Monthly Archives: September 2011

Whether dolphin shows are educational – a matter of definition?

Posted on September 27, 2011 by | 1 Comment

Congressman Young’s (R-AK) point, during a hearing regarding marine mammal captivity, that whether the dolphin shows are educational or not educational is a matter of definition, might be a valid one.  What specific kind of information any particular dolphin exhibit imparts can certainly be varied: one exhibit might focus on dolphin life span and intelligence while another addresses family structure and habitat range, while still another describes what we understand and do not understand about dolphin communication.

But saying it’s a matter of definition is a convenient cop-out, and not altogether true.  Because one should look, that is, Congressman Young should look, at the actual content of shows that justify keeping marine mammals in captivity, before cavalierly speaking of something being a matter of definition.  And so should we all.  So, here, for your convenience, Congressman Young (and the minute numbers of you who are actually reading this), is an example:

And more:

I’m just wondering what you learned about dolphins in those videos, shot at a real dolphin show.  That they can jump?  I’m thinking, just thinking, that you already knew that.

I’m also thinking that you didn’t need to see a dolphin in captivity to know that it can jump, or that it can jump in perfect timing with other dolphins, or that it can jump in perfect timing with other dolphins 15 feet into the air.  Or that it can be trained to tail walk.  Or splash.  Or make noises on command.

Here’s what I’m guessing you didn’t learn at the dolphin show: that the high-pitched noise, flashing lights, constant noise (encouraging the audience to be loud?!), explosion simulations – where to stop with this list – not to mention being deprived of legitimate natural behaviors  – like catching it own prey, swimming in the natural rhythm of the ocean and its seasons, swimming fast, swimming far, and swimming deep – puts a constant stress on the dolphin that nature does not.  And I know that you know what stress does to the health of a living being.

So, in the end, none, I repeat, none of the show is about education.  Its sole imperative is to entertain.  To entertain you so that you will come back, and you will tell your friends to go to the entertaining dolphin show.  And your friends will tell their friends.

Here’s what I’m hoping.  That you’ll recognize the moral bankruptcy of the dolphin show.  And you won’t go.  And you’ll tell your friends not to go.  And your friends will tell their friends.

And just one short post-script: be on your guard against being lulled, fooled or warmed by current dolphin and whale movies into supporting captivity by going to a dolphin show.  Here’s a dolphin and whale movie that you can watch on your computer that will allow the warm-and-fuzzies you get from those Hollywood movies not to send you straight to the Georgia Aquarium or SeaWorld to watch dolphins that were not saved, but enslaved.

Let the dolphins be free; watch a documentary, go to the beach, hug your dog.

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Urgent Call to Action – Dolphin Base Taiji

Posted on September 26, 2011 by | 2 Comments

In his repetitive spy-hopping behavior, photo Rosie Kunneke of Sea Shepherd

My friends and bloggers at Save Misty the Dolphin are calling for help for another stressed and sick dolphin. Please visit that page for more information about the urgent need for immediate action and the numbers to call to help this dolphin through what observers say may be a life-threatening crisis.

The dolphin is exhibiting repetitive “spy-hopping” behaviors that indicate that it is not adjusting well to life in a tank.  It also appears to be repeatedly “beaching” itself on the platforms.

Immediate action must be taken to remove this dolphin from this setting before it suffers from further illness or injury.

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Dedicated to SeaWorld and the Georgia Aquarium

Posted on September 25, 2011 by | 4 Comments

So, yes, with a measure of fun, I am questioning the factual basis of some of the assertions about dolphin and orca captivity from some dolphin-owning institutions. Assertions about the life spans in captivity being longer than ones in the wild (not true).  Or that the dolphins thrive in captivity (a little harder to quantify, but read on, not true).

Now, before you go all, “Oh, that Martha.  She’s so extreme.  Dolphins are fine in captivity, and there is a valid educational part of the dolphin shows” on me, just take a gander at the educational content of the dolphin extravaganza at the Georgia Aquarium shot by a visitor:

I’m figuring that you’ll be like most of us, including some members of the Association of Zoos and Aquariums that expressed annoyance, shall we say, upon their exit from just having seen the very same dolphin show.  I believe some of them observed that there was something like, oh, zero educational content in the show.  And I repeat, these were zoo and aquarium people who make their living based upon the acceptability of animal captivity, not we “fringe anti-caps.”

And to the point of whether dolphins like captivity, take a look at the celebration of life in wild dolphins:

compared with live streaming video of captive dolphins:

http://www.seewinter.com/winter/media/webcam-3

You’ll have to copy and paste that one in your url; it won’t link live.  It may be a bit of a bother, but believe me, you want to do this to see the whole story.  And if Winter isn’t visible on this web cam, check one of the other ones; Web Cam #1 is where she and her dolphin companion strut their captive stuff for the paying public.

Which side are you on?

To take action for dolphin freedom, just take one step. Call, write, blog, tweet, donate.  I’m betting you’ll see how great it is to stand for these extraordinary beings, and will take one more step after that.

Welcome.

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Surfing Dolphins

Posted on September 25, 2011 by | 1 Comment

Thanks to The Surf Network, the amazing dolphin, free, unharassed by humans.

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Dang. I forgot to get a Manscaper.

Posted on September 24, 2011 by | 2 Comments

I love Bill Maher.  If you do, too, you’re in for another treat.

Sooooo, not only did I forget to get a manscaper, Bill’s piece reminded me that I don’t have a:

  • Tivo programmer
  • Liposuctionist
  • Gardener’s Personal Trainer
  • A dog whisperer
  • A look-alike
  • A private farmer
  • A hand-sanitizer dispenser lady
  • Someone to mistake me for Sharon Stone
  • A shark tank tender (you can hear the crowd not like the shark tank joke – yea!!!!!!!)

Luckily the marijuana valet, I have covered.  Just kidding.  Criminy!!

But on a more serious note: if I were a “job creator,” here are a few of the jobs that I would fund with every cent, and every breath, on every day for the rest of what I would hope to be a long and awe-filled life:

  • Farm sanctuary animal tender.
  • Captive animal rehabilitator and returner-to-the-wild (land and ocean animals).
  • Builder and tender of worldwide seapens for those animals who cannot live in the wild.
  • Inventor of all-quiet ocean vessel technology.
  • Transporter of animals from the now-closed factory farms.
  • Solar power inventor and developer.
  • Ocean plastic picker-upper.
  • General environmental cleaner-upper (on land and water).
  • Finder of how to recycle everything – yes, everything; no waste.
  • Ticket-writer for trash throwing.  Oh, and also leaving food in the grocery store in aisles other than where you picked it up, with the justification, “they pay people to put it back.”
  • Native animal and plant specialist and habitat restorer.
  • Organic farming technique (meaning, the way our grandparents’ generation farmed) teacher.
  • Shutter downer of the big pharma/AMA/insurance and Wall Street/banking/investing blocs (now, those are locks on some doors I can believe in, Ms. Bachmann).
  • Vegan nutrition counselor.
  • Exercise instructor for every senior citizen center and hospital everywhere, ensuring the availability of outside instruction, water time and focus on core strengthening.
  • Network chiropractic and gentle touch provider for all animals, not just humans.
  • Teacher of worldwide population control and sustainable living.
  • And, yes, I would love to have a personal assistant and vegan chef.  I really couldn’t leave those off, because anybody who knows me knows that I would love that.

I like my list.  I like the world that my list lives in.  In my mind, I live in that world.  And while I may not be the “job creator” that makes all that happen, I am part of the recipe for that reality.  We all are.  And I know that there are job creators out there, working right this minute on creating all of this.

Well, except maybe the last one.  I might just have to get organized and cook for myself.

A few of the people who were working on September 1, 2011 - Save Japan Dolphins Day

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Why Orcas Should not be in Captivity

Posted on September 20, 2011 by | 2 Comments

The magnificent Orca

Naomi Rose, PhD, Senior Scientist for the Humane Society International and the Humane Society of the United States, has published a white paper which summarizes certain facts relevant to the condition of orcas in captivity versus those who live a natural life in the wild. Dr. Rose points to the following reasons why these marvelous creatures should not be captured or bred and held in captivity:

  • Longevity: Orcas in the wild have a significantly shorter lifespan in captivity than in the wild. Wild males orcas have a maximum life expectancy of 60-70 years; females 80-90 years – comparable to a human life span. No captive male orca has ever lived past 35. Ever. Only two captive female orcas have lived past 40.
  • Causes of death: The most common cause of death in orcas pneumonia, septicemia and other infections. It appears that the ability of veterinary care for captive orcas is too unsophisticated to detect health issues on a time-frame that can intercede and save the individual. A complicating factor in orca health appears to be immunosuppression, which in humans, is known to be greatly exacerbated by depression and stress, both of which are common in the captive orca population.
  • Dental health: Well-documented and common teeth issues in captive orcas which do not appear to the same degree in their wild counterparts. The poor dental health is in part due to the orcas gnawing on metal bars and concrete walls, which breaks the teeth. These broken teeth, most often drilled out as a palliative measure, serve as a direct conduit for infection.
  • Aberrant Behavior: Aggression toward other orcas in the wild is undocumented, while it is not uncommon in captivity. So, too, is mother orca rejection of offspring: uncommon in the wild; common in captivity.
  • Harm to humans: Pay attention to the current OSHA hearing regarding the SeaWorld’s orca program and specifically whether SeaWorld may have knowingly exposed its trainers and other employees to dangerous and life-threatening conditions including Dawn Brancheau. Four humans have been killed by orcas in captivity, while there is no documented case of a wild orca killing a single human.

They do not belong in captivity. They do not thrive in captivity.

Please don’t go to the orca, or dolphin, show. For more information, please watch A Fall From Freedom, a full-length documentary currently streaming over the internet.

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Playmobil – Dolphin toys teach that captivity is A-OK

Posted on September 16, 2011 by | 2 Comments

Accurate: Taken out of their natural habitat

Here is the true educational impact of dolphin captivity: Kids love the dolphin shows. They want to be trainers or aquarium vets so that they, too, can capture dolphins and show how much they love them. In the meantime, Playmobil makes its few beans by capitalizing, in between multiple aquarium visits, on the children’s love of this amazing creature.

Now, there are those who went to the shows as children and became dolphin advocates, but I’m not focusing on that itsy-bitsy minority right now.  I’m focusing on the 99% of people (based on my personal observation of how many people go to the dolphin show, versus how many of us are standing on the sidewalks or in The Coves around the world trying to protect them) who continue to think that dolphins in captivity is natural.

The Georgia Aquarium and its ilk, including the garishly commercial SeaWorld chain and/or minion claim that dolphin captivity programs have an educational or conservation purpose (convenient, because otherwise it would be illegal in the United States to keep marine mammals in captivity).  The actual text of the Marine Mammal Protection Act notes, however, that the aquarium industry, itself, gets to set those standards.

Thanks to Playmobil, those standards are clear for anyone, including the child that a parent unwittingly exposes to a most cruel and inhumane captivity industry, to see.  The standards (I’ve paraphrased, if you will), plus a few

Can you spot what’s wrong with this picture?

informal ones, are :

  1. Display the animals regularly (if you only do it once in a while the customers might stop coming).
  2. Make people think these dolphin tricks are “natural behaviors” even though our own training manual is about training “new” behaviors for the show.  Don’t worry about the logic failure there.  Just keep saying “behavior” over and over and work in “free” and “freedom” a few times, too, and keep smiling all the while at the paying customers.
  3. Train the dolphins to ensure that they do the trick, I mean behavior, during the shows for paying customers (it’s embarrassing when the tricks don’t play out).  Tell the customers that even though dolphins don’t  routinely jump through hula hoops in the ocean, they would if they could.
  4. Tell the paying guests that the dolphins are protected from mean predators that live in the wild, and don’t tell them that dolphins are at the top of the marine food chain and don’t really have predators.
  5. Keep the chlorinated water clean.
  6. Keep a vet handy for those annoying upper respiratory issues that seem to occur more frequently in the dolphins that we own than in the ones we haven’t caught yet.
  7. Whatever happens, keep on smiling.

The facts that the Georgia Aquarium does not reveal to their paying guests, during their educational extravaganza are:

  1. Dolphins in the wild swim to depths of 850 feet.
  2. The deepest tank we have is somewhere around 30 feet; the shallowest is 12 feet.
  3. Dolphins in the wild swim up to 70 miles per hour.
  4. Dolphins in the wild swim up to somewhere around 100 miles per day.  They may do this just in a local area or they may travel for miles and back.
  5. The dolphins in our tanks can swim a few body lengths before having to turn around to do it again, over and over and over for the rest of their lives.
  6. Dolphins in captivity have an average shorter life span than in the wild, despite the position taken by the captivity industry.
  7. Many dolphin babies in captivity die in the first few days.
  8. Dolphin babies in the wild stay with their mothers and their extended families.
  9. Dolphin babies are separated from their mothers for the captivity industry (whether from wild capture/slaughter or from a dolphin breeder).
  10. Dolphins are trained with food deprivation.  That’s right.  These highly intelligent creatures know that food comes with doing the trick.

Don’t buy your children this toy.  Watch a couple of documentaries about the truth of dolphin captivity.

And don’t go to the dolphin show.

To let Playmobil know that they are teaching our children to disrespect the very animals that they love, and either knowingly or unwittingly contributing to dolphin captivity and slaughter, please contact them:

PLAYMOBIL® USA, INC.
P.O. Box 877
Dayton, NJ 08810
Voice: (609) 395-5566
Fax: (609) 395-3015
Customer Service e-mail address: service@playmobilusa.com
Non-Customer Service e-mail address: webmaster@playmobilusa.com

Thanks to Amanda Faughnan for the foundation of this piece.

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What the World Needs Now Is … More Dolphin Captivity?

Posted on September 14, 2011 by | 2 Comments

The federal government is preparing to use $75 million in my tax money and yours to build another dolphinarium in Mississippi called the Ocean Expo.  Interesting choice of words, since I seem to recall a big box Expo attached to yet another dolphin captor, who has trained 10 dolphins (and one wild-caught dolphin held for what I don’t know) to perform three times daily in a dolphin extravaganza in another southern U.S. state.  But that’s a story for another day.

Moby Solangi

One Mr. Moby Solangi, who has captured over 200 dolphins in his career, has applied for monies to fund his various dolphin projects, and he apparently continues to have the support of Senator Thad Cochran.  Mr. Solangi may even get a sympathy vote for having lost property during Hurricane Katrina.  But the property he lost was a hub from which he loaned dolphins, sea lions and other marine animals for display.  So he won’t get a sympathy vote from me.

What he’ll get is a signed petition and a growing community in opposition to this abomination on Facebook (Citizens Against Ocean Expo) who will never stop until the dolphin captivity practiced by Mr. Solangi and others is revealed as the cruel, outdated practice it is, and one akin to allowing humans to wrestle bears at roadside zoos or conduct dogfighting.

Harsh comparison?  I think not.  Some amusements at the expense of animals may appear to be benign.  But there is nothing benign in this.  At its root, these dolphins shows are, as Ric O’Barry said, about control.

I would just add one more object, and that is money.

So, let’s fight to keep our tax money out of Mr. Solangi’s pockets, and more dolphins in the ocean where they belong.  Join us.  Sign.  Call Senator Cochran.  Tell him no to the dolphin show.

Dolphins where they belong

 

 

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Dolphin Dance

Posted on September 11, 2011 by | Leave a comment

This isn’t a new video, but the Women for Whales posted it on Facebook today.  And I’m so glad that I happened to see it.

Here’s what I saw.  I saw life at its purest, most self-expressed.  I saw freedom.  I saw play.  I saw love and family and glee.

This is what dolphins do when they are in control of their own lives.   They dance.  They hold hands.  They flap their fins in some kind of gleeful signal.  All in the wide open ocean.

Shame on the Georgia Aquarium, SeaWorld, Miami Seaquarium, Marineland, Resorts World Sentosa, and all dolphinaria and aquaria for capturing and enslaving a creature who deserves to be free and in control of its own life.

If something stirred in you, like a sense of your own freedom, and how precious it is to be free and fully self-expressed, please contact Save Japan Dolphins, the Oceanic Preservation Society, Free the Atlanta 11, Save Misty the Dolphin on Facebook or Saddest Dolphins.com (I’m sure there are many others, too) to find out how to make a difference in the lives of dolphins today, and forever.

Become part of a growing community that celebrates and demands self-determination and freedom for these extraordinary creatures.

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September 7, 2011

Posted on September 8, 2011 by | 2 Comments

September 7, the first were killed, including the mother and baby.  The mother and baby that we saw just before they were slaughtered.  Thanks to the kind heart and brave spirit of Leilani Munter for Save Japan Dolphins, we can see the souls to whom we said goodbye.

I have to believe that these souls will be among the last to die.  That they will be specially honored among cetaceans as those who captured the world’s heart and awoke its will, and saved all who came after from the same fate.

No matter what happens every day, every day I will call.

I will call to beg.  I will call to bargain.  I will call to thank on the days that the hunt is called off.  And for the day when it is called off forever, I now bless their souls.

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