The Vancouver acquarium was one of the top cetacean health, care, and research institutes in the world. It was one of the models of how good a captive and public educational environment can be. Thanks to campaigns like this one, they had to close down and transfer their rescue orcas to the only organizations that could take them... Which turned out to be SeaWorld, where they died shortly after. Of course, SeaWorld is notorious for terrible conditions for the animals.
It drives me nuts that kids growing up in my hometown now don't understand these magnificent creatures, don't feel any special connection to them. For many in my generation, it feels like a betrayal on the part of our local environmentalist movement. They killed our orcas and disconnected our children from one of the most amazing parts of their environment. They destroyed the model that powered legislative attempts to protect cetaceans around the world.
We had a similar story with the beavers in Stanley park - our environmenal lobby campaigned to have the city stop dredging "Beaver lake", because it disturbed the beavers. They stopped dredging, the lake filled with silt and most of the beavers (and other wildlife) died. Now they're debating starting dredging again, to save the one surviving beaver.
For people like me that care about our environment and the animals we share it with, it's rage inducing. The naturalist fallacy at work. :/
"They killed our orcas" - really? 2 Belugas just died in captivity at that aquarium -it wasn't environmentalists who killed them, it was the aquarium. I have been to that aquarium and it was just depressing. Watching the Orca swim upside down around and around in circles was the saddest thing I've ever seen. Making intelligent creatures perform tricks for profit is hardly a noble enterprise.
Have you seen Blackfish? http://www.blackfishmovie.com/
Watch it and then come back and tell us that Tilikum had any kind of good life. These animals belong in the wild. They don't need to be "rescued". The idea that gawking at magnificent animals in captivity is somehow required to instill respect for them is ridiculous. The best way to respect all animals is to leave them alone.
Counterpoint: The animals they are rescuing would have died in the wild.
I personally think that although it'll make children watching the local news cry, we should help animals and immediately return them to the wild. If the only way to help them means taking them into captivity, we should not help.
> we should help animals and immediately return them to the wild. If the only way to help them means taking them into captivity, we should not help.
It depends on the animal of course, and if they're social animals or prefer solitude. There are many birds, injured beyond rehabilitation, that seem to do fine in captivity (so long as it's a good centre with lots of space -- most places don't though which is sad. The Cincinnati Zoo is an example of a good centre for rehabilitation).
When it comes to dolphins and whales, I totally agree though. They're simply too big and they evolved to travel massive distances. If they can be treated and nursed for a few weeks and immediately released, I think that's the best thing.
Why should aquatic specialists decide if they'd survive in the wild? If they are healthy enough to at least be able to find others of their kind, is it not better to die free than live long in a cage?
Yeah, as long as you're talking about permanently domesticating an animal so they'll be 'cage dolphins' or whatever. Otherwise that's absolutely not true.
You misunderstood. The point is, an animal will always attempt to keep living regardless of how painful or hopeless the situation. It's a basic instinct.
Well that's what we've perfected in animal farming isn't it. Cows, pigs, chicken injected with vaccines, given food and hormones that makes them live long enough to produce offspring and maximum human consumable resources. Their emotional and psychological needs are the least of our concerns.
I am with "letting wild animals be wild". If an animal can be patched up and let back into the wild after a couple of week, great. I hate aquariums and zoos for this reason. Its the human equivalent of https://popularresistance.org/deep-racism-the-forgotten-hist...
I would rather prefer reserves. e.g Nairobi national park, serengeti, mara. Really large spaces where animals can remain wild but conservation programs can still take place.
Vancouver aquarium in its Vancouver's ridiculously priced real estate doesn't have enough space to host big intelligent animals.
Despite the claims that these animals are all "rescued", those claims are hard to prove, and a number of these mammals are actually born in captivity. I do agree with the rest of your comment.
The determination on which animals in Canada to rescue, and which can be returned to the wild is done by the Department of Fisheries, so there is neutral oversight provided by a government entity. Those claims are easy to prove.
whether or not blackfish was totally truthful or not has little bearing on the real situation. so i am not exactly for sure what propaganda against blackfish hopes to accomplish. and i read some of the "lies". there is clearly an agenda on that site. for example, the note about the age of orcas denies a claim with no references to scientific studies.
just spend a little time reading about lolita in the miami seaquarium, who has been alone there for decades. note that orcas are some of the most social and familial animals in the world. her tankmate essentially committed suicide by repeatedly ramming his head against the tank, eventually dying from a hemorrhage.
even if one believes what is stated on that site, i don't see how getting some facts (most of them being inconsequential) wrong negates the tragedy it is that we imprison one of the smartest species on the planet, a truly massive animal, and THE apex predator in the ocean.
you can freely search and find the many stories and horrors of our capture and imprisonment of orcas without watching blackfish.
> note that orcas are some of the most social and familial animals in the world
Humans are also some of the most social and familial animals in the world. Nevertheless, some humans kill, dismember or do the most terrible things to other humans, having so serious mental issues that must be keep apart from society. This pattern can be found in all intelligent animal species. Most specimens are fine but a few can born being psychopaths or develop as one later. And a clever psycho is not something that you should take lightly. Life is unfair, and sometimes (and I'm not saying that is necessarily the Lolita's case) there is a good reason to have a big and mean animal isolated from its congeners.
That's the equivalent of putting somebody in solitary confinement for life, which does more mental harm than good, we already have plenty of scientific evidence for this not just for Humans but many other social animal species. Pigs for example tend to be very clean and smart animals, that is until you hoard too many of them in too little room, then they start to act nasty towards each other because of the stress that situation represents to them.
The behavior you are describing also has little to nothing to do with psychopathy, which is far more prevalent outside of mental institutions and prisons than most people would like to admit.
Blackfish was very far from being truthful. Is manipulative and perversely designed to elicit an emotional and irrational response.
Mixing tillikum footage with old recordings of several people swimming on a pool that were filmed on different decades and places; and mounting both in an apparently continuous attack scene that never happened is just an example. One of many
I suppose people should parse the claims independently but that website is literally just a copy-paste from Seaworld's site followed by one of the more absurd statements I've ever read;
> I think that all this criticism against Tilikum is hurting him more than anything.
Blackfish was a very damaging documentary to the vancouver aquarium, because it casts all marine life centres as cruel cages for animals. in fact, in their theatre, they pre-screen a short video now that basically says 'wtf we're not monsters, here is what we do' because of the social media activists.
what marineland and seaworld do to their animals and what vancouver aquarium does as a rescue centre and research facility does is something totally different.
The vancouver aquarium is a noble facility with a noble goal. my visit there honestly instilled a deep respect for me in more than just sea life.
I implore you to stop deriding institutions that may very well be acting in wildlife's best interest.
Keeping whales and dolphins in a big fish tank for people to gawk it is anything but noble. People keep repeating this myth that the animals are "rescued". Some of them are bred in captivity. Do you really think it's noble to breed whales and keep them captive?
Edited to add that they also loan out animals so other institutions can breed MORE whales and dolphins to be kept in captivity. To me, that's pretty awful.
If an animal is bred in captivity, such that said animal learns no wilderness survival skills by adulthood and thus would no longer be capable of surviving in the wild... then yes, I would call it "rescuing" the animal to give it as comfortable a non-wilderness home to live in as is possible. And I would definitely not call it "rescuing" (like PETA does) to release the animal into the wild, where it will immediately die.
No, I said, taking whales that were bred in captivity from bad caretakers, and moving them to good caretakers, is rescuing them.
Taking children from abusive parents, and giving them to foster parents, is rescuing those children.
Taking pets from abusive owners, and giving them to the ASPCA, is rescuing those pets.
So taking now-unable-to-survive-in-the-wild wildlife from abusive caretakers or breeders, and giving them to wildlife preservation organizations, is...?
(Note that I don't believe in paying the breeders for their whales; that just incentivizes making more captive whales. They should be confiscated by law-enforcement, and then law-enforcement should place them with a rescue organization they have a partnership with.)
> Breeding whales in captivity = rescuing them? Really?
Really. This is the definition of rescuing them.
Some whales have very low populations. There could be less than 30 estimated vaquitas alive in reproductive age and is an species exclusive to USA and Mejico that only has one single baby each two years. Is imperative starting breeding it on captivity as soon as possible.
You can release the grandsons of a captive animal, but not a single specimen of a wild and free extinct species. When is gone is gone and there is not more baijis to be released. Too little, too late.
Breeding is actually an open question for many people. The Vancouver park board (authority of VA), however, banned breeding of non-threatened species in 2014.
Non-profits can still make money and not even the Vancouver Aquarium itself claims that "All proceeds are directed back into rehabilitation and education programs". In 2015, only 15% of revenues went to Conservation, Research and Education.
http://www.vanaqua.org/annualreport2015/assets/dist/pdfs/ann...
Your argument is vacuous because you aren't translating between "revenue" and "profit." If that "15% of revenue" was also "100% of profit", then they're doing exactly what you'd expect a non-profit to do. The real questions are:
1. how much un-needed overhead their expenses consist of, beyond the minimum costs required to run the facility;
2. the dollar-amount of donations that reach the relevant causes by having this type of facility operating, vs. the dollar-amount of donations that would be given to the same causes if this facility did not exist, or if it tried to operate on slimmer margins (by e.g. only being a marine-wildlife gift shop or somesuch.)
My own suspicion is that the answer to #1 is "not much", and the answer to #2 is "a far larger amount." (Under the argument: people don't bother to donate money to wildlife preservation if they're not being actively reminded of the existence of wildlife in need of preservation. That "15% of revenue" still likely ends up as a larger absolute dollar-figure than the total amount of donations to the same causes made by all other individuals or organizations in the area.)
Even if you don't agree with my suspicions, I think those two questions are the only good ones to be debating here.
"Proceeds" is a synonym for profits, not for revenues. That was my point: "15% of revenues" might very well be the entirety of the proceeds, making their statement true. You have to do some accounting to prove or disprove that.
It looks pretty innocent as far as these things go. They do ~$40M in revenue / expenses every year, spend $1.2M on fundraising, and their management expenses are high but not unreasonable. The biggest red flag I see is a large ($15M) loan that's costing them upwards of a million/year in interest.
Compensation seems pretty typical too, there's a more detailed compensation schedule on the Canada Revenue Agency's website but the link doesn't work externally. In short, there's 1 staff member making between $250k-$300k, there are 3 between $200k-$250k, and 6 between $120k-$200k.
If PETA had billions of dollars and spent all of it on building animal shelters for every single dog and cat, breeders and feral animals would quickly replenish the missing "stock". There will simply never be enough "animal shelters" to house every animal ever born. PETA offers euthanasia services because of this truth. I see nowhere on their website that states that they set out to provide shelters for all pets. There are many rational criticisms of PETA, but this is not one of them.
Did you read the comment? These aren't wild orcas/dolphins they're rescues with no wild instinct. The alternative to taking care of them is to let them die, would you rather have that?
Maybe we should close down the animal shelters too and let all the animals "free". I'm sure they'll do fine in the wild.
Actually, the belief that all the marine mammals at the Aquarium are/were "rescues with no wild instinct" is incorrect. From wikipedia: "The Aquarium also housed two beluga whales. Qila was born in captivity, whereas Aurora was captured from the wild in waters near Churchill, Manitoba in 1990.[20]"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vancouver_Aquarium#Animals_at_...
I just find it to be a lot of smoke hanging around for nothing to be burning.
These whales had been living in that pool for years and had even given birth without issue. Seems rather strange timing to all of a sudden have a mystery 'toxin' bring two of them down, particularly with the pool testing clean after their deaths.
Ok, first off, the whale deaths that sparked this recent controversy happened in 2016. Orcas and Belugas are both types of whale.
Second, I lived in Vancouver for a number of years and visited the Vancouver Aquarium a bunch of times. While the upside down Orca was disturbing, I also have seen the Beluga and dolphin shows there. So my opinion is not "hopelessly out of date".
Secondly, you are repeating this line that as a non-profit they are somehow more noble and different than Seaworld, for example. If that's the case, why do they loan animals to SeaWorld and other Aquariums for breeding?
"On breeding loan to SeaWorld, Shedd Aquarium & Georgia Aquarium are the following:
Allua, a female beluga is around 24 years of age. She was moved to SeaWorld San Diego on a breeding loan in 2005.
Imaq, a male beluga who is around 21 years of age. He is on breeding loan to SeaWorld San Antonio.
Grayson, a male beluga who is 8 years old living at the Shedd Aquarium. He was born at SeaWorld San Antonio in 2007, but belongs to the Vancouver Aquarium as he was born to Nanuq, who was owned by the aquarium and also fathered Qila. Until early 2016, Grayson was living at the Georgia Aquarium with his half-sister Qinu.
Qinu, a female beluga born in 2010 who is 7 years of age living at the Georgia Aquarium. She was also born at SeaWorld San Antonio and lived with Grayson until he was moved to the Shedd Aquarium. As with Grayson, she was born to Nanuq and belongs to the Vancouver Aquarium."
There's been a lot of public outcry because coastal sanctuaries seem like the only place you can give these animals close to what they need "artificially". What it really boils down to is if you love someone, let them free, especially if you can't take proper care of them. You omitted also that recently the park killed two cetaceans:
> Michael Wiebe, chair of the Vancouver Park Board, said that after two belugas died within days of one another at the aquarium last fall, the board decided they needed to look into whether it was right to keep bringing in more.
The truth is people can't really build a tank large enough to take care of these creatures, or offer them the proper conditions. Killer whales can travel up to 100 miles a day, and dolphins sure do a lot of traveling as well. How do you offer that or allow for the group social dynamics in a cage?
I'm not even sure how good the education value of seeing a dolphin locked up in a tank is. Anecdotally, I went to the zoo a lot as a kid but all I remember doing is gawking. Watching documentaries as a kid I actually heard about their social interactions and natural behaviors. Many of those behaviors don't come up surrounded by people in enclosures.
If we want to "understand and appreciate" a creature it should be on their terms. For dolphins documentaries or visiting them in their habitat seems like the best way, not some aquarium where the parking lot for visitors is larger than their tanks.
That article does not, but for the curious, an investigation into the deaths (involving parties from field experts to local police) has been "essentially closed" and it was determined an unknown toxin led to the death of the two belugas. How the toxin was introduced to the tank was also not determined.
The aquarium now suspects that a toxin is responsible, although no lingering contaminants have been found in the tissues of the dead whales. While intentional poisoning hasn’t been ruled out, it’s also possible that a naturally occurring toxin is responsible.
“The epidemiology of the scenario, the chain of events, lead us to be highly suspect of a toxin that came and went — and one that we may not identify,” Haulena said.
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Investigation continues, but it's a small town and the unproven truth is that one of the people behind this ban poisoned the two whales to 'save them'
I am rather for a ban on cetaceans in any tank too small to use their sonar, but as a Vancouverite I am extremely uncomfortable with who and how this ban was made.
Vision Vancouver, the political party, is very slick and spends an order of magnitude more on PR than anybody else in the city, in a town now with little news reporting.
1. It's well known who killed 2 of belugas -- somebody who publicly presents themselves as caring for whales -- but there is no discussion of it in the reporting.
2. There has been zero effort to have a conversation with the people at the Aquarium. There is an intentional effort to get shock value, encourage a public squabble that rouses some of their base and that distracts from their overall performance.
Vision Vancouver is now feeling the heat for freezing upzoning of single family home neighbourhoods so that they can direct hundreds of millions annually in buildable land grants in one-off variances to the large developers who are their main donors (Wall, Westbank, Concord). The problem in Vancouver is a monopoly of new buildable land where a single marketer, Bob Rennie, can dictate pricing for a year by virtue of controlling over 80% of new units in any given year under Vision Vancouver.
The next municipal election is a year away, but they've been around at full speed hiring PR folks on the public dime, setting up astroturf groups, wining and dining the few remaining beat reporters, and sending moles to infiltrate the new Vancouver Renters' Union. They're picking fights that are fake and real, any news is good news now if they can be ahead of the story instead of chasing to catch up for once.
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Disclosure: I volunteered for the last two Vision Vancouver campaigns, as a favor to a friend and when I believed they actually meant what they said. I had already given up on them when I was asked to join an astroturf group by Mike Magee last summer
"1. It's well known who killed 2 of belugas -- somebody who publicly presents themselves as caring for whales -- but there is no discussion of it in the reporting."
Well, who was it then? Or are you just spreading conspiracy theories?
# 'an intentional effort to get shock value', 'pick fights':
There are 5 beluga whales on loan to other facilities, in preparation for the construction of new tanks in September.
Everyone agrees that the welfare of these whales is better served in those new tanks, than where they are currently staying. This ban prevents the return of the whales currently on loan. As I said, I am for a ban on cetaceans but this is a PR exercise and not about the whales.
Agreed. Keeping animals in captivity is a relic of the past when that was the only way to view animals. Now we have high-resolution cinematography and underwater photography...why not educate children using NatGeo, and inspire those that find it exciting to go further?
If you ever ride the ferry from Wellington to Picton, most of the time you'll see Bottlenose Dolphins chasing after the boat. It's a pretty cheap ride and is less than an hour. I've heard similar stories about ferries in Seattle.
You don't need to pay for expensive tourist rides to see some of these creatures. If you live in the right areas, and if we take care of our waterways, you can see all kinds of amazing creatures just by riding a ferry.
I remember going to the Vancouver Aquarium as a kid 20 years ago or so and watching the dolphins do tricks. These might have been rescued, but they were still trained to for entertainment. The Vancouver Aquarium isn't totally innocent.
It's pretty common to teach intelligent animals tricks when they're in zoos or similar. Otherwise they get bored. This isn't a comment on the correctness of keeping dolphins in captivity but an explanation of why if one decides to keep dolphins teaching them tricks may be an ethical thing to do.
The famous "dolphin blowing air rings" trick was invented in captivity by a bored dolphin. It was never observed in the wild until some rescue dolphins were released back.
Vancouver aquarium has not had animals doing "tricks" that were not wild behaviours for decades. As a sibling comment mentioned, the training and shows that did occur were as much about animal enrichment as they were about educating the public.
I don't think "they did them in the wild" is a good excuse. The fact that they get bored and require stimulation like this says to me that perhaps a tiny habitat isn't appropriate. I'm more concerned about the tiny area they are given to live out their lives.
And I was objecting to your characterization of Vancouver aquarium as a place where animals are made to do tricks for our entertainment. It is a serious research institution which takes animal welfare very seriously. Keep in mind that, for the most part, these are animals that would not survive in the wild. Vancouver has banned wild caught whales and dolphins for decades.
Animals in captivity are always problematic, but there are sometimes good reasons for it both from an animal welfare point of view and from a human education point of view. In the meantime, great strides have been made in improving conditions for animals in captivity, and Vancouver has been a leader in this regard.
It's a "serious research institution" with only one peer reviewed publication based on data from captured belugas.
While individuals may take animal welfare very seriously, the Vancouver Aquarium has attempted to confuse their marine mammal rescue with the captivity of cetaceans. 99% of the marine mammals they rescue are baby seals that humans have interfered with while their mother was out feeding.
While I will agree that the Vancouver Aquarium can be considered to "take animal welfare seriously" I also feel that their president and website disingenuously conflate mammal with cetacean, hide the sources of "wild cetacean injuries" (eg, Japanese sourced dolphins), and vastly under spend when it comes to care of their cetaceans.
I get the research argument and would agree with it. But the habitat size is specifically designed for better viewing by the public during shows. I don't know the backstory behind this photo (I came across it during a google search), but you can see that "sea pens" offer a much larger area for the dolphins to live. As well it is in natural habitat rather than a tank with filtered water.
I'm no expert, but I imagine research could take place in a sea pen like this and Vancouver has no shortage of coastline.
Millions of people goes to the gym and repeat voluntarily again and again the same movements. Moving weight is painful so, why they do this?
To feel better, to brag, to fight against stress, to improve their ego or impress the opposite sex. Several social reasons to explain this strange behaviour.
When dolphins jump, leap, chase and obtain some fishes and human approval as reward they are entertaining humans of course.
Is this bad? well, visitors pay their food, and the pool filters that keep the water clean, and the vets... but this is not all. They are exercising also. Some people says that dolphins are sad for this. Well, It seems that nowadays everybody is the true and sacred representant of dolphin race in the earth, so I can jump to that train also. Dolphins can and probably enjoy the play, the cooperative chase and the interaction with other dolphins and humans. Why? Because exercice leads to serotonin and adrenalin and this is known to have a positive effect in the mood of a vertebrate. More serotonin released by your brain will makes you a happier dolphin or guy. Trained dolphins have also the change of keep their brain active solving problems, feel better, brag, improve their ego or impress the opposite sex.
Otherwise the dolphin or seal would snooze in their pool for entire weeks without no stimulus at all and this "solution" would be the definition of animal cruelty.
many of the enrichment routines are actually based around behaviours that are needed to better care for the animals. for instance, training a command to swim to a platform and breach up and present their underside? this lets veterinarian more easily perform examinations. training a jump to a particular side of a pool and staying there can let the maintenance crews work on filters after hours. modern enrichment routines have many purposes beyond entertainment, and if they can also draw paying crowds and donors, so be it for the better. a marine mammal specialist at your local aquarium can probably talk your ear off on the topic if you were to go ask about the "tricks".
> Of course, SeaWorld is notorious for terrible conditions for the animals.
I'm sure this is going to be a very unpopular comment here, but for the sake of a different perspective... Every time I see this sentiment, it tends to come from fans of Blackfish. I watched that "documentary", which was very cherry-picked to push a biased perspective. I've also lived near a SeaWorld and have noticed, first-hand, the conservation they do of the environment and cetacean life.
Yes, SeaWorld is for-profit, while many zoos are non-profit, but they do make some meaningful effort to help out.
On the plus side it seems like they've learned their lesson with this regulation. Instead of shipping off these animals to poorly run facilities, they're just stopping the import of all new animals. I feel fairly mixed about all of this, but if you want to end whale and dolphin exhibits in aquariums then this is probably the best way to go. Let them live out their lives with their peer group and in an environment they are familiar with.
I also wonder if they can shift away from the 'orphanage' model to a more 'foster' model by bringing in sick animals, nursing them to health, then releasing them shortly after. Not sure if this is in the cards politically, but it would be a middle ground between traditional aquariums and a total ban. Its important to note many of these animals get to aquariums because they've been injured by humans. We should feel a responsibility to help them if we are the ones hurting them. Washing our hands of this responsibility seems irresponsible to me and justifying it with feel good politics seems highly questionable.
'fostering' is exactly what the Vancouver aquarium has been doing for years. We see news stories all the time about them releasing rescued marine animals. The ones that they had been keeping long-term were the ones they determined were not able to survive in the wild.
I agree that the 'feel good' politics get in the way of sound decisions by professionals who really do have the best interest of the animals at heart. I really dislike when bystanders reading the daily headlines question the motivations of people who have dedicated their whole lives to understanding and improving the lives of the animals in their care.
That's not to say that how things are done should never change and we should never question the professionals or those in authority. But decisions like this really seem like they do more harm than good. Politics and science don't mix well but I guess we don't get much of one without the other, as that's how the bulk of science funding is done...
> I also wonder if they can shift away from the 'orphanage' model to a more 'foster' model by bringing in sick animals, nursing them to health, then releasing them shortly after
This is exactly how the Monterey bay aquarium works, fwiw.
That is already being done. The Department of Fisheries determines which animals go back to the wild, not VanAqua. The main detriment of this new ban is that now if there is a rescue that cannot realistically be later be returned to the wild after being rehabilitated, it will be necessary to euthanize instead.
And this is PETA's intention, they'd rather see an animal euthanized than be in captivity.
> It drives me nuts that kids growing up in my hometown now don't understand these magnificent creatures, don't feel any special connection to them.
Pods of orcas visit Stanley Park and False Creek at least once every couple years, usually more. And thats a magical day when they do. If you think that kids dont feel special connections to these creatures that come visit downtown once in a while, you're deluded
I had lived in Vancouver for close to 15 years and never heard anything about this "magical day", it's clearly not as heavily publicized as you make it out to be.
Most people in Vancouver aren't interested enough in whales to go out and watch them, so unless your friends are nature lovers you might not hear about them unless you ask. I've lived in Vancouver or on Vancouver Island my whole life. Not only is the Strait on the migration path for orcas but there are also resident orcas, who live in the area year-round. I don't know about Stanley Park and False Creek specifically, but for not much more than the cost of the aquarium ticket, you can take your kids on a whale watching tour. Or if you make the habit of taking the ferry, you can just watch out the windows. I've seen a couple pods that way.
There's a reason orcas feature heavily in First Nations art, local sports team mascots, etc here. They're beautiful animals but they're not exotics.
>for not much more than the cost of the aquarium ticket, you can take your kids on a whale watching tour.
That's laughable. A cursory check indicates the pricing starting at ~$80 for a single child. A family of four? That's ~$420.
Children's tickets are ~$20 at the aquarium (and they have special discounts for kids from local schools and the disabled). A family of four at the aquarium would cost ~ $110
In what world does a 4x multiple qualify as "for not much more..."?
You pretty much have to be on the water to see it when it happens, otherwise it is a less than memorable story on the evening news or in the next day's paper. If the animals are still around by that time, chances are that it takes on a different type of urgency. False Creek is a very confined space that is overrun by human activity, and I doubt that Burrard Inlet would qualify as ideal whale habitat either.
Do you have concrete examples of how it's advertised, then? You saying "it's common" and implying somehow kids all know about it in such a way that causes them to have a connection is a very bold claim and generally would require proof to back up.
As a kid growing up in Yaletown, I had never heard of pods of orcas coming that close, nor that it was possible to watch them. And I grew up in Yaletown for close to 15 years.
My fear is that these laws will ultimately prove to be worse for conservation efforts. The same applies to zoos.
The vast majority of people in the developed nations, will never actually see these animals in their native habitat. I would say the majority of the HN readers have never seen a lion, tiger, rhinoceros, elephant, orca, or shark outside of a zoo, aquarium, or sanctuary.
The effect of these laws is that more and more people will not have a personal connection to these animals. Therefore, when it comes to cheaper goods versus animal extinction, people may say that they feel bad about it, but their behavior and voting patterns are unlikely to change to prevent the extinction.
For example, if I hear that the giraffe will go extinct, I think back to the excitement of when I first saw a giraffe, and feel sad that my kids may never get to experience that and am likely to be more motivated to prevent it. If, however it is some animal that I have only seen in a video, well, I'll make sure to download it so I can show it to my kids someday.
Out of sight, out of mind really is a true statement about human attention and motivation.
> The effect of these laws is that more and more people will not have a personal connection to these animals
IMO not true. Photography / cinematography have historically proven to move people enough to take action (eg. war photography, poached animals, rhinos with their horns cut, etc.). Zoos only provides a little more than a photography. Can you pet the animal? Should you if you could? Would that help to make the point of protecting them?
I don't think this justifies transporting the animal on the other side of the planet into unnatural, prison like conditions where they often suffer both mentally and physically.
Sanctuaries are IMO way better in that they are built in animal's natural environment, further from cities, where the animals can live their lives in peace instead of being stressed by thousands of visitors every day.
> Photography / cinematography have historically proven to move people enough to take action
I think pictures have a much bigger impact on "moving" adults but zoos and aquariums have a greater overall impact for children (just my opinion).
What is the driving force behind moving animals to sanctuaries and protecting them? It's the love and care people have towards the animals and species, right? I'm not saying taking away zoos and aquariums are going to make humans cold blooded but I really think they help overall.
I am wondering if with the upcoming generation this is as true, given that Internet video streaming and picture sharing is so much more prevalent compared to times past. Some of the most recent very popular memes have revolved around animals. The fact that Toys R Us sponsored the recent April the Giraffe phenomenon indicated to me that (beyond the logo idea) at least someone thought there was a significant audience of children watching.
What's nice about new technology is it allows for opportunities to capture animal activity in remote natural environments, with minimal impact. For instance, the Katmai National Park "bear cam" in Brooks Falls, Alaska (where in season people watch grizzlies feed on salmon) is a rather popular webcam. Not only does the webcam reduce human impact, it equalizes: Brooks Falls is very remote, and thus it is very expensive to get there. The webcam brings a side of nature to everyone, that previously only the well-off would see.
I think zoos and aquariums can still exist, but moving to an animal hospital / research / protection model versus the entertainment model of Sea World and the like makes sense. I hope the environmental movement recognizes that the former is still valuable.
> Photography / cinematography have historically proven to move people enough to take action [...] Zoos only provides a little more than a photography.
I disagree with the latter sentence. I think that seeing something in person -- whether an animal or a landscape -- is very different to seeing a photograph or video. That's why it's so different to travel somewhere to see something in person.
Seeing a Lion in caged zoo is nothing like seeing a Lion or a cheetah in the wild. They just look so bored and dead. Being raised in Kenya, when I visited the Seattle Zoo I was saddened. You can see from their eyes that they have lost hope. They just look very depressed. Seeing a Lion in the wild, you can see the pride in their eyes.
Maybe seeing something in person has a greater impact than photography and cinematography, yet there are many ways to see wildlife other than a traditional aquarium or zoo. Whale watching tours are certainly available in coastal communities where whales frequent. Heck, you may even be able to catch a glimpse by simply taking a walk in the right parts of Vancouver at the right time.
(Slightly off topic, but you'd be amazed at the wildlife that you come across in the highly urbanized parts of Vancouver because it is surrounded to the north and east by wilderness and has many rail corridors and parks that animals follow into the city.)
People react to the photos and movies because they have a connection to them. PETA has some pretty horrifying movies about farm animal conditions, but in general there is not a lot of sustained, widespread action because of that.
All of the people I know that had contact with farm animals are the least moved by PETA-like farm cruelty videos. They often shrug and say, "in my farm it's not like that".
On the other hand all of them are against seeing dolphin or whale cruelty even if only a handful of them ever saw any of cetacean (me included).
I know that this is all anecdotal evidence but it the most that I can produce.
Like many extremist organizations, they are effectively preaching to the choir. For somebody sitting on the fence, their approach to getting them on their side is to walk up to the fence, and smash anybody sitting on it with a baseball bat. Really amazing they have as much success as they do.
That reminds me when PETA tried to have whaling removed from Assassins Creed: Black Flag because they felt it glorifies the harming and killing of animals.[0]
My reaction was just like "Yeah, because killing whales on a game makes me want to buy a ship and start whaling myself."
There's a more direct impact, too: The Vancouver Aquarium houses animals which have been rescued and nursed back to health after various injuries. This ban will result in many of those animals being left to die instead.
>This ban will result in many of those animals being left to die instead
I think that is hyperbole. They are only banning the whales, not all the other animals that are helped by the aquarium. I was at the aquarium this last summer. There's much more to it than the beluga whales. Sure some people will choose not to go once the whales are gone, but there's still tons of other things to see.
It elides the argument, but it's not hyperbole. Agitating groups like peta want to end animal captivity, completely. They believe humane captivity is a moral contradiction, extending to domestic cats and dogs.
That's the part I find really interesting - the tradeoff between that work and the negative aspects of keeping the animals in captivity. Some would argue that even if a whale won't survive in the wild, that's better than a long life in an aquarium. I'm honestly not sure where I stand at the moment.
Aren't most of these large marine animals in captivity rescues? Like you said, isn't it better than leaving them in the wild to die? Why not make the law so they can only have them for rehabilitation purposes and then release them (if possible) when well? Don't marine biologist learn a great deal being in close contact with these animals that can benefit the animals in the wild?
The belugas were Canadian or Russian caught. The dolphins have tended to be "Japanese Injuries." To the best of my knowledge, only the false killer whale is a local rescue.
I also have the same fears as you. I was raised going to the zoo and aquariums a lot when I was young. Although I don't actively participate in anything to help conserve wildlife (anything substantial at least) I consider myself someone who really cares for wildlife. Although I go to the zoo with my son quite frequently I feel his generation (or the next) may not appreciate wildlife as a whole.
In NL going to the zoo is now prohibitively expensive for most families, it's about as expensive as a day in a theme park and that means fewer people go to the zoo, which in turn leads to higher prices and so on.
Over here, at your neighbor to the east, it IS rather expensive if you visit just once.
But most locations offer a ticket for a year, sometimes even for a family for a year, and become very affordable all of a sudden if you visit four to rive times a year or more.
Since most of the zoos over here also offer mundane attractions for kids (fancy playgrounds, petting zoos and whatnot) it's a decent deal and in my experience something that works quite well.
It's expensive to house, take care of, and feed all of those animals. It's way cheaper to hire some teenagers to run a rollercoaster than it is to run a primate house, I'd imagine. It's unfortunate but that's the realities of it.
-Locking a dolphin up in "jail" or killing a cow/pig?
-Locking the few dolphins up in "jails" or the billions of cows/pigs killed each year?
I think the ethical inconsistencies with regards to animal treatment are huge, but also understandable. I don't know the answers, but the questions do bother me.
The dolphins at the Vancouver aquarium are deemed not releasable by the federal government due to injury or lack of ability to survive in the wild (e.g. Chester, the aquariums false killer whale was found at 2 months old and was not properly socialised).
Cows are treated pretty fairly until the end. They are usually grass feed and graze until they fatten them up for slaughter. They have miles and miles of fields to roam. You can find pigs that are treated fairly or are "free range". Both of these animals have been domesticated and lives with humans for a couple thousand years.
Both of these animals are slaughtered young so they aren't locked up for years and years.
Putting an dolphin in a small pond and put to work all day doing tricks is horrible. Whales and dolphins belong in the open ocean where they can swim for miles and miles. They are not domesticated animals.
My view is that if you have to put the animal in a cage to keep it, you shouldn't have them. The exception would be a fish tank with nothing exotic.
Most animals that are raised for meat are treated horribly. there is no way around that. I am not for dolphins being held captive but they have it much better than most cows, pigs or chickens.
I agree about chickens. My state is the chicken capital of the world. Those coops are so nasty you can start to smell them a mile away.
The only way it will change is everyone buys organic or true free range. The costs are too expensive for me to buy all the time. I think Americans should rethink eating meat at most meals. I've not been able to do it regularly.
> The only way it will change is everyone buys organic or true free range. The costs are too expensive for me to buy all the time
Both of those terms are pretty meaningless, and their ineffectual enforcement makes them even less so. The solution isn't to humane-wash, it's to stop eating things that come out of chickens' anuses.
The terms might be meaningless, but that still shouldn't stop you from sourcing your meat/poultry locally from a farmer where you can witness the living conditions of the animals yourself before buying.
That way you are not only doing something healthy for yourself and the animals, it's also supporting the local economy in a meaningful way.
> That way you are not only doing something healthy for yourself and the animals, it's also supporting the local economy in a meaningful way.
There is nothing healthy about consuming animals. Not for humans, not for animals, not for this planet, not for anyone. And a similar "supporting the economy" justification was used in defense of slavery, which you're still supporting in another form.
>And a similar "supporting the economy" justification was used in defense of slavery, which you're still supporting in another form.
Seriously... I advocate people being more aware of where they get their food and cutting down on their meat intake and your first reflex is to compare it to advocating slavery? Sorry but behavior like that is exactly the reason why barely anybody likes vegans or takes them seriously.
Change doesn't happen in massive paradigm shifts, it happens slowly. You won't convince 7 billion people to stop consuming animal products from one day to another. So let's be a little bit realistic and start with small steps which people are actually willing to take, wouldn't that be an actual start?
> Cows are treated pretty fairly until the end. They are usually grass feed and graze until they fatten them up for slaughter. They have miles and miles of fields to roam. You can find pigs that are treated fairly or are "free range".
This is a complete fabrication and utter logical fallacy.
dairy cows: raped to be artificially inseminated, calf removed soon after birth. Repeat 5x (yearly). Send to hamburger factory.
cattle: fattened in "concentrated animal feeding operations"
pigs: artificially inseminated, separated from piglets, teath and tails cut, transported without climate control, food or water.
Animals are just simply "killed for food". They are raised in absolutely deplorable conditions. This isn't meant to be accusatory, but in honest question. Do you think it is justified to raise animals in torturous conditions from birth to slaughter?
Nobody needs meat in order to survive either(in 2017 America/Canada). Meat is eaten purely for pleasure.
In fact, there's some good arguments (potentially debatable) that eating animal products actually shortens lifespan! The exact opposite of needing meat to survive...
This is a strawman. We care about animals because animals have nervous systems and a pain response. Plants have no analog - they cannot feel pain, and have no neurological system to indicate intelligence. Nothing feels pain when you cut off a tree branch. Something feels pain when you break off a lobsters claw or hit a dog.
Additionally, the plants we do eat often evolved to produce food for us. Apple trees and other fruiting plants all evolved to be eaten, so the consumer distributes the seeds in stool. That apple is delicious because the tree had an evolutionary bias to make it delicious so you would eat it. We eat plenty of plants like herbs and cabbages not for that purpose (albeit we did breed cabbages to be mutant and tasty) but an apple is a terrible example of a plant we hurt by eating it.
We define pain as a neurological response. Since plants don't have nerves, they cannot feel pain. They cannot feel.
You argue the semantics in problem domains we don't fully understand. Feelings and sensations only get wishy-washy when you have a developed nervous system, because we cannot accurately predict how said system behaves due to its complexity. But we do know what is actually ascribed to that system, what behaviors it propagates as, and that things without it don't experience it.
We have vernacular in place to express how plants react to stimuli. Sensation, pain, and feeling are not in that vocabulary, because they describe an essential aspect of the animal kingdom, not the plant one.
Completely wrong, and frankly a pretty stupid thing to say. Plants provide the basis for all life on this planet. Without plants, there would be no complete proteins, there would be no essential fatty acids, there would be no sustainable nutrition for humans nor any other being on this planet. What you're saying is straight up silly. Stop.
It does not have to be only one or another: one can both stop holding wild animals in captivity and also stop farming domestic animals for food. Just do your part in this (significantly lower your meat/dairy consumption and never go to zoos).
From now on, the reproduction of cetaceans is prohibited, as the introduction of new animals. Therefore, dolphins and whales in captivity will no longer exist and suffer. This was triggered following an incident at MarineLand, one of the biggest parks, where a mudslide killed many animals in 2015.
That's are rather bizarre reason to ban captive animals. Why ban them over a natural disaster rather than whether they can be adequately kept in captivity?
2b) By choosing to be rescued and studied you are increasing the scientific knowledge, general awareness and overall compassion for your species.
Thus, you would be contributing to your species' long term survival.
Site note: I don't think a 6x6 human cage is analogous. Maybe a medium-sized apartment in which you can socialize with other humans is a fairer comparison? It would be a poor existence indeed. But worse than death?
In what universe can you possibly explain to an anxious, confined whale that their non-ideal living conditions (read: conditions which kill them) is at least beneficial to their species?
How does this make the practice any less cruel?
Reading through the comments on this thread I'm actually flabbergasted.
Obviously you can't explain it to a whale. What are you even talking about? This is a message board for human beings. The topic was what choice the animal might make if it had the reasoning skills of a human being (and all the facts).
>How does this make the practice any less cruel?
It doesn't. It's arguing that there might be at least some long term potential benefit to the practice for the species and therefore morally defensible (if the alternative is letting the animal die slowly and painfully).
I don't pretend to know all the answers. But lets at least be clear on what the question is.
Right and my assertion is that because the whales are incapable of understanding their "sacrifice" for their species they are simply kept in a state of anxiety, trapped in a too small enclosure for the remainder of their days and THAT trumps any argument built on vagueries about the potential conservation benefits. I'd much rather spend all the money used in housing these whales on field studies and establishing conservation zones in the actual environment.
There's nothing whatsoever vague about the benefits it provides researchers (and therefore the species). To suggest otherwise is anti-science akin to climate denial.
You're also misunderstanding the choices available:
1) The alternative for the whale in this scenario is death. Are you sure the whale would choose that over living in an aquarium? How sure?
Remember - The overwhelming majority of human beings don't even make that choice (see: suicide rates of long-term prisoners).
2) > I'd much rather spend all the money used in housing these whales on field studies and establishing conservation zones in the actual environment.
What money? You mean the money generated from the aquarium? Oh wait. Ummm... I have some very bad news about your proposed scheme.
It really doesn't sound like you've thought this through. I admire the compassion of people like you. I really do. But, you seem to be living in some alternate universe from the rest of us. You might be better served to think with your heart and your brain.
Obviously zoos and aquariums can do great work but there are animals in this world that do not live in captivity very well and if they were capable of properly weighing the options I'm sure many would choose death. I know many humans (myself inclused) who would make the same choice. If we can show certain species of whale can handle captivity well then by all means save them, house them, whatever but I doubt these particular whales are being let go lightly and sitting around saying 'think of the missed scientific opportunity' ignores the well-being of the whale. And maybe if it were possible to communicate to the whale the benefit of its sacrifice it might be ok but we can't and to ignore the anxiety of the whale is cruel.
Except nobody is being asked - we force a decision on them.
Another interesting hypothetical situation:
You are a stray cat, happily living on a street, feeding on garbage and screwing your cat-girlfriends in the free time. One day you are caught by humans and presented with the following choice:
1. Get euthanized.
2. Get your balls cut off and released back to freedom.
Pick one.
There used to be a place for these animals in aquariums. When they were they for research purposes, rehabilitation, and education, like it or not - the public education benefit was worth it for humans. Most belugas and dolphins live much longer lives, with much less stress, than they would in the wild.
I say used to be, because the current climate in aquariums is just "Make it jump for us." and education is a far off second thought.
Our ability to study animals in the wild, with high tech GPS tracking, more accessible travel options, better sensor data, etc, is much greater than it was 30-40 years ago when these animals were being put in zoos and aquariums. We don't need them in there anymore from a scientific point of view. The argument that people form connections with them? I don't know.
As someone who grew up visiting the Vancouver aquarium, I struggle a bit with this decision. Vancouver'saquarium has always tried to brand itself as research focused, and I have concerns about the loss to research if we stop allowing the aquarium to work with rescues. Personally, I have no problem with keeping rescues that are unreleaseable and injured by humans.
The way the headline is phrased, it could also be read as "Vancouver will not allow whales and dolphins admission to the aquarium" which makes me giggle. Imagining a dolphin with a DSLR camera around its neck and some oversized flip flops. Reminds me of a book I grew up reading. "The Three Hawaiian Pigs and the Magic Shark" - not exactly mainstream, but I really liked it.
It seems that somebody poisoned the beluga whales for pushing some agenda and the aquarium stopped the recovering programme either in fear or as response. I understand the situation. This is happening at global scale and is totally upsetting.
All discussions of killer whales (which inevitably include Blackfish now) remind me of that Phoenix Wright case where he defends a killer whale accused of murder (Spoiler alert: the real killer was a person!).
I believe the Aquarium here was against it, saying they've only ever taken rescues who couldn't survive in the wild anymore. Those rescues would now be put down.
At first the zoo was menagerie only for the pleasure not about conservation. They evolved to conservation.
Now they see that they can not properly take care of animals, even if they try to do their best they still do not know how to do it right. New sickness, etc.
The only way to save animals is by decree a land where human do not have any rights to go their.
Many other species lack diversity and therefore suffer from genetic diversity, they need to exchange species between country in order to grow the diversity, new sickness are born but yes they are professionals.
There's not real reason to stay in the old menagerie system, animals have rights to live and if we need food we need to protect them. Point barre, like we say in French.
Any real expert in dolphins can tell you that dolphins can not be safely sedated because, unlike us, the breath in cetaceans is voluntary. Basic zoology principles. Yes, zoologists and vets are professionals for something. They studied a lot of years and know their stuff. Surgery in dolphins is always a risk. If you put a dolphin to sleep, the dolphin "forgets to breath" and dies quickly.
Therefore the author of the article wrote some very unlikely accusations without any clear proof (and obviously do not know much about real dolphins). The idea of sedating dolphins regularly in a show for any extended period of time just because they "don't feel like dancing today" is ludicrous. This kind of defamatory articles are sadly as common as successful collecting money from their naive public.
>Any real expert in dolphins can tell you that dolphins can not be safely sedated because, unlike us, the breath in cetaceans is voluntary.
I don't understand any french so I can't say much about that article, but as a local from Nuremberg, I can support the prior statement about them using drugs to keep their animals in check. I'm also not so sure about your statement because I found a paper regarding the effects of diazepam use on captive bottlenose dolphins [0], explicitly stating that:
"It is very tempting to use these medications as a management tool. They can be used to help mask the problems of poor husbandry, and of inappropriate and depauperate environments."
and:
"There is considerable potential for diazepam to be misused and the welfare of animals compromised. It may be used to help cover up serious deficiencies in management and husbandry, and there is strong evidence of it being misused in dolphinaria."
So this practice most certainly ain't as unheard of as you are implying.
They use psychotropic drugs, along with a rather long list of 20 other medicaments to keep the animals alive in those sorry living conditions [1], the data on the medication came straight out of the zoo's files. The zoo's director himself argued that giving dolphins diazepam is a totally normal thing to do to increase their appetite [2].
Even as a kid I never liked that place, seeing these animals perform tricks in a sterile indoor pool, with their back fins hanging down, felt unnatural and made me feel sorry for these poor creatures. They also had a hippo there that was housed in a tank that's barely been bigger than the hippo itself. I'm not an animal expert, but I have empathy and that was and still is enough to recognize what's happening there ain't good or healthy for these animals.
Sorry for replying to myself, but I found some further information on this that might be quite interesting (and sad). WDC released a press briefing based on the files they received from the Nuremberg zoo in 2016 [0], couldn't find an English version and the full report was supposed to be released in summer of 2016, I also couldn't find that.
But what's described in the press briefing is already bad enough.
On page 4 and 5 they list examples where dolphins got treated with Diazepam and even males with synthetic progestogen (female hormones) to influence their anti-social behavior resulting from the poor living conditions
They even administered Diazepam to pregnant dolphins, the calf needed to be treated with antibiotics regularly because the mother would keep hurting it and in turn, the mother would get Diazepam in an attempt to tone her behavior down.
Because the anti-social behavior is so common dolphins regularly have to be isolated, furthering their mental issues.
Tbh none of this is surprising to me, in nature these animals are known to make 4.000 km journeys, 90 km a day, diving down to 500 meters. In Nuremberg 9 of them are stuck in shallow concrete pools with the total area of 1/4th of a soccer field. No room to evade social conflicts, nothing exciting to discover so, of course, these very intelligent animals are going crazy in such an environment, I know I would.
Please, note thay there is not one single bibliographic reference in the John A. Knight article from 2013. Something that is not common in science. This is an opinion article (or just a report mixing facts about valium and opinions), not a peer reviewed publication in a standard scientific journal.
And of course "Is very tempting to use it", "There is considerable potential for diazepam to be misused" and "It may be used for evil things" is not the same thing as "It was used for evil things". Almost anything could be harmful. There is considerable potential for coffe to be used for evil things also, but this is not its common use.
If, as the author claims, "there is strong evidence of their misuse in dolphinariums" please, show us the evidence.
In your third link in deustch says that the Berlin Zoo director Dag Encke claimed the accusations of drugged dolphins as being "bullshit" and "defamation" and that of course any ill dolphin is treated instead to let it die; an idea that seems sensible and do not supposes any moral problem to me.
See my follow up comment about the Nuremberg zoo. There it's on record they regularly use diazepam (in way too high doses even on pregnant dolphins) and synthetic progestogen to deal with the anti-social behavior of males, quite regularly. The director himself doesn't even deny it, claiming it's good for the animal's appetite, which is normally considered a side-effect (from the süddeutsche article)
Keep in mind that this is the very same director (he's director of the Nuremberg Zoo, Berlin doesn't have any dolphins) who demanded a dolphin breeding program gets started in Nuremberg to attract more visitors, even tho nobody on the staff had any experience with something like that. [0]
The very same director who thinks staff shouldn't intervene when dolphins attack each other because "that wouldn't happen in nature" [0], never mind that in nature these animals have quite a bit more room to evade each other than a somewhat bigger swimming pool.
Of course they're professionals, but modern Zoos are there for entertainment first. The conservation part is not priority anymore. If we need them for conservation then let's focus on that, no need to have thousands of people visiting.
And no need to spend lots of money each day to feed the animals. Just put the zebras and lions in the same recint and watch the good old PETA-approved nature in action. You obtain super-happy lions (except those kicked in the head with an open fracture maybe).
For some animals yes, but not for all. It seems that for some birds is more like a sink, constantly recolonized by birds from other zones that die quickly. Chernobil is unique in many aspects, as a defy, an economic burden for all european countries and an opportunity. I think that should be declared as the first supranational european park, watched and cleaned as soon as possible. Radioactive animals living in Chernobyl travel across all europe and migrate towards the nord also so is a problem for EU, and also for the countries belonging to the old Soviet Union that can't be managed for one single country.
Greater Vancouver Zoo exists [1]. But the zoo in Stanley Park closed down long ago [2]. Here's an interesting shot of the polar bear enclosure from 1963 [3].
Yeah, that's why I said "really". It's an hour outside the city ("30 minutes from Vancouver" my ass) and is a sad excuse for a zoo, especially given the price of admission.
You would likely be well served by watching Penn and Teller's PETA episode. And perhaps some wildlife documentaries - there's nothing quite like getting eaten alive.
Most captive animals exist because we tend to them. Are you suggesting that we let them die of starvation or simply eliminate them (as PETA does with many of their 'rescued' animals)?
> Are you suggesting that we let them die of starvation or simply eliminate them
A reasonable person might suggest we not purposefully birth 150 billion+ animals every year just so they can be killed. The "let them starve" argument is a strawman, since the whole world would not eschew animal products overnight, but rather as a gradual progress.
Interesting. Wouldn't it be much more appropriate to argue a false dilemma in this situation?
You suggested gradual elimination, which is an elimination process. I would argue that neither fallacy apply.
I wonder what proportion of animals would chose non-existence over existence if they could understand such concepts. That's quite the decision to make for them.
> I wonder what proportion of animals would chose non-existence over existence if they could understand such concepts.
May I suggest you look at some footage from slaughterhouses to make that determination for yourself? Or, if you're particularly stoic, I dare you to watch Earthlings.
I respect Richard and I wanted to read this, but in his very first point...
He claims we are not adapted for eating meat, then backpedals by saying we have adapted for eating meat since the Ice Age, then pretends like this trend can't continue
He claims we aren't adapted for hunting meat, relying solely on physical features to back this claim and ignoring our mental capacity, specifically the capacity for organization and tool use.
His 2nd point is "We don't need it to survive". No shit. We're omnivores.
I couldn't continue because the first two points were clearly conjecture and one-sided and render the likelihood of the validity of the rest to be approaching zero.
Would you like to explain your reasoning in your own words?
I'm pretty certain Richard is not the author of that post. It seems likely it was written by one 'cybervegan'. In the second paragraph, the author of the post states "...after recently reading TGD..." which would be a strange thing for the author of The God Delusion to write.
> He claims we aren't adapted for hunting meat, relying solely on physical features to back this claim and ignoring our mental capacity, specifically the capacity for organization and tool use.
Tools are a product of culture, not evolution, thus are not a reliable indicator of what our species' natural diet is. We're frugivorous apes, so the appropriate food is fruit.
> Furthermore, we lack the natural tools for killing and eating prey – we lack the requisite speed, agility, claws and teeth for taking down any prey of sufficient size to be useful
is the subject of my criticism. It is not relevant to any discussion about diet, either. And it ignores our intelligence as a "tool".
Say my neighboorhood had a farm and each member of the community benefited from this farm, a few cows to provide milk, and dozens and dozens of chickens to provide eggs and occasional meat.
There is ample space for the animals to roam, and they are shielded from the elements and predators.
As a result of sustainable rationing, a family doesn't eat meat each night but maybe once a week or month.
Yes, because you have violated the free agency of animals and their own right to exist unmolested by humans. It's the treatment of sentient creatures as mere commodities, justifying the means for an end, that's the source of great calamity and suffering. Non-human persons aren't on this planet for the satisfaction of humans. To think so is to basically be stuck in Christian-inspired attitudes which are old and deprecated.
Animals violate the free agency of animals every single day when they eat them for food.
The concept that using animals for any form of resource is oppressive, even if a fair bargain is struck and the animal's needs are met, is highly idealistic in it's own ways, even if they aren't related to Christian values.
People have been cooperating with other animals for much, much longer than Christianity has been around. So yes, that notion is very, very old. I wouldn't say it is depreciated, however.
Humans commit infanticide and some humans lick other human's buttholes. You're invalidating the sexual preferences of many people by claiming the latter is sub-human.
I'm just glad that a good portion of humanity has the intelligence to understand which evolved behaviors are and aren't appropriate. Maybe eventually we'll all figure it out. Your argument just doesn't stand up because, like humans, some animals have homicidal tendencies and others don't.
The global corporate food industry is a behemoth, but I still don't understand how the scenario I provided to you above, or sanctuaries, or zoos, are "holocaust". Please elaborate.
The Vancouver acquarium was one of the top cetacean health, care, and research institutes in the world. It was one of the models of how good a captive and public educational environment can be. Thanks to campaigns like this one, they had to close down and transfer their rescue orcas to the only organizations that could take them... Which turned out to be SeaWorld, where they died shortly after. Of course, SeaWorld is notorious for terrible conditions for the animals.
It drives me nuts that kids growing up in my hometown now don't understand these magnificent creatures, don't feel any special connection to them. For many in my generation, it feels like a betrayal on the part of our local environmentalist movement. They killed our orcas and disconnected our children from one of the most amazing parts of their environment. They destroyed the model that powered legislative attempts to protect cetaceans around the world.
We had a similar story with the beavers in Stanley park - our environmenal lobby campaigned to have the city stop dredging "Beaver lake", because it disturbed the beavers. They stopped dredging, the lake filled with silt and most of the beavers (and other wildlife) died. Now they're debating starting dredging again, to save the one surviving beaver.
For people like me that care about our environment and the animals we share it with, it's rage inducing. The naturalist fallacy at work. :/