Sea World

[landrews]

Peeps aren't using their critical thinking skills. Sea World is the largest research, conservation, and rehabilitation facility for marine mammals in the world. Captive-born whales can not be "returned" to the wild.

:doesn'tunderstandpeepswhotakeonesourceatfacevalue:

Comments

[landrews]

I haven't read that book, but I do know the issues and have a long-term interest in and pretty deep knowledge of the biology, science, behavioral issues and methods used to keep and work around marine mammals, as well as a pretty solid handle on the business and politics. I'm also trained in land animal wildlife rescue and am knowledgable about marine rescue of mammals and turtles. Keeping any healthy wild animal for any reason, including research, is an extremely complex issue. What peeps jumping on the bandwagon based on one facet of doing so don't seem to realize is the domino effect of consequences that they don't even know will be affected by the demands they are making.

The reason we know all that we know about large marine mammals is largely BECAUSE we have them in captivity. The circumstances of keeping them in captivity have changed dramatically over the decades of humans' ability to keep them so. I do think it's stupid for some countries to try to 'develop' their own situations rather than turning to the international community- this is the only reason some large mammals are still wild-caught. And now that we know so much about them, and the science for tracking, observing, and studying animals in the field has grown so much, it isn't reasonable to take healthy animals from the wild.

The captive population of large marine mammals is, with our current science, non-sustainable. With the knowledge we have now, there's no reason to not let the practice of keeping them die a natural death or later be maintained through future-developed science. BUT boycotting Sea World, condemning it for what had been acceptable practice in the past and conditions that can't be changed overnight because these animals are dependent on it now, and trying to hurt it financially only hurts all the amazing research and rescue of ill, injured, and endangered-by-polluted-environment sea life that they perform. Thousands of wild animals benefit from their good work, funded in large part by their marine parks and the draw of their captive wild life for people who will never ever have the ability to see most of the animals they see there in the wild. I'm pretty certain many lives, hearts, and minds have been converted to stewardship and future conservation by visits to Sea World :-)

All these peeps jumping on without really knowing the complexity of and reasons for maintaining captive populations of any wild animal remind me of the uneducated uproar regarding horse slaughter in the US. Because of all the media and petitions signed by people who didn't bother to do their homework, and even though the AVMA and the US Humane Society advised against doing so, our elected politicians banned horse slaughter and then had to very quietly re-instate it when the 'unintended' but quite knowable consequences hit. (Or all the horse peeps who want to ban racing when most of the medicine and science we rely on to keep our horses, even our pasture fluff, happy and ticking along, is funded by the racing industry :-))

Whoops- didn't mean to rant on this at all :-/ I know it's almost useless to do so. It's like trying to convince peeps that hunting is actually a useful tool to keep animal populations thriving or selective slash and burn can be good for meadowlands.

[megfuzzle]

I respect that you have a well informed viewpoint! Thanks for sharing!