SeaWorld’s Announcement: A Good Start, but …

Lori Marino on March 18, 2016

In a letter to the Los Angeles Times, SeaWorld CEO Joel Manby announced today that SeaWorld is ending captive breeding of orcas in its parks. But he intends for this last generation of orcas to live out their lives in concrete tanks at SeaWorld, and apparently intends no changes for all the other dolphins and whales and other animals that the company holds captive for profit.

SeaWorld’s announcement has been met with mixed feelings by the marine mammal advocacy community. David Phillips, Executive Director of the Earth Island Institute, expressed concern about the support that SeaWorld is receiving from the Humane Society of the U.S.:

Because of the stamp of approval from HSUS to SeaWorld keeping all orcas in captivity, it may significantly hurt the growing effort to bring about orca retirement to independent seaside sanctuaries.

So, while I do think it is important to support this step forward, it doesn’t mean that our work is done. We must keep up the pressure to end the capture, trade, breeding, circus performances, and holding of cetaceans captivity and for retirement of all captives.

On CNN.com, marine biologist and author Carl Safina weighed in on the critical issue of how and when the orcas would be retired altogether:

I and some others would like to see orcas retired to net pens in natural waters. This would be analogous to retirement sanctuaries for elephants and chimpanzees  … Let us now devise a realistic, humane, properly funded long-term plan for retirement sanctuaries for orcas.

And author Tim Zimmerman echoed this concern in an article in Outside Magazine:

Even with an immediate end to captive breeding, killer whales are long-lived, and SeaWorld could have some of its younger killer whales in its pools for 30 or more years … This leaves SeaWorld with two costly choices: weathering ongoing criticism for keeping killer whales in its existing pools or investing in developing sea-based sanctuaries.

Responses like these point to the one inescapable conclusion that SeaWorld’s CEO is still avoiding: that while stopping the breeding of captive orcas is an important step forward, the only way the company will be free of continued criticism from animal protection advocates, scientists, and the public is to retire the orcas and all the other cetaceans to sea sanctuaries.

Coastal sanctuaries are the only ethical and practical solution to SeaWorld’s dilemma.

On interviews throughout the day, Joel Manby responded to the sanctuary question with the classic crisis-PR maneuver of ignoring the question and going off on a tangent – in this case by saying that captive orcas cannot be released into the wild, thus creating the impression that retiring the orcas to a coastal sanctuary is the same as releasing them into the ocean. Nothing could be further from the truth. Coastal sanctuaries are the only ethical and practical solution to SeaWorld’s dilemma. And sooner or later SeaWorld is going to have to bite the bullet again, just as it has done today with the issue of captive breeding.

Last December, Dr. Naomi Rose, marine mammal scientist for the Animal Welfare Institute, and I presented a day-long public workshop entitled Sea-Pen Sanctuaries: Progressing Toward Better Welfare for Captive Cetaceans at the Society for Marine Mammalogy conference in San Francisco. Throughout the day, an A-list of marine mammal veterinarians, scientists, sanctuary directors and marine engineers outlined the necessary steps towards building a coastal sanctuary for orcas and other cetaceans.

Several realistic plans exist to achieve the goal of retiring captive orcas and others to sanctuaries within the next five years. We would welcome SeaWorld as an authentic collaborator in this overall effort. Only then will the company be the welfare and conservation organization it pretends to be now.

As Tilikum Ails, Questions for SeaWorld

Lori Marino on March 9, 2016

SeaWorld announced today that Tilikum, the orca at the center of the Blackfish documentary, is suffering from a drug-resistant lung infection (likely bacterial pneumonia) and is close to death.

The emotional outrage being heaped upon SeaWorld for its exploitation of these animals is fully justified. But the ongoing charade perpetuated by theme parks about the welfare of captive cetaceans also demands a response.

Let’s look at the facts based on the peer-reviewed scientific literature:

First: Tilikum is succumbing to the most common cause of death in captive cetaceans: pneumonia1. In today’s video announcement from SeaWorld, their veterinarian correctly notes that pneumonia is a cause of illness and death in wild cetaceans. But while wild orcas do die of pneumonia, its prevalence in captive cetaceans begs the question: How are they contracting this disease in the protected environment of captivity?

Second: Why, at the age of 35, is Tilikum considered “old”? SeaWorld correctly notes that the average life expectancy of male orcas in the wild is 30 (with the maximum about 60). But they also claim that captivity is a safer and healthier environment. So why are orcas like Tilikum not living to a ripe old age? This question has never been satisfactorily answered by the captivity industry.

Growing evidence of increased stress hormone levels in captive cetaceans lends alarming support to the hypothesized connection between captivity, chronic stress and mortality.

Third: Captive orcas (and other cetaceans) are routinely given antibiotics to ward off infections and, in particular, the systemic effects of bacteria from tooth decay brought about by habitual grating of the teeth on gates and tank walls. As it has been pointed out2, the immunosuppressive effects of chronic antibiotic use are well established in all animals, including humans. Tilikum is dying of an antibiotic-resistant strain of bacteria considered “difficult to treat” by the SeaWorld veterinarian in the video. This must have been foreseen by the veterinary staff, who know full well that chronic dosing of antibiotics leads to antibiotic resistance. If SeaWorld is trying to hold at bay bacterial infections from tooth decay through the continual use of antibiotics, and the continual use of antibiotics leads to drug-resistant infections, they have put the animals in an untenable situation.

Finally, captive cetaceans routinely succumb to illnesses that are known to be associated with stress-induced immunosuppression. The mechanism by which this occurs has been known for many years and is on the curriculum for every college student in an introductory physiology or psychology course. All animals, including humans, respond to stress by activating a wide array of behavioral and physiological responses that are collectively referred to as the stress response. Chronic stress leads to immune system dysfunction and, eventually, serious health problems3-5. There is growing evidence of increased stress hormone levels in captive cetaceans 6-8, which lends alarming support to the hypothesized connection between captivity, chronic stress and mortality.

In the Oath adopted by the American Veterinary Medical Association, veterinarians – including, presumably, the veterinarians at SeaWorld – solemnly swear “to use my scientific knowledge and skills for the benefit of society through the protection of animal health and welfare, the prevention and relief of animal suffering, the conservation of animal resources, the promotion of public health, and the advancement of medical knowledge.”

But the facts stated above tell a story of a solemn responsibility distorted by industry demands. It is time for the SeaWorld veterinarians to stop acting like spin doctors and start acting like real doctors.

Citations

1 The Merck Veterinary Manual (2015). http://www.merckvetmanual.com/mvm/exotic_and_laboratory_animals/marine_mammals/bacterial_diseases_of_marine_mammals.html

2Jett J & Ventre J (2012). Orca (Orcinus orca) captivity and vulnerability to mosquito-transmitted viruses. Journal of Marine Animals and Their Ecology 5(2): 9-16.

3Broom DM and Johnson KG (1993). Stress and Animal Welfare. Chapman & Hall: London, UK.

4Dohms JE & Metz A (1991). Stress-mechanisms of immunosuppression. Veterinary Immunology and Immunopathology 30(1): 89-109.

5 Sapolsky RM, Romero LM and Munck A (2000). How do glucocorticoids influence stress responses? Integrating permissive, suppressive, stimulatory, and preparative actions. Endocrine Review 21: 55-89.

6Clark LS, Cowan DF, Pfeiffer DC (2006). Morphological changes in the Atlantic bottlenose dolphin (Tursiops truncatus) adrenal gland associated with chronic stress. Journal of Comparative Pathology 135: 208-216.

7Spoon TR and Romano TA (2012). Neuroimmunological response of beluga whales (Delphinapterus leucas) to translocation and a novel social environment. Brain, Behavior and Immunity 26: 122-131.

8Ugaz C, Valdez RA, Romano MC and Galindo F (2013). Behavior and salivary cialis 20mg cortisol of captive dolphins (Tursiops truncatus) kept in open and closed facilities. Journal of Veterinary Behavior 8: 285-290.

A Mob by Any Other Name

Lori Marino on February 18, 2016

The world is horrified by the recent upsetting story of an infant Franciscana dolphin who was taken out of the water by beachgoers in Argentina and passed around as a prop for selfies, and who then died. The unfortunate infant could cialis sans ordonnance not maintain body temperature, and she likely became dehydrated when out of the water.

But her death is so much more than just a case of a manhandled animal. Her story is a microcosm of what our species does to other animals every day, treating them as objects for our benefit, with value only as long as they provide entertainment.

It is difficult not to see the connection between how this young dolphin was used and what happens at the institutionalized versions known as zoos, aquariums and circuses. The only difference is that one has to pay for a ticket to gawk at, touch or ride on the animals at one of these facilities. But the psychology is the same.

Treating them as objects for our benefit, with value only as long as they provide entertainment.

Zoos and aquariums offer visitors the opportunity to see animals who are also “taken out of the water” and placed in artificial circumstances that often lead to abuse and death. There is little difference between what happened to this infant and what has been happening to dolphins and whales for decades in theme parks. Out of their natural, physical and social environment, these animals not only cannot thrive but often cannot even survive. This is why high mortality rates, low survival rates, abnormal behaviors, and stress-related diseases are rampant in the dolphin and whale captivity industry.

The figures speak for themselves: In the span of just a few months, four marine mammals have perished prematurely at SeaWorld San Antonio: an 18-year old orca, a 12-year old Pacific white-sided dolphin, a 2-year-old beluga whale, and a newborn beluga.

And since its opening in 2005, there have been five premature deaths of belugas at the Georgia Aquarium: a 17-year-old male, a 25-year-old female, and a 21-year-old female and her two calves, each less than a month old. In the case of the mother and her calves, the youngsters failed to thrive, and photos of trainers and other aquarium staff in the water handling the newborns are eerily similar to what happened on the beach. Though the aquarium staff may have been trying to save the infants, their attempts are poignant failures of understanding of who these animals really are and what they need to thrive.

While the world expresses shock and dismay over the death of the infant on the beach in Argentina, we should remind ourselves that this incident sits within a wider context of the exploitation of nonhuman animals for entertainment, and an industry that not only condones but promotes the kind of behavior that leads to worldwide animal abuse and exploitation.

Buying a ticket to be part of the audience at a dolphin or whale show is basically no different from being part of the mob on that Argentinian beach.

The REAL Puppy-Monkey-Baby

Lori Marino on February 10, 2016

puppy-monkey-baby
A soft drink commercial that features a strange chimeric creature called the PuppyMonkeyBaby (a beast that combines human baby legs, a monkey body and a pug dog’s head) premiered during Super Bowl 50. The weird dog-monkey-baby animal is supposed to represent the “awesome” combo of Mountain Dew, juice and caffeine, but many people call it “creepy “, “scary” and just downright “disturbing “. There are even calls for it to never be shown again. As far as many, perhaps most, people are concerned, the idea of a dog-monkey-baby makes for one horrifying creation. How come?

The answer would seem to lie with the fact that we implicitly recognize that such a chimera would never exist in nature and represents something unnatural, even monstrous. A PuppyMonkeyBaby is just not “meant to be.”

Chimeras: a life of confinement, exploitation and invasive procedures that invariably ends in death.

But chimeras (genetic mixtures of different types of animals) like these are not just advertising gimmicks; they are already being created on a routine basis in laboratories around the globe. For example, there’s the MouseHuman: mice who have had some of their brain cells replaced with human brain cells, and who, as a result, have better memories and learning abilities. And the PigHuman: pigs with human hearts that can be “harvested ” and implanted in human beings. And the SpiderGoat: goats who have been engineered to secrete spider’s silk in their milk. (Silk is useful for a variety of applications in materials science and medicine, and it’s hard to get spiders to make enough of it.)

These victims of genetic technology are touted as “living laboratories” in whom human researchers can manipulate the very nature of other living beings for medical and scientific “progress “. While the Mountain Dew commercial shows PuppyMonkeyBaby dancing down a hallway at the end, nothing like this happens to the real chimeras. Instead they are subjected to a life of confinement, exploitation and invasive procedures that invariably ends in death.

Most of the “ethical ” questions or objections to this kind of research focus on the potential risk to humans, like concerns over whether any genetically engineered animals will get into our food supply or cause some kind of out-of-control disease. Little ink is spilled over the moral dimensions of creating and using those sentient beings themselves. Yet genetic engineering of animals comes at a high price. Many of the embryos that undergo genetic engineering procedures do not survive, and of those that do survive only a small proportion (often as few as one out of a hundred) carry the genetic alteration of interest.

This means that increasingly larger numbers of genetically modified animals are being produced, manipulated and killed than ever before. Their cloned offspring often suffer devastating health effects, such as under-developed organs, skeletal and weight abnormalities, and a vastly shortened lifespan.

Beyond the obvious health and welfare problems suffered by these animals, using them in such an egregiously invasive way violates any reasonable arguments for fairness in human-nonhuman relationships and erodes their standing as sentient individuals with a basic right not to be turned into something artificial. (A recent review of these issues can be found here.)

But rather than giving thought to any of these considerations, it is “full speed ahead” for these new genetic techniques. And when government steps in to limit funding for these highly questionable projects, the new bioengineers simply head to the private sector, where funding for these new creations is to be had at every turn.

PuppyMonkeyBabies aren’t just TV commercial fantasies any longer. Animal chimeras are being produced in laboratories all over the world. We need to take every opportunity to voice our concerns and opposition to such monstrous activities. If we don’t do it, no one will.

Sea Sanctuaries for Cetaceans: A Growing Reality

Lori Marino on December 19, 2015

This past Sunday, December 13th, Dr. Lori Marino, Executive Director of The Kimmela Center, and Dr. Naomi Rose, marine mammal scientist for the Animal Welfare Institute, presented a day-long public workshop entitled Sea-Pen Sanctuaries: Progressing Toward Better Welfare for Captive Cetaceans.

The workshop focused on the key issues relevant to developing and maintaining a permanent sea sanctuary in North America for formerly captive and injured/sick whales and dolphins. There are sanctuaries for other large highly social and wide-ranging mammals, such as the Performing Animal Welfare Society (PAWS) sanctuary in California, but there are none anywhere in the world yet for dolphins and whales.

The standing-room-only workshop was held at the 2015 Society for Marine Mammalogy conference in San Francisco and included presentations from some of the most experienced scientists, veterinary clinicians, engineers, attorneys, trainers, business experts and advocates in this field.

Wildlife veterinarian Dr. Heather Rally discussed the particular psychological and medical issues that would need to be addressed when caring for dolphins or whales who come from years of exploitation in the theme-park industry. She described the effort to develop a sea sanctuary for cetaceans as “an unprecedented undertaking for the scientific and veterinary communities in this country, with great potential to dramatically improve that lives of captive orcas in the U. S.”

Don Baur, an attorney previously on the Marine Mammal Commission, explored the legal issues that would need to be navigated to set up a sanctuary on the North American coast.

John Hargrove, a former orca trainer at SeaWorld and author of Beneath the Surface, presented information about the striking differences between sanctuary life and theme park life for orcas from a training perspective.

Ed Stewart, cofounder of PAWS, laid out the common challenges of creating a sanctuary for large wild animals either on land or in the sea.

Joan Gonzalvo, a biologist with the Tethys Research Institute, discussed similar efforts for formerly captive bottlenose dolphins in Italy.

Courtney Vail, campaigns manager for Whale and Dolphin Conservation, brought us up to date on further ongoing efforts in Europe.

Rob Laidlaw, Executive Director of Zoocheck, discussed candidate sites for a sanctuary in Canada and some of the advantages and disadvantages of locating such a facility in various provinces.

And Michael Parks, field engineer for the Keiko Project, educated everyone on the “nuts and bolts” of building a sanctuary for orcas.

The audience consisted mainly of marine mammal scientists, advocates and business experts, along with some members of the captive theme park industry.

All in all, the workshop was a valuable exploration of the new frontier in our changing relationship with dolphins and whales: from captives, born and bred for our entertainment, to fellow beings who deserve respite from the ways our species continues to abuse and exploit them, both in captivity and in the wild.

There’s Nothing "Natural" About SeaWorld’s New Plan

Lori Marino on November 10, 2015

It didn’t take long for the major media to figure out that the latest announcement from SeaWorld was largely smoke and mirrors.

Yesterday, in the wake of mounting protests over its treatment of animals and hemorrhaging revenue from its downwardly spiraling public attendance, SeaWorld announced it would end the “theatrical killer whale experience” in San Diego by the end of 2016.

SeaWorld’s chief executive Joel Manby said:

“We are listening to our guests, evolving as a company, we are always changing. In 2017 we will launch an all-new orca experience focused on natural environment [of whales]. 2016 will be the last year of our theatrical killer whale experience in San Diego.”

This “natural environment”, called the Blue World Project, is basically a larger tank, motorized water currents, and live fish and kelp. Instead of their current offerings, SeaWorld promises a more educational form of entertainment.

Killer whales have three basic needs: space, social complexity and choice, and mental challenges. None of these are addressed
in SeaWorld’s new plan.

But none of the real issues have been addressed, and this new plan is essentially an attempt to create a distraction from the critical issues for which SeaWorld continues to draw criticism. Just for starters, SeaWorld will continue its “theatrical” orca shows at its other two U.S. facilities in Orlando and San Antonio. And the company intends to continue breeding orcas for entertainment at all three parks. From an orca’s point of view, nothing is basically going to change.

In order to thrive, killer whales have three basic needs: space, social complexity and choice, and mental challenges. None of these are being addressed in SeaWorld’s new plan:

Space: SeaWorld says its new tanks in the proposed Blue World expansion are going to be twice the size of their current tanks, claiming that “the enlarged environment will provide killer whales with even more dynamic opportunities. It will support the whales’ broad range of behaviors and provide choices that can challenge them both physically and mentally.”

But the new tanks are a minute fraction the size of even the smallest orca natural habitats. The new 10 million-gallon tank will be 50 feet deep and have a 1.5-acre surface area. Orcas naturally travel over 75 miles a day and dive to depths of over 300 feet. The new tanks would not even accommodate diving to a depth of two body lengths in whales, who can grow to 32 feet long. The new tanks may seem large from a human perspective, but from an orca perspective the change is negligible.

Social Complexity and Choice: SeaWorld’s plans continue the same model of forcing the whales into artificial social groups in which mothers and children are separated and individuals from different natural subpopulations and cultures are thrown together and forced to mate. Orcas are highly intelligent and socially complex animals who naturally live in cultural subgroups in which every individual has a role in the social network. Mothers and children are deeply bonded and stay together sometimes for life, and life is based on a long period of learning from each other. Whether hunting, playing, resting or traveling, orcas always travel in groups with other family members and friends. Their complex social structure, long-term relationships, and exquisite cultural traditions are comparable to those of humans and elephants.

Orcas are not interchangeable units and cannot be moved around and forced together in unnatural ways without severe consequences for their mental health.

Mental Challenges: SeaWorld claims its new tanks are going to be more “naturalistic”, providing the whales with more enrichment features which “maximizes the health and wellbeing of the animals,” like a fast running water current to simulate the dynamism of the natural environment.

But orca brains are among the largest of all living mammals, more than two and a half times the size one would expect for their body size, and more convoluted (i.e. more grey matter surface area) than even human brains. Their brains have highly elaborated structures that are thought to be involved in self-awareness, social cognition, and emotions. In other words, orcas are among the most psychologically and behaviorally complex animals on the planet.

Animals with brains like orcas are not enriched by unchanging, one-dimensional features of their environment that pose no new challenges. The new features of Blue World do not even come close to the complexity and mental challenges they enjoy in the wild.

SeaWorld cannot provide a “natural environment” for these whales while ignoring the facts about who orcas are.

To make a real change SeaWorld would need to do two things:

First, end the (mostly artificial) breeding and display of orcas for the benefit of entertainment and ticket sales.

And second, assume leadership in the growing movement towards sea pen sanctuaries for orcas and other marine mammals, where they can either be rehabilitated and returned to the ocean or, at very least, spend the rest of their lives in a setting that’s as close as possible to the open ocean.

Only then will SeaWorld be the welfare and conservation organization it only pretends to be now.