The Blog – Page 5 – The Kimmela Center for Animal Advocacy, Inc.

Infant Beluga Death Is No Mystery

Lori Marino on June 8, 2015

By Lori Marino

Last Friday, June 5th, an infant beluga whale born to Maris and Beethoven at the Georgia Aquarium took her last breath. The whale was 26 days old, and the second infant from the same parents to die at the aquarium in three years. The first one, her sister, died less than a week after she was born.

The senior veterinarian and the care staff at the Georgia Aquarium all seem baffled by the early death of yet another infant beluga. According to the aquarium, the infant was not feeding well and not gaining weight as expected. She became lethargic and then her heart stopped. The aquarium told the Atlanta Journal Constitution that her death “may remain a mystery.”

But this death is not a mystery at all. It’s a classic case of the well-known medical condition Failure To Thrive Syndrome. FTTS is seen in human children and other animals (it’s known as Fading Puppy and Kitten Syndrome in dogs and cats) when they fail to develop normally both physically and mentally.

The syndrome is associated with many diseases, but also with environmental conditions in which a child is either abused or neglected, and is not uncommon in orphanages. It’s also seen in other cognitively complex mammals, such as chimpanzees and elephants, who are kept in artificial conditions. So, the care staff at the aquarium need look no further than their Merck Manual of Medicine to find the answer to the question of why beluga whales do not reproduce well in aquaria and theme parks.

Why do so many marine mammals succumb to FTTS in captivity? Initially, this birth was hailed as the first successful breeding of two captive beluga whales, raising hopes among aquariums that they would be able to find a solution to their dwindling captive populations. But the facts make it perfectly clear why these breeding attempts keep failing and why beluga whales growing up in marine parks will never work.

Beluga whales are highly intelligent, socially complex mammals with brains over two and a half times the size expected for their body mass. Like other smart mammals, they depend upon a long period of learning to assume their roles as parents, siblings, friends and members of their social networks. They’ve adapted to living in fluid groups that in the open ocean can range from just a few individuals to sometimes thousands.

In the wild, a daughter learns from her mother and from other experienced females how to become a mother and raise her own children.

In the wild, female belugas choose when and with whom they want to mate. Their calves remain close to them for 4-5 years or more, during which time a daughter learns from her mother and from other experienced females in the group how to become a mother and raise her own children. When she eventually gives birth, other females in the extended family are present to assist in forming protected and caring nursery groups. This is beluga whale culture. These are the circumstances to which these whales have adapted over millions of years and that they need in order to thrive.

Now look at the situation at the Georgia Aquarium. Maris, the 20-year-old mother, was born at the New York Aquarium, where she was housed with other belugas who were stolen from their wild families. Her mother, Natasha, was taken from her family when she was only four years old. So Maris never had the benefit of a mother who could pass on important cultural information to her about how to raise a child.

Still barely out of childhood, Maris has been transported five times in and out of different facilities. At the Georgia Aquarium she was forced into a situation that left her little choice than to mate with a male, Beethoven, who was chosen not by her, but by the staff. (Beethoven is now on “breeding loan” to Shedd Aquarium in Chicago).

For Maris, there was no autonomy, no continuity, and no opportunity to develop within a natural social and physical environment. She and her two infants were all born into an entirely unnatural world, one to which they are not adapted. One need only see the photographs of the infant beluga surrounded by several humans in wet suits. The Georgia Aquarium describes these scenes as being in the “arms of caregivers”. Although intentions might be good, the presence of humans is not a condition to which infant beluga whales are adapted, and it’s doubtful that either the baby or her mother experienced these human intrusions as the warm and comforting interactions the aquarium claims they were.

Studies of welfare in captive belugas support the assertion that belugas cannot live, let alone thrive, in a setting in which they never evolved. In captivity their lives are shorter and mortality rates are higher. They often die of stress-related diseases which break down their immune system function. They fail to thrive.

So, when the veterinarians and staff at the Georgia Aquarium claim to be flummoxed over the death of two infant belugas, they need look no further than any basic marine mammal ecology textbook to find the answer to why belugas will never thrive in theme parks.

De-Extinction from the Animal’s Perspective

Lori Marino on May 17, 2015

The prospect of de-extinction – “reviving” members of extinct species – is gathering more and more international attention. For example, National Public Radio’s Science Friday (May 15, 2015) featured an interview with molecular paleontologist Beth Shapiro, the author of a new book How to Clone a Mammoth. She discussed how our increasing scientific capabilities in genomics, molecular biology and cloning are bringing us closer to realizing the goals of de-extinction. As a scientist, I get it; these are fascinating issues.

In a previous post, I outlined Four Reasons Why We Should Oppose ‘De-Extinction’. Some of the more thoughtful advocates for de-extinction, like Shapiro, share some of the concerns I expressed about bringing back an animal for whom there is no ecological context. But with all the excitement around the possibility of seeing a live mammoth (or saber-toothed tiger or any other), few, if any, scientists who are involved in de-extinction research seem to be representing the needs and concerns of the animals themselves.

As Shapiro points out, in order to create a “mammoth” who will survive more than a few days, several modern female Asian elephants will need to be impregnated. Modern elephants already have a difficult time reproducing and giving birth in captivity. And a mammoth baby brought to full term in a modern Asian elephant may be too large to pass through the modern elephant birth canal. Cesarean birth for elephants would not be feasible. The procedures any individual subject would have to be put through will essentially amount to a vivisection experiment. Who is willing to take the personal responsibility for making decisions that will probably end the lives of so many elephants, who are already becoming extinct and whose rights as autonomous beings will never be considered in the process of being used in this way?
De-extinction will not be possible without violating any reasonable standards of humane and respectful treatment of our fellow animals.

The long and short of it is this: De-extinction will not be possible without violating any reasonable standards of humane and respectful treatment of our fellow animals. Haven’t elephants withstood enough brutality and exploitation from our species, with poaching, circuses and zoos, and dying of exhaustion literally under the weight of being ridden by tourists?

Where are the arguments on behalf of the sentient beings who will bear the full brunt of these efforts as if they were inanimate scientific curiosities? We tend to forget that a species is comprised of individuals capable of experiencing both pleasure and suffering. Anything we do to a species we do to individual animals.

I am still waiting for Shapiro and the advocates for de-extinction to articulate a good enough reason for overriding the personal welfare of any unfortunate individuals who wouldbe used in this process. These concerns, if they do exist, should be sung loud and clear from the rooftops. If not, then they are in the undesirable position of defending an effort that shows the very opposite of respect and consideration for the welfare of other animals.

Active SETI – WE are the big bad aliens!

Lori Marino on March 29, 2015

Since the 1960s some of the world’s best scientists have been searching for signals from extraterrestrial intelligence using large radio telescopes. This program is known as SETI, the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence. And while this planet has been leaking its own radio signals into space since the 1940s and actively listening for signals, we now have the capability to do more than listen and leak. We can send intentional and powerful radio signals into space. This kind of effort, called Messaging to Extraterrestrial Intelligence (METI) or Active SETI, would differ from standard SETI in that we would broadcast our existence and our ideas in a way that optimizes the chances of a technological extraterrestrial civilization finding out about us.

And it is this idea, Active SETI, that has recently become the topic of heated controversy in academic and scientific circles. The worry is that an extraterrestrial civilization will find out about us and come here and do something, well, bad. As our technology gets better and the data about the possibilities of life on other planets keep pouring in almost daily, many people feel that Active SETI is not just a pipedream but, rather, an issue that is increasingly realistic and, therefore, has to be carefully deliberated.

Recently, a small group of scientists published a statement entitled “Regarding Messaging to Extraterrestrial Intelligence (METI) / Active Searches FOR Extraterrestrial Intelligence (Active SETI)”, in which they propose we should have a vigorous global debate about doing Active SETI before we try it. Their main concern is that “it is impossible to predict whether ETI will be benign or hostile.” No wonder we’re afraid of our chicken wings coming home to roost.

I respect the signatories and their concerns. Many of them are colleagues. But I find it ironic that we should be concerned about some faraway extraterrestrials coming here to destroy the Earth. If that’s our concern, we need look no further than in the mirror! It’s hardly as though everything is fine here on Earth and all we have to worry about is someone else coming from halfway across the galaxy to mess it up. We’re doing that ourselves. Planetary destruction? Check. Mass extinction? Check. Enslavement? Check. Torture and killing? Check.

So what exactly are we afraid of that isn’t already happening right now?

If we’re concerned about becoming the proverbial “ingredient in someone’s soup” (as in the Twilight Zone episode “To Serve Man“), then it’s even more ironic given that we consume other animals by the hundreds of millions every year. (Shark fin soup, anyone?) No wonder we’re afraid of our chicken wings coming home to roost.

The concerns expressed in the Berkeley document are a distraction from the real work we need to do to save this planet and its inhabitants. Articulating anxieties over a remote possibility over which we really have very little control is the easy part. We will decide to either do Active SETI or not. It is a simple binary choice. What is much more difficult, however, is to navigate the complex dimensions of human nature and our effects on life on this planet and find a way out of the “invasion” our species has already enacted.

The Psychology of Animal Exploitation

Lori Marino on December 1, 2014

I recently attended two major animal protection meetings. First was the Performing Animal Welfare Society (PAWS) Captive Wildlife Conference in Burbank, CA, where prominent scientists, veterinarians and advocates came together to discuss the ongoing effort to end the exploitation of captive and wild animals.

The second was the Animal Grantmakers Annual Conference in Phoenix, AZ, where topics spanned the spectrum from homeless dogs and cats to marine mammal captivity.

At both meetings, I was struck by the stark contrast between the improving situation for homeless dogs and cats and the deteriorating situation for other animals in every other arena I can think of: factory farming, invasive research, entertainment, drive fisheries, poaching, human-nonhuman animal conflict, etc.

Why is there such a disparity in success within the animal protection community? Why have we succeeded in reducing the number of homeless pets being killed in this country each year from 17 million in the early 1990s to 3 million now (still too many, of course) while, in the last 40 years we have managed to wipe out half of the world’s wildlife population and continue to cause terrible suffering to so many other kinds of animals on a global level?

The problem cannot be lack of effort – there are currently about 20,000 animal protection organizations of all stripes globally. Nor can it be lack of resources and support – there are well-funded organizations with memberships that run into the millions. Yet advances are often marginal and setbacks serious.

What is going on?

Reminders of our mortality create a strong psychological need to dominate, exploit and abuse other animals.

This is the question my co-author Michael Mountain and I set out to answer in a paper that will be published in April in the journal Anthrozoos, but is already fast-tracked online here. (You need a subscription to Anthrozoos to access the full text.)

The paper, entitled “Denial of Death and the Relationship between Humans and Other Animals”, explores the psychology of how and why we humans are driven to separate ourselves from our fellow animals and treat them as resources rather than kin.

Our paper draws on the work of cultural anthropologist Ernest Becker, whose Pulitzer Prize-winning 1973 book The Denial of Death explored, as its central thesis, the fact that when we humans are reminded of our own mortality (even unconsciously), we tend to deny our mortal animal nature and any equality with the rest of the animal world. Instead, we are driven to claim superiority and human exceptionalism in an attempt to transcend our mortality.

There is a robust experimental psychology literature on Terror Management Theory (how we deal with the anxiety of mortality awareness) showing that reminders of our own mortality create a strong psychological need to proclaim that “I am not an animal” and thus drive the need to dominate, exploit and abuse other animals.

Michael and I realized that Becker’s work opened a door to understanding why the efforts of the animal protection community are so incommensurate with their results. To a greater extent than most of us have realized, the answers are to be found in deep psychological forces which may have shaped much of our relationship with the other animals.

Michael has written a post entitled “Why the Animal Protection Movement Has Failed”, in which he outlines the main arguments in our paper. You’ll find it on his website at Earth in Transition and it’s also cross-posted here on The Kimmela Center website.

Why the Animal Protection Movement Has Failed

Michael Mountain on December 1, 2014

Guest post by Michael Mountain

(A new paper by Dr. Lori Marino and Michael Mountain explores the psychology behind why we humans continue to reduce the other animals to the status of resources, commodities and property – even at risk of driving much of life on Earth to extinction.)

I thought it couldn’t be that difficult. After all, it had worked with homeless pets. In less than 20 years, the number of dogs and cats being killed in shelters in the United States had dropped from more than 17 million a year to around three million.

Surely something similar, with an approach that appealed to people’s better nature and didn’t slam them with guilt and shame could make a difference for all the other kinds of animals, too.

But within three or four years of leaving my work as president and one of the founders of Best Friends Animal Society, it was clear that what had worked for homeless pets wasn’t the rule; it was the exception to the rule.

In every other sphere of animal protection, the situation is getting worse, not better.In every other sphere of animal protection – from factory farming to vivisection to wildlife to entertainment – the situation was getting worse all the time, not better. The thousands, of animal rights and welfare organizations, large and small, professional and grassroots, were barely making a dent in the situation.

And for every dent they did make, like attempts to get some of the factory farms to provide a few extra inches of space in cages where the animals spend their entire lives, the destruction and abuse would just balloon out in another direction. From 1950 to 2013, the number of animals slaughtered in factory farms in the United States alone ballooned from 100 million to more than nine billion. And, like a nuclear plant in meltdown, those same factory farms generate chemical poisons and waste that contaminate land and water for hundreds of miles around.

Meanwhile, almost half the birds that once flew across North America have vanished. Most of the great iconic species in Africa – elephants, lions, rhinos, giraffes, many more – will all be gone in about 25 years. There are almost no fish left in the oceans. Sea birds come home to their families with bellies full of plastic waste. We’ve created a way of living that’s destroying our home and bringing on a mass extinction that will most likely consume us, too.

The “what you can do to help” messages that worked so well in the no-kill movement simply don’t apply in the wider world. Sure, you can carpool, ride a bike, go vegan, join a march, save water, whatever. But even the device you’re likely reading this post on (and the one I’m writing it on) is just adding to the problem, powered by lithium that involves more destruction to the homes of the animals we think we’re helping to protect.

And while, yes, the situation is better for homeless pets, that doesn’t mean it’s better overall for dogs and cats. Most of them still come from factory farms – puppy mills that churn out “pure” breeds so genetically deformed their lives are a painful misery. These designer dogs still make up most of the pets in this country.

Why are we doing this? Why have we created a way of living that’s destroying the only home we have and bringing on a mass extinction that will most likely consume us, too? And all in the name of “progress.” Why can’t we stop?

The Denial of Death

Those are the questions Dr. Lori Marino and I set out to answer in a paper that will be published in March in the journal Anthrozoos, but is already fast-tracked online here. (You need a subscription to Anthrozoos to access the full text.)

The paper, entitled “Denial of Death and the Relationship between Humans and Other Animals”, explores the psychology of how and why we humans feel compelled to treat our fellow animals as commodities and resources – and the whole natural world as our property.

The reason lies at the core of the human condition. It’s probably best summed up by the French author Albert Camus, who wrote:

“Humans are the only creatures who don’t want to be what they are.”

And what we absolutely don’t want to be is an animal.

Our central problem, as humans, is that as much as we reach for the stars and create profoundly beautiful works of art, we cannot escape the knowledge that, just like all the other animals, we are destined to die, go into the ground, and become food for worms.

In his Pulitzer Prize-winning book The Denial of Death, social anthropologist Ernest Becker wrote that the awareness we humans have of our personal mortality creates a level of anxiety that drives much of our behavior. Certainly other animals experience bursts of terror in the face of death, but for us humans it’s a lifelong awareness, and one that brings about a chronic level of anxiety.

And so, to alleviate the anxiety we feel over our animal nature, we try to separate ourselves from our fellow animals and to exert control over the natural world. We tell ourselves that we’re superior to them and that they exist for our benefit. We treat them as commodities and resources, use them as biomedical “models” or “systems” in research, and force them to perform for our entertainment.

We even enshrine this abuse in our most sacred belief systems. (The Catholic Catechism, for example, states that “Animals, like plants and inanimate beings, are by nature destined for the common good of past, present, and future humanity.”)

To the extent that companion animals fare better, this is largely because we’ve come to treat them as part of our human “in-group” and relate to them a bit like children.

Our belief systems also offer us hope in some form of immortality that’s not accorded the other animals. These and other ways of distancing ourselves from the rest of nature are so embedded in our cultures that they’re typically not even questioned, much less stopped.

But, as in all forms of denial, we cannot escape what we are. And the more we try to bend nature to our will, the more we end up harming the planet and all its living creatures, quite possibly beyond repair.

The more we try to bend nature to our will, the more we end up harming the planet and all its living creatures.Becker’s theory about the denial of death has given rise to a field of psychology known as Terror Management Theory (TMT) – how we humans try to manage our terror of death. TMT has produced some fascinating studies demonstrating that when people are reminded of their mortality, even unconsciously, they have more negative attitudes toward animals.

Denial of death comes in many flavors, and Becker is not the only person who’s written about it. Stephen Cave’s book Immortality: The Quest to Live Forever and How It Drives Civilization explores four major ways we humans attempt to deny our mortality:

life extension through medical and scientific developments
bodily resurrection as promised by many religions
survival of the soul, a non-physical aspect of ourselves
leaving a legacy, like fame or fortune, to ensure that our name will live on, or raising children with the aim of living on through them.

Whether or not any of these approaches or belief systems may actually work, none of them has successfully relieved our existential anxiety. Underlying them all is our fundamental need to demonstrate to ourselves that we’re not animals, which drives our need to control the other animals.

But telling ourselves that we’re not animals does not make it so. And the more we try to “subdue” the Earth, take “dominion” over the other animals, and bend nature to our will, the worse the situation becomes, to the point where, in denying our own nature, we’ve ended up causing destruction to the planet and all its living creatures, possibly beyond repair.

What to Do

There’s no simple answer to turning this around, any more than there’s a simple answer to how to bring an end to war or poverty or any other evil of the human condition.

But, as any psychologist can tell you, the first step toward stopping compulsive, destructive behavior is to understand what’s causing it. At least then we have the ability to see ourselves more clearly.

And for those of us working to relieve the suffering of the billions of animals caught up in this nightmare, an awareness of the psychological issues behind human behavior can at least give us some perspective on why this work can be so frustrating.

Albert Einstein wrote:

A human being is a part of the whole called by us universe, a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feeling as something separated from the rest, a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us.

Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty.

Any of us can begin to do this, individually or together. And when we reach out to make our peace with our fellow animals, not only does this make an immediate difference for them; it also helps us to feel connected once again to nature, and so to our own true nature.

That’s because when we feel connected to nature, we’re connected to life. And that in itself provides relief from our debilitating anxiety about death.

Michael Mountain is a member of the board of The Kimmela Center for Animal Advocacy and the former president of Best Friends Animal Society. Michael assists in the work of several animal protection organizations and writes a blog at www.earthintransition.org.

Orcas Are Not Thriving at SeaWorld

Lori Marino on November 24, 2014

In a September 4, 2014, guest column titled “SeaWorld Responds” published in Florida Today, SeaWorld veterinarian Dr. Chris Dold said:

“[I] can unequivocally state that our whales, along with every other animal in our parks, are thriving, both mentally and physically.”

But how do you define “thriving”? According to Thomas White, who teaches ethics at Loyola Marymount University:

“Full, healthy growth and development of the traits, skills and dispositions that allow a being to have a satisfying and successful life as a member of that species.”

Thriving has everything to do with a species’ characteristics shaped by evolution and adaptation. And, as if it weren’t self-evident enough that a species adapted to long distance travel, hunting, and lifetime social relationships is fundamentally at odds with being in a marine circus like SeaWorld, we can still fall back on the abundant empirical scientific data which show that orca nature is fundamentally incompatible with conditions at SeaWorld.

Dr. Dold goes on to say:

“What’s interesting to me is that so much of those who criticize us are basing that on their own opinions.”

We are all familiar with the exasperating climate change deniers who refuse to acknowledge that we humans are creating global climate catastrophes and mass extinctions. They are best known for their data-poor rhetoric and, especially, their insistence that anthropocentric climate change is still a matter of debate. In the face of the overwhelming evidence they continue to maintain that the issue is still “just some people’s opinion.”

The science tells us unequivocally that orcas cannot thrive, or even survive for very long, at places like SeaWorld.As most of us have figured out, it is best not to take the bait of those who try to draw us into endless battles that have already been settled by facts and evidence.

The same can be said for the so-called “evolution versus creationism” debate or, back in the 1960’s and 70’s, the “debate” over the health effects of tobacco smoke manufactured by the cigarette industry to confuse the public.

And now we can add SeaWorld’s arguments to the long list of failed crusades currently being kept on artificial life support.

SeaWorld wants to convince the public that the question of whether the orcas at their marine circuses are thriving is a matter of legitimate debate and differences of opinion. But the issue has, in fact, been settled. We now have the science that tells us unequivocally that orcas cannot thrive, or even survive for very long, at places like SeaWorld.

Here are a few findings from the scientific literature:

Annual mortality rates for orcas are 2.5 times higher in captivity than in the wild.
Most captive orcas die by the early 20’s (wild orcas can live to 60-90 years old).
Captive orcas exhibit several behavioral abnormalities that are rare or absent in the wild and symptomatic of psychological stress and trauma. These include hyper-aggression toward other whales, swimming in a stereotyped manner, maternal rejection of newborns, self-injurious behaviors such as breaking the teeth on hard surfaces, and serious and lethal aggression toward humans.

These are not “opinions”; they’re facts. And those of us in the scientific and animal advocacy fields need to call SeaWorld on their deceptive statements.

Even more important, we should not let the rhetoric and empty arguments distract us from our real goal, which is not to win an already-settled debate with SeaWorld but to bring an end to dolphin and whale captivity.