEARN MORE

Getting the hang of anything about marine well evolved creature preparing will make you reexamine such a great deal your relationship with your own pets. There is such a lot of power engaged with the manner in which we handle homegrown creatures. Its vast majority isn't even purposeful, it simply comes from eagerness. I'm at fault for it myself!

However, except for specific veterinary settings where the creature's wellbeing is the quick need, for what reason is it so vital to us that creatures do precisely exact thing we need precisely when we need it? For what reason do we need to concoct this large number of instruments and contraptions to drive them to act?

If you want to train your dog well in 7 days then LEARN MORE

At the point when a whale swam away from a meeting, that was that. The mentor only sat tight for them to choose to return. On the off chance that they absolutely wouldn't partake in ways of behaving, they actually got their portion of fish. Nothing terrible occurred. Not in any event, when 20-30 individuals were gathered for a method, and the whale decided not to enter the clinical pool. Not a problem. Their decision and solace were focused on over human comfort.

It's practically surprising to get back to homegrown creature medication subsequently and watch proprietors use shock restraints and chokers and whips to control their creatures. It's no big surprise that encouraging feedback was spearheaded by marine warm blooded creature coaches. At the point when you in a real sense can't drive a creature to do what you need, it significantly impacts your whole viewpoint.

I need to see that attitude stretched out to our homegrown creatures.

If you want to train your dog well in 7 days then LEARN MORE

[everydaydeeds]

Day 3597 - Attended a training event so that I can volunteer at an intensive care unit for stranded dolphins.

[orcinus-veterinarius]

Ah yes, here we see a lovely example of a juvenile Bewilderbeast dragon. Note that unlike the adult, juveniles are fully aquatic and lack the species’ characteristic tusks and frills. However, they are still capable of spitting ice, as this individual demonstrates in the GIF. It would appear its trainer has taught it to produce ice in cubed form, a testament to the Bewilderbeast’s intelligence and trainability! /joking/

his name is ice maker

[local-hellhound-steals-spaghetti]

Let's talk about zoo animal welfare for a second...

(And I want to preface this by saying I have a 4 year Bachelor degree in Animal Science (focusing in welfare and behaviour with a major in Canine and Equine Science) before I got sidetracked into zoo animals and did 3 internships working with wild canids, ungulates and marine mammals - this involved both hands on behaviour modification/desenitisation as well as hands off behavioural observation and welfare study. I worked for 2 years as a marine mammal specialist and worked specifically in facilities to improve husbandry, behavioural training and welfare practises.

I also worked in a facility in the Asia Pacific, working to improve welfare standards for bottlenose dolphins and continued to work with cetacean welfare researchers after this. I also did a course in zoo management, husbandry and welfare and this involved working in an accredited zoo facility learning things like exhibit design, behaviour management and husbandry with multiple species.)

So a few points to say about zoo animal welfare when discussing zoo standards and practises:

The average person does not have the expertise to do behaviour observation and welfare evaluation in zoo animals - that's why when the general public visits a zoo and says "the animal looks sad" it's worth being skeptical of that claim. But it doesn't mean a gut feeling about a zoo's quality can be completely invalid. Just that it might be worth researching further or seeking more information.

However, with experience, it is possible to analyse behaviour in the context of welfare. And context to that behaviour is always important (for example, Moo Deng showing stress related behaviour towards the specific context of being touched or followed around by her keeper - very much an indication of poor handling practises)

Poor animal husbandry and welfare is not limited to specific countries or regions, however it can be more normalised and accepted under the influnce of cultures and laws. Or even just the culture of the zoo itself such as the "this is the way we've always done it" places.

Being an accredited zoo is a start to good welfare, but it doesn't make any sort of welfare concern obsolete. And accreditation is supposed to ensure that welfare concerns are addressed but because they are mostly run as a volunteer based organisation, they often don't have resources to check into every concern (unless it's a government funded organisation)

A zoo contributing to conservation research is great, but not if it is at the expense of the animals' welfare - welfare should always be prioritised, with research and conservation efforts to follow.

Welfare is a state that is in flux. So a negative welfare state can move into positive welfare state under different influences.

There are multiple factors that influence zoo animal welfare: enclosure/habitat, expression of natural behaviour, guest interaction, diet, enrichment, water quality, hygeine ect. It'll rarely just be one factor, though it does depend how salient that factor is.

Just because a keeper or management of a zoo have been there for a long time, doesn't mean they can't be criticised - it is possible to be still using outdated practises and believing in methodologies and management practises that need updating - that's the whole point of continued education

Having limited resources can often impact welfare. Giving a facility the resources they need to improve is a good start to improving welfare.

Even if an animal is being handled in an inappropriate way for a short time, that doesn't mean that can't have long term implications for welfare eg. if every time your dog jumped on you when you got home and you smacked him in the face once before going on with your day, that doesn't mean that your dog won't learn negative associations with your arrival just because it was one time.

Best practise husbandry of zoo animals involves:

Use of positive reinforcement based voluntary husbandry and health care

All interaction based on choice and voluntary interaction that is reinforced with primary reinforcement such as food

Mostly hands off approaches for the species that require them (ungulates, large primates, large carnivores)

Relatively stable social groups with aggression only in specific situations/contexts that are normal for the species

Back areas for animals to rest outside of public view

Species appropriate habitats to meet species specific behaviour requirements

Five freedoms of welfare being met but goes above and beyond the bare minimum

Poor zoo animal husbandry involves animals:

Being forced into anything such as presentations, education programs, medical procedures/gating

Any use of physical punishment such as chasing, slapping, pushing or poking - negative reinforcement such as bull hooks are also fairly outdated in handling species like elephants

Being excessively handled, chased and touched/restrained for no reason (eg. for social media videos)

Showing signs of avoidance and aggression constantly towards their keepers

Have constant conflict happening in their social groups

Are living in enclosures that are not suitable for their specific specific needs - size is only one factor in this. Substrate, habitat design, water quality ect. are also things to consider.

Are too close to the public/at risk from the public

Have no areas to retreat from the public/rest away from potential stressors

Have no enrichment program/no daily enrichment

Those are all flags that there could be some poor welfare happening and that a zoo is not prioritising welfare

Okay there's the ramble of the day done. Feel free to ask questions for further clarification if needed.

[dragonpyre]

patron saint of selkie jason todd,,,, saw that post that was like 'nothing funnier than a newly born aquatic mammal realizing they've been cursed to live in water' and cant stop thinking about a jason who never learned to swim bc all the water around gotham is too dangerous, and bruce trying to teach him to swim after adopting him, holding his little chin above the water while jason stares at him with big sad wet beast eyes like 'please,,,, you were literally BUILT for this'

I actually have thought about this! Jason growing up knowing that he can't swim in the harbor or maybe Willis keeping his selkie nature a secret from him for his protection, and that results in Jason knowing fuck all about how to be a seal. Then when Bruce finds out he'd throw himself into learning everything marine biology related in the hopes of helping his new son

The cave is the perfect place to train too. They'd have a little pool tho just to be safe. Then he'd graduate up to the larger natural pools

Bruce 100% buys pool floaties and toys for him

[anarchywoofwoof]

yesterday, november 18 2023 was the first day in recorded history where the global 2m surface temperature exceeded 2 degrees Celsius above the 1850-1900 baseline.

the 1850-1900 period serves as a baseline for the intergovernmental panel on climate change (ipcc) primarily because it represents the pre-industrial era, just before the widespread industrialization that began in the late 19th century.

this era is important for understanding the effects of climate change because it provides a relatively stable reference point for the earth's climate system before human activities - particularly the burning of fossil fuels - began to significantly alter the composition of earth's atmosphere. therefore, this period offers some of the earliest reliable meteorological data, allowing scientists to establish a baseline climate against which current and future changes can be compared.

the last time it was close to this hot was +1.99°C above the baseline, on Feb. 28, 2016 during hottest part of El Nino

yesterday, the value was +2.01°C before the hottest part of El Nino.

the 2°C threshold is widely regarded as a critical limit beyond which climate change impacts become increasingly severe and potentially irreversible. this includes increasing extreme weather events, over time a 40~ foot sea-level rise, and massive loss of biodiversity. some of which we are seeing take place before our eyes right now, every single day. all of these headlines are from this year alone:

Ocean scientists concerned over uptick of whale deaths on Northeast coasts

Penguin Chicks Are Dying Off as Antarctic Sea Ice Disappears

More than 10 billion snow crabs starved to death off the coast of Alaska. But why?

Texas oysters in dire straits

Tens of Thousands of Dead Fish Wash Ashore on Gulf Coast in Texas

Drone footage shows millions of dead fish blanket river

Mass death of Amazonian dolphins prompts fears for vulnerable species

‘Crisis period': Dead or dying marine mammals increasingly washing up on SoCal beaches

bear in mind that this is because we're already seeing a near-average of 1.5°c warming this year. this was not expected until the year 2050. like.. it's happening now.

the 1.5°c warming threshold, which is often discussed alongside the 2°c threshold, holds its own significance in the context of climate change and the efforts to mitigate its impacts. this threshold was brought into prominence by the paris agreement, which aimed to limit global warming to well below 2°c, preferably to 1.5°c, compared to pre-industrial levels.

we have effectively blown past this barricade and are barreling toward another. the capitalist train is leaving the tracks and taking us with it.

[skyefromthefuture]

This beluga is not enthused about gathering intelligence or patriotism or underwater knife fights tho. This beluga wants to play games and get scritches of affection. A mischievous fun-loving cetacean with enough training to be dangerous but too much heart to be a weapon.

How many people can say they have played rugby with a Beluga whale? 🐳 🏉

[prying-pandora666]

The Gaang’s Favorite Foods

Aang is an ovo-lacto vegetarian. He still consumes milk and eggs, just nothing that requires killing an animal. Being more used to getting nutrients from a variety of plant foods including nuts and seeds, supported by nutrient rich bison milk and whatever eggs they eat in this world, Aang’s diet is surprisingly diverse and not as restrictive as it first seems. People have and still do eat this way. He loves egg tarts!

Sokka is a growing teen boy, used to a high-fat diet of primarily fish, mollusks, large ruminants, marine mammals (and their blubber), full fat milk, eggs, blood, etc, and only minorly supported by additional foods like seaweed, berries, tubers, perhaps the occasional imported flour or rice. He is going to need a LOT of animal meat and fat. Especially organs. The cookbook says he loves dried salmon collars.

Katara is also a growing teen girl, and considering what starts for girls around her age, she probably also has higher iron requirements. Heme-iron (from meat) is the most easily absorbed, and if it’s what her body is accustomed to, I imagine there’s going to be a lot of cravings there too. It’s possible she slowly converted to a vegetarian diet eventually, but there isn’t actually anything in canon to say that Katara and Aang didn’t just maintain different diets. The comics and cookbook say she likes soups and stews including sea prunes which are actually a type of mollusk.

Toph comes from a wealthy family. Although most of the Earth Kingdom relies primarily on staple grains (rice mainly, but also others), she likely had a decently diverse diet compared to others. Including plenty of meat (beef, chicken, duck, pork), a variety of vegetables, and even luxury items like refined sugar. According to the cookbook, she doesn’t like to eat her vegetables, which implies she had open access to meat for most of her life. She is fond of tea eggs.

Zuko comes from the wealthiest nation which is also in a tropical climate. He’d have access to a plethora of fruits the others had never even heard of! Tropical fruits, berries, coconut, and all the different dishes you can make with them. The nutrient-rich volcanic soil would also lend itself to farming, giving this country plenty of fresh vegetables and staple grains. However, culturally they seem to be a meat and seafood loving people, and spiciness is critical! Being a prince, Zuko would have even more access to all of the above than the common person. According to the cookbook, his favorite snack is sizzle-crisps which is basically fried and seasoned pork belly. He also sneaks Komodo-chicken to his uncle in prison.

BONUS:

Azula, like Zuko, is royalty in a nation blessed with great diversity of fruits, meat, seafood, and fresh veggies. We know she attended a harsh military academy which puts its students through rigorous survival training. Azula knows how to live off the land and likely can survive off of whatever petty things she can forage or catch. But being royalty, she is more accustomed to having whatever she desires prepared for her. She seems to have a bit of a sweet tooth, which can happen when you give a teen unfettered access to luxury goods like sugar. With her nation’s relatively advanced stage of industrialization, certain more processed foods and desserts are available to her. She is fond of cherries and in the comics she is a fiend for mochi!

[gallifreyinstituteforlearning]

What native Gallifreyan species are there?

Gallifrey has a diverse range of fauna, both native and introduced. Despite claims of minimal ecological impact, the installation of the Eye of Harmony and millions of years of Time Lord civilisation have significantly altered Gallifrey's original biosphere.

🦋 Invertebrates

Beatitude Flies: Begin as maggots and pupate into golden-winged nocturnal insects. They use nectar to create helium in their bellies and are attracted to light and decay.

Butterflies: Various species flutter across Gallifrey.

Bees: Essential for pollination.

Gullet Grubs: Likely to live in digestive tracts of larger mammals, or similar environments.

Blossom Thieves: Possibly insects that steal nectar or pollen.

Scrubblers: Likely small, cleaning insects.

Neversuch Beetles, Sandbeetles, Waspbeetles: Various beetles.

Dustworms: Likely live in dry, dusty environments.

Scissors Bugs: Possibly predatory insects with sharp mandibles.

Flutterwings: Gigantic insects (3 meters by 25 meters) that never land. Five races include Wild Endeavor, Mandrigal, Silver-Band, Blue Crystal, and Perdition.

Snails

Water-Sligs: Likely aquatic or semi-aquatic molluscs.

Web-Spinning Insects: Including spiders about an inch long.

Other dangerous invertebrates: There are also nasty creatures that live beneath big stones.

🐟 Marine Life

Singing Yaddlefish: Notable for their song, and they can be eaten.

Kittensharks: Hatch from eggs and presumably grow into Catsharks.

Axolotl Salamanders: Amphibious creatures with regenerative abilities.

🐍 Elapids

Taipan: A venomous snake, 10 metres long.

Venal Snakes: Possibly nest-stealers or highly venomous.

Bat-Snakes: Presumably flying snakes.

Dinosauria: 20-meter-long reptiles resembling brontosaurs with thick chitinous scales and serrated teeth.

🦅 Avians

Owls: Symbol of Rassilon.

Flurry Birds: Likely small, fast-moving birds.

Trunkikes: Game birds whose eggs are often eaten.

Air Diamonds: Fly in the upper atmosphere, possibly crystalline or bioluminescent.

Song Birds: Various species.

Gargantosaurs: Dinosaur-like creatures, twice the size of a hab-bloc, with two legs, vestigial wings (with purple and white feathers), and four eyes.

🦣 Mammals

Plungbolls: Thumbnail-sized furry creatures living in mountains, attach en masse to warm objects.

Taffelshrews: Edible rodent-like mammals.

Fledershrews: Bat-like, mushroom eaters, nearly extinct.

Cobblemice: Mice that sprout wings.

Rovie Mice: Field-dwelling, long-lived if kept safe, sometimes pets. They have short memories.

Moss-Rats: Possibly rodents that live in marshes with moss-like camouflage.

Vex: Burrowing animals.

Gallifreyan Womprats: 1-metre-long rats with fifteen legs.

Pig-Rats: Inhabit the Drylands, presumably combining porcine and rodent traits.

Rabbits

Flubbles: Small six-legged koalas.

Unnamed rounder rabbit-like creatures

Ounce-Apes: Might be tiny monkeys that are particularly agile.

Sealak: Perhaps a kind of seal, often eaten.

Bear-Ass: A donkey-like animal with bear-like qualities.

Horse-Cats: Probably a horse/cat hybrid-like species.

Sagittary: Horse-like creatures.

Elephants

Pig-Bears: Can be trained as pets.

Wolf-like Creatures: With long snouts and black-and-white striped fur, almost as big as adult humanoids.

Broakir: Live in foothills, often hunted for food.

Baanjxx: Arboreal browsers that like to eat hallucinogenic cerub nuts. As a child, the Doctor was kicked by one in the head, apparently.

Cows

Walrus

Gallifreyan Marlot: Purple and unique in all of time and space. Probably a bit cat-like.

House Cats: Revered as symbols of intelligence. Traditionally, Presidents kept them as pets.

🐱 Killer Cats (C.A.T.S)

Killer C.A.T.S: These sapient creatures possess instinctive precognitive powers and cat-like physiology. Known for their lethal gladiatorial contests, they despise Time Lord traditions and live in the Gin-Seng Sector of Southern Gallifrey. Their culture includes mercenaries and oracles; they are telepathic.

🏞️ Ecosystem Preservation

Though Gallifrey's outer ecology has suffered, the Time Lords have used technology to preserve many species. Extinct species have been collected, ensuring none become completely extinct. The more fearsome creatures are contained in the Death Zone, while xeno-zoos hold alien species from other worlds.

🏫 So ...

So there's your whistlestop tour of the species on Gallifrey. One day, I'll try to put these onto a species distribution map. Oh, by Rassilon's Beard, I just gave myself more work.

Related:

💬|🪐🌍How is Gallifreyan geography different to Earth?: The landscape of Gallifrey.

📺|🌳🍎The Fruits of Gallifrey

💬|🐾🐱What could be some biological traits of Gin-Seng cats?: Looking at who the Gin-Seng cats are, their biology, and their place on Gallifrey and in society.

Hope that helped! 😃

Any purple text is educated guesswork or theoretical. More content ... →📫Got a question? | 📚Complete list of Q+A and factoids →😆Jokes |🩻Biology |🗨️Language |🕰️Throwbacks |🤓Facts →🫀Gallifreyan Anatomy and Physiology Guide (pending) →⚕️Gallifreyan Emergency Medicine Guides →📝Source list (WIP) →📜Masterpost If you're finding your happy place in this part of the internet, feel free to buy a coffee to help keep our exhausted human conscious. She works full-time in medicine and is so very tired😴

[orcinus-veterinarius]

This is a really fascinating video, and powerful proof that cetaceans in accredited aquaria are not "forced to perform." For whatever reason, Katina, Nalani, and Malia were not interested in participating in the show, and after a few attempts to engage them, the presentation was canceled, despite a full audience in the stands. Performing is their choice, and there's nothing anyone can do to force them to do something they don't want to.

And don't worry, regardless of their participation, all animals are offered their full diet every day, and it is taken very seriously if an animal does not eat their entire "base." Diet is calculated individually for each animal by the attending veterinarian, and trainers cannot adjust it without the doctor's express permission. Cetaceans are weighed weekly to determine if they are receiving the optimum amount of nutrition, and they do not receive more or less food to motivate them to perform or interact.

Regardless of your feelings on cetacean captivity, it is important that you understand a dolphin or orca leaping in a show is not forced to do so and will not be punished for refusing.

[duckapus]

Fairly Oddparents/Splatoon Crossover AU

-Dimmsdale is in the Splatlands, and is still called that because if I change it to a fish pun I have to change Doug Dimmadome's name too and I don't want to.

-Fairies are still a Thing, and the relevant fairies are still the same (admittedly vague) ages they are in canon, so Cosmo and Wanda's generation showed up just in time to witness humanity's downfall; the floods, the domes, the professor, the final desperate failure in Alterna, all of it.

-Also all the other characters are their usual ages too, so any of the kids that I turn into Inkings or Octolings are going to be blobby for a while. With one notable exception that I'll explain when it comes up.

-The Turners are Octolings, but they're not from the Domes (hence why I put Dimmsdale in the Splatlands. I wanted them near where all the action is for reasons I'll get into later and Inkadia didn't have Octolings until after the first game's story mode while the Splatlands have always had them).

-Timmy still gets Cosmo and Wanda because his parents are still Like That, and his overbite is even more potent since it's made of the point of his beak instead of a pair of front teeth.

-Cosmo and Wanda almost look like an Inkling and an Octoling, respectively. They got a few details wrong, the biggest one being that they got their hair as close to what they're used to as they could but forgot to check if they had the right number of tentacles.

-Chester's an Inkling, no real notes there

-AJ is a bald Sea Urchin

-Crocker is an Inkling and other than the obvious details looks and acts pretty much exactly like he usually does, complete with neck ears

-Francis is a bull shark, as a reference to his "Bull-E" persona in the episode where everyone's superheroes

-Doug Dimmadome is a walrus (Marina mentions that her landlord is a Narwhal in Splat 2, marine mammal people exist)

-Vicky and Tootie are Octolings, and they are from the Domes but Vicky got them out. She actually hadn't heard Calamari Inkantation at the time, but Tootie had due to a Conveniently Placed Vent, and Vicky knew that anyone who heard that song would try to get to the surface and some of them didn't make it out alive and if even Elites hand-picked by DJ Octavio himself couldn't make it there's no way her seven-year-old nearsighted inkblot of a little sister would be able to get out on her own, but if she stayed she'd be miserable and trapped forever and that would be even worse, so Vicky packed their bags and grabbed Tootie and climbed for their lives despite very much not being freed from the Octarian propaganda by a weird magic folk-turned-pop song like everybody else who made this climb. They would've made it to Inkopolis like the other refugees but they made a wrong turn somewhere and ended up in Dimmsdale instead.

-Due to this she ends up having to raise her sister, get enough money to keep them both alive via Grizzco, babysitting and other odd jobs (she can't do turf or ranked/league because there's too much chance of her training/brainwashing kicking in and making her do something stupid Because Inklings like attack her own teammates or ignore the end-of-match whistle), teach Tootie how to speak Inklish and both of them how to read it, and figure out how to get them legal identities, all while every fiber of her being screams at her that The Enemy is all around them (it takes her the better part of a year after escaping to finally find and listen to the Inkantation, since she didn't know what it was called and wasn't high enough in the ranks to know anything about the Cuttlefish family). At fourteen.

-Chloe is an Inkling, and when she's introduced she already knows how to shift and is clearly used to it despite still being a month and a half or so away from turning twelve, which is... kind of a Bad Sign. Most Cephalings only manage that by thirteen or fourteen, though getting it at twelve, while uncommon, isn't unheard of. Any earlier and there's potentially health risks, especially since it almost has to be a case of the kid forcing it to happen (usually due to pressure and unrealistic expectations, often of the parental variety). And I mean big, "how prepared are you for your child to never be able to walk again" kind of health risks, though that's the worst-case scenario. In Chloe's case there were, in fact, negative effects, but nothing that drastic.

...No, she just starts aching all over if she spends too much time in squid form. And sometimes has stiff joints when it's cold.

-Haven't figured out what the rest of the human characters get turned into for this, but the alien and magical characters are still the same species they were in canon. And yes, the events of the show more-or-less stay the same.

-For a bit of post-series stuff, Timmy, Tootie, Chester and Chloe decide to try at being a comp team, and they're actually pretty good at it (thanks in large part to Vicky teaching them everything she learned from Grizzco, her time in the Octarian military and all the weird tricks she's had to pick up during their adventures). Their team's called the Twerpz and they've got a bit of an unusual lineup of preferred weapons.

Timmy (Splat Handle "No Ruelz" because of course it is) is the team captain and uses a Snipewriter 5H

Tootie (just uses her name) uses a Sloshing Machine Neo

Chester (uses his last name because of the whole infamous family legacy thing) uses the vanilla Splatana Stamper, and has discovered that he can use it like a baseball bat to knock away incoming bombs... aside from burst bombs since they explode on impact. Learned that one the hard way.

Chloe (goes by "3LeafClovr" because everyone thinks she's lucky when she's really not) uses a Luna Blaster Neo. She gets around the issue with her squid form by only shifting when absolutely necessary and compensating with Ink Saver (both kinds), Ink Recovery Up, a little Run Speed Up, and Parkour

So they've got a blaster that can't swim, a splatana that thinks he's in a completely different sport, their only backliner is a pencil, and not a single one of them has Ink Armor despite having two short-range weapons. It probably shouldn't work, but it does, because all four of them are completely nuts and using strategies concocted by a former Octarian soldier and Timmy coddamn Turner of all people

-Tootie ends up as Neo Agent 3. Thanks to being friends with Timmy Return of the Mammalians isn't even close to the weirdest thing that's ever happened to her. And yes this means that by that point she and Vicky have a Smallfry roommate. Tootie found him alone in the desert. Everybody calls him Shwaffle and there are absolutely zero thoughts between those big ol' eyes.

-The rest of the Squidbeak Splatoon is very confused and concerned by the things they hear about their new agent's friends and hometown

-When Timmy was twelve he and Vicky did something and now every gang in the Splatlands is scared shitless of them, including Deep Cut. They've never managed to tell anyone the full story of what exactly happened, though they will occasionally reference bits and pieces of it that sound absolutely batshit insane out of context

[ihazyourkitty]

Orcas, at the Utah Natural History Museum

The Utah Natural History Museum recently opened an exhibition on orcas. It’s really good, and I highly recommend it if any of you have the chance to go. I wish I had taken more pictures.

The display covers a lot of topics, e.g. natural their natural history, pod/ecotype dynamics, neural anatomy, echolocation, significance to indigenous cultures, conservation, etc. They had a life sized model of Ruffles, and even highlighted how it was discovered that Ruffles was unrelated to Granny! Oh, and some of their models even had a few rake marks on them. Loved that attention to detail.

The section on orcas and indigenous cultures was fascinating! Indigenous voices really took center stage there and I learned a lot about just how significant orcas are to many Pacific Northwest tribes.

It was very immersive and well done!

The overarching theme was our shared history and future with orcas. So not only was it just a bunch of facts about the animals, but it progressed through time, highlighting our changing perceptions of them. They briefly talked about Moby Doll, Skana, Namu, Keiko, Tokitae, Morgan and Tilikum. There were some (debatable) inaccuracies about Tokitae, but I do appreciate how they acknowledged Keiko’s release attempt didn’t work. They showed various orca themed memorabilia from the 60’s onward, which was cool.

They also pulled no punches in talking about the plight of wild orcas like the SRKW’s. They went into a lot of details about PCB’s, plastic pollution, Chinook salmon, boat noise, etc. It was heart wrenching and very well done.

And naturally…. yes Blackfish and the general anti captivity movement were highlighted. This was fine, the museum’s intent was to show how public perception progressed, and it wasn’t so much that they themselves took a side. It was just…. unfortunate the glaring blind spot it left.

There was some mention of the work trainers have to do to take care of their orcas, including some memorabilia from the Vancouver aquarium. But was kind of a blip where if you blink, you’ll likely miss it.

They mentioned the important work museums and labs do for research, as simply observing them in the wild can’t give us all the details we need….. but nothing about the research done at accredited marine parks, aside from just how public display changed how we used to fear orcas. Sealand of the Pacific was highlighted in one corner, with people like Steve Huxter* appearing in video. Comparatively, SeaWorld was barely mentioned in passing on the plaque about Tilikum, which I found odd.

My guess is that this was a combination of not wanting to piss off certain donors or contributors to the exhibit given how hot this topic is, and/or simply the lack of contributions from places besides Vancouver aquarium. Perhaps there were too many PR, bureaucratic hoops to jump through. Perhaps all of the above. Curating museum displays is a complicated thing.

I suppose if nothing else, this is true to how our history has progressed here. One side has come to dominate the public narrative, while the other has just clammed up. The biggest mistake SeaWorld and the larger zoological community made in the wake of Blackfish was to just stick their heads in the sand, hide behind their PR departments, and hope the controversy would just go away. Well, it didn’t. And the less we tell our stories, the more they win. They’ve done the work of cultivating media connections and media training. We haven’t.

This, like many other things, has the unintended side effect of erasing women from the picture. They mentioned Tilikum briefly, but said nothing of Dawn or the Dawn Brancheau Foundation (then again, they may not have gotten permission to do that).

Most marine mammal trainers are women, some of whom have gone on to make important contributions to the science of animal welfare, behavior and training…. do they deserve to be remembered only as anonymous pretty faces in wetsuits? Actually, I don’t remember them ever explicitly citing Ingrid Visser, Naomi Rose, or Lori Marino for that matter, not even in the areas about field research or orca brain MRI’s. There’s plenty to criticize about their anti-captivity lobbying to be sure, but they have made some key contributions to scientific literature. So it’s odd they wouldn’t even be mentioned by name given both that and their place in the anti-captivity movement.

Alas. I am not a museum curator, and while I disagree with Blackfish et al., I do think the museum handled the topic very well overall. It is good to be exposed to different points of view, and the truth is that there are valid points to be made about the ethics of orcas in captivity. So how do we go forward from here? Do orcas deserve special legal protections as non human persons? That was a question left open to the interpretation of the viewer, even if slanted somewhat in one direction. I love it when displays can pull that off.

Or at least, they handled it well except for when they talked about Morgan. I am pretty sure that the Free Morgan Foundation was not only the sole contributor to that part of the display, but was given a huge amount of editorial leeway in what little information was provided. The rhetoric in the writing alone was a dramatic departure from how the rest of the exhibit was handled.

So. Many. Problems with this!

First of all, Loro Parque is not connected with SeaWorld. They’ve had a business relationship in the past in that SeaWorld gave them some orcas on a breeding loan, and then eventually transferred ownership of said animals completely to Loro Parque. Their veterinarians and trainers have networked/collaborated with one another in the past. But that’s it. That is the extent of their relationship. That is not the same thing as being “connected.” They are not affiliated with one another. They are two completely different parks owned by two completely different companies. This is such an important legal distinction, how do you get this wrong!?

There are no international regulations that ban orca breeding. Some countries or localities have banned it, but this is not universal. The part about Morgan not being allowed to breed was misleading. When SeaWorld ended their breeding program, they still owned the male orcas at Loro Parque. As such, they were not allowed to breed them until ownership was transferred. SeaWorld never claimed ownership of Morgan.

There’s no mention of Morgan being deaf, which is one of the key reasons why she can’t be released. This was confirmed by multiple third party studies, including the US Navy. Cases brought by the Free Morgan Foundation to multiple courts to have her released have each been dismissed.

And as for scientists supposedly discovering multiple fake orca “rescues” ….I’m sorry, which orcas are they referring to? With exception of the Russian Whale Jail and some facilities in China and Japan, marine parks have not been collecting orcas from the wild for decades. Most orcas alive today in Western parks were born in captivity. We know which orcas are which, where they are housed, and where they came from. Morgan was an exceptional case. So what in the world are they even talking about here!?

Further, marine parks are not the ones who decide whether or not an orca is releasable. Government agencies do.

Orcas rake each other in the wild and in captivity. It can happen from aggression and also from rough play. This is normal behavior. The following is an actual peer reviewed study on the social interactions among the orcas at Loro Parque. https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=0%2C13&q=Loro+parque+orca+communication&oq=loro#d=gs_qabs&t=1731592546318&u=%23p%3DHSC5vZFo3tcJ

Just. So many problems here! Who wrote this!? Seriously, I was able to handle the rest of the anti-cap stuff there up until that point. I had to really bite my tongue to keep myself from getting on a soapbox with my friend in public. Oh well. It was only a very, very small part of the exhibit at least.

(*I’ve actually had a few online conversations with Steve Huxter. While I disagree with him on a lot of things relating to wild vs captive orcas, I do think he’s a genuinely nice guy whose heart is in the right place. I can’t imagine what it must have been like to have been there when Keltie Byrne was killed).

[wishfishy]

When I first heard that a new Endless Ocean was going to be released, I was incredibly excited. Just absolutely over-the-moon excited. You see, Endless Ocean 2: Blue World (also called Endless Ocean 2: Adventures of the Deep) is one of my favourite games of all time. Scratch that: it is my favourite game. It was far from perfect, but I loved it dearly and happily sank hundreds if not thousands of hours into it.

EO2 is a diving game for the wii that was released in 2010, and I have never been able to find a game quite like it. The main story was a bit cheesy, but charming and engaging, with a bevy of likeable if occasionally one-note characters, and the game itself had surprising depths (diving pun fully intended). The game had 12 different diving maps in 6 locations and while the specific areas were fictitious, they were based on very real places (the South Pacific, Mediterranean Sea, Red Sea, Arctic and Antarctic Oceans, as well as a freshwater river in the Amazon) and this was reflected in the species found in each area, with a few exceptions here and there.  You could explore shallow coral reefs, a sunken castle, ancient temples, abyssal depths, a kelp forest, sandy beaches, riverbanks, hidden coves with murals, and much more. You also had a small private island as a hub location, a personal reef you could decorate, and a public aquarium which you could fill with any of the non-legendary species you discovered.

Speaking of which, the game featured 340 different species of marine and freshwater fish, sharks, rays, marine mammals, penguins, shore birds, reptiles, crustaceans, cephalopods and other invertebrates. Some of these also had different models for young or different genders. You could find truly miniscule species that most other diving games overlook entirely in zoom-spots (such as gobies and nudibranchs), and you could interact with most by feeding, touching or even riding in the case of large marine life. And on top of this you could also find legendary creatures, which could be individuals of extant species with unusual colouring or size, or even extinct species, and could be exceedingly hard to find but entirely rewarding.

This is already getting to be much too long but on top of all this you could customize your diver character, buy things for your island hub, decorate and populate a private reef to propagate and release fish, create various aquarium exhibits, discover a great many side-quests, upgrade equipment, take and sell photographs, heal sick animals, search for and sell salvage, find collectable coins, train dolphin partners, take requests for guided tours, dolphin shows, salvage and photos, dodge or placate aggressive sharks, and more that I am probably forgetting. It’s been a while since I’ve played the game, as I no longer have a wii and don’t have the first clue on how to emulate games on my PC. All this is to say that this game was something special, and I have never been able to find anything remotely close to it. And seeing as how the last one was released almost 15 years ago, I had long given up hope for an Endless Ocean 3.

And then lo and behold, a trailer dropped from out of nowhere for Endless Ocean Luminous! And it was releasing in a month! Holy Shit! What!? Yes!

But alas, the more information came out about the game, the more that excitement started to wane. A focus on multiplayer? Procedural generation? Only one map? The only character being an AI that sounded like all those awful tiktok voices? To be clear, I wasn’t expecting Luminous to be the next GoTY. I wasn’t even expecting it to be an exact replica of EO2, or continue the storyline. If it had even a fraction of what I liked about the previous game I was going to be one happy camper. I assumed that the marketing was focusing on the multiplayer aspect instead of the single-player story, that hopefully the procedurally generated map was exclusive to that multiplayer. Surely the single player mode would extend past what little was shown in the trailers. Some things seemed promising, such as an advertised 500+ species, and even more prehistoric marine life. But again, alas, what I have seen since the release is the barest and palest reflection of what I enjoyed about the previous game. I could understand cutting some content, such as the dolphin training and shows, considering the controversy of cetaceans in captivity. But it seems like there is no aquarium, no central hub of any type, no characters beyond the aforementioned AI and a single faceless diver, salvage reduced to a single click, an incredibly reduced story consisting mostly of scanning fish, no ability to feed or interact with fish and fish behaviour also seems to be quite reduced. At least photography still appears to be in the game, though its unclear to what point. Are there still photo requests? The ability for some critters to swim along with or attach to your diver looks cute at least. But everything I’ve watched so far just feels so… lifeless. Empty. As if the whole game was AI generated, which I’m at least %75 sure isn’t the case.

But I’m left kind of baffled by the direction that this game was taken in. I’ve been trying to find any information about it’s development with little to no success. Why the focus on multiplayer to the exclusion of a single player story beyond the bare minimum? What lead to the choice to have a single, procedurally generated map instead of separate, smaller, but more scientifically accurate maps? Or even a single smaller but purposefully designed map? Was this game more like the previous games at any point in its conception or development or was it always intended to be such a departure?

[satellites-halo]

Side effects of too much splatoon: Everytime I see the word mammal I think of octopuses. I'm literally training to be a marine mammal scientist. Fuck my life