The Georgia Aquarium wants 18 more beluga whales, but someone doesn’t want you to know about it. At least not yet. Or maybe it’s just one of those computer glitches that I don’t even pretend to understand.
A Google search earlier today regarding the Georgia Aquarium and beluga whales revealed the following links and more:
Seek and ye shall find on Google.
See that one, pretty much right at the top of the bottom third of the page, the one entitled, “Georgia Aquarium plans to bring more belugas into the country.” Well, when you clicked it, it took you here.
Unless it’s a page that has been taken down since it went to the search engines
Page could not be found. Well, crap. That’s a mystery. The link indicates that, mere days after the Georgia Aquarium saw the death of Maris’ five-day-old beluga whale calf, it is announcing the plan to get more belugas. That is, to bring them into the country.
Well, not really announcing. More like, announcing and then unannouncing. Or accidental press releasing. Or something. I don’t pretend to understand.
Oops, is all I’ll say. I didn’t realize that catching and bringing beluga whales into the United States was, well, allowed.
And I’m thinking somebody hit the “Publish” button instead of the “File Save” button before they could submit it for editing.
Did I say, “Ooooops.”
Dang. Woulda loved to have read that story.
Oh, wait. I can. I did. And so shall you, thanks to the computer sleuthing skills that I wished I had. Can I just say, Deep Throat. Or Smoking Man?
Here, via the awesomeness of a really smart individual and Google cache, or some such, is the rest of the story. This time, I’m not ruining it for you. Yet.
Not surprisingly, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution has done yet another “news” report which should be in an “I love to swim with dolphins because they’re cuuuuuuuute” blog or on a newspaper’s Opinion page. But instead, the AJC markets a story that the Georgia Aquarium wants you to believe. Because the AJC, as some in Atlanta, including Gay Pride, are having a love affair with domination, control and ownership.
Nellie, at 59 years old, born in captivity on February 27, 1953, is an anomaly in the captive dolphin industry due to her longevity. She has seen a lot of dolphins die.
If it’s history we’re talking, here’s a history that the AJC, Marineland and the Georgia Aquarium (which owns Marineland) don’t publicize. And because record-keeping in the marine mammal captivity industry, as well as the various government agencies that have been tasked with maintaining a marine mammal inventory, haven’t done a stellar job, the statistics are a bit like the tip of the iceberg.
On the basis of the best information we have, compiled by Ceta-base, here is part of Marineland’s history that the AJC didn’t bother telling you, or likely even researching.
SpeciesNumber Died at Marineland
Beaked Whale (all species) 4
Bottlenose Dolphin (Tursiops spp) 149
Common Dolphin (Delphinus spp) 1
Pilot Whale, short-finned (Glob. macro.) 23
Risso’s Dolphin (Grampus griseus) 2
Amazon River Dolphin (Inia geof.) 8
Sperm Whale (dwarf & pygmy) 16
Spotted Dolphin (Atlantic & Pantropical) 11
Striped Dolphin (Stenella coer.) 1
White-sided Dolphin, Pacific (Lagen. obliq.) 2
And while Marineland has been doing some celebrating over time, I’m afraid that some of their celebrations have been short-lived. There was the news report in the March 4, 1954, Sarasota Herald-Tribune, of Marineland (more honestly called Marine Studios in those days) having bred the first dolphin – or porpoise as both Marineland and the newspaper incorrectly identified her – to have been born to a captive-bred dolphin. That is, both the mother dolphin named Spray, born on February 26, 1947, and the baby named Peggy were born in captivity. That didn’t turn out well for baby Peggy. She didn’t survive the year. We’re not sure how long she lived. We also know only that Spray also died, but not when. Hopefully, Marineland knows.
Before she died, Spray had what appears to be at least five calves. All appear to be dead. How many of you mothers can make that claim? Obviously, you wouldn’t want to. But Spray had no choice.
Or maybe we can recall the newspaper article where Marineland celebrated the live capture, on January 9, 1964, of a pregnant dolphin. It would appear that neither the baby nor the mother lived to see 1965.
In a world where one sees these dolphins as fungible property, or props for a dance party, well, these statistics or these examples may lose the sting that they merit. In that world-view, you lose one, you get another just after you put on your sad face. And get a newspaper to write another piece celebrating something.
But, in fairness, Marineland has learned a few things over its history. I will grant them that. They learned that a dolphin is not the same as a porpoise, or at least I think they learned that. They also learned to be less than honest in describing what they do with the dolphins. They used to come out and say that what they do is teach them tricks. Tricks. Jumping and splashing on command. Various tricks. Now, they like to tell you, oh, they reaaalllly like to tell you, especially during the trick show, that they only teach “behaviors”. Balderdash.
Maris and calf at the Georgia Aquarium, unattributed photo from Georgia Aquarium Facebook page
Two recent news stories. Both involved beluga whale calves. The first involved the birth and premature death of a calf born to Maris, a beluga whale who arrived at the Georgia Aquarium in 2005.
I have heard that the baby beluga was a full forty pounds underweight at birth. Born underweight, not healthy. Lived only five days.
Baby beluga whale rescued – can’t she be kept in a sea pen? Photo by Associated Press.
The second story involves a different baby beluga whale. A baby beluga born in the wild. And even though she was separated from her mother and cannot survive without nursing, this baby seems to be doing better than Maris’ baby. Even with all those experts and blood samples taken from Maris’ baby. But that’s another post for another day.
This second baby beluga whale was found in Alaska’s Bristol Bay, separated from its mother, perhaps in a storm. A baby beluga whale nurses from the time it is born until it is approximately two years old. But this baby beluga, at only two to three days old, somehow survived separation, however brief, from its mother. And even being separated from its mother, this baby was healthier than the one born to Maris, in captivity.
Now, you may be thinking that it’s not fair to draw far-reaching conclusions based on two examples, where there are many variables, far more than any of us knows. And I think you’d be right.
But I’m not drawing any conclusions based on these two examples. I’m just relaying two stories. I already know that captivity is inherently cruel, that captivity of these sentient creatures, even in a habitat larger than the far-too-small one at the Georgia Aquarium, is wrong.
But two stories. One of a little calf born to captivity that didn’t have much of a future. But who died before she could live out that destiny. The other of another calf, now destined for a lifetime of captivity. Unless someone gives him access to the ocean, tries to find the little wild one’s mother and family now now now, cares for him in a sea pen where he can retain some ability, however slight, to communicate, he will end up, like Maris, being seen as someone’s broodmare or, like Beethoven, Maris’ deceased calf’s father, a stud.
Please, captivity industry. Do better for this little rescued butterball than keeping him in a landlocked concrete box where it is less likely that he will be found to be releaseable. Keep him in a sea pen near where he was found. Listen for his family. Let him try to communicate with them.
Thank you to all the workers and volunteers who work for these animals, trying to save them and restore them to freedom.
I have no original thoughts. There. You have it. But you bloggers know how unprofound that statement is. Why bother having original thoughts when observing-and-commenting is so much fun.
So, without (for once) belaboring the point, here is another installment of “It started as a Facebook post and ended as a blog.” Which theme I will, as any reader of mine could predict, later belabor.
Here is Lewis Black, with so many gems inside ten minutes, that – except for any ten minutes that Christopher Hitchens’ pen or mouth were moving – it challenges almost any ten minutes of memorialized thought.
“Was the Earth created in seven days?”
No.
For those of you who believe it was, um, for you Christians, let me tell you, then you do not understand the Jewish people. We Jews understand that it did not take place in seven days, and that’s ’cause we know what we’re good at, and what we’re really good at is bullshit.
This is a wonderful story that was told to the people in the desert in order to distract them from the fact that they did not have air conditioning.
I would love to have the faith to believe that it took place in seven days, but . . . I have thoughts. And that can really fuck up the faith thing.
Just ask any Catholic priest.
If that isn’t enough on his consideration of the seven-day thing:
And then . . . there are fossils.
Whenever anybody tries to tell me that they believe that it took place in seven days, I reach for a fossil and go, “Fossil.”
And if they keep talking, I throw it just over their head.
Not had enough?
There are people who believe that dinosaurs and men lived together; that they roamed the Earth at the same time. There are museums that children go to in which they build dioramas to show them this. And what this is, purely and simply, is a clinical psychotic reaction. They are crazy. They are stone-cold fuck nuts.
I can’t be kind about this, because these people are watching the Flintstones as if it were a documentary.
Oh, I could keep going with this transcription thing. Because if I thought that I could actually reach more of you, and cause you to laugh and think, I would keep typing and typing and typing. But I think it’s time that if you’ve read this far, you should go straight to the gem itself, instead of my thoughts about it.
Lewis Black (either because it’s secure video or I know nothing about the internet <guilty grimace>, I can’t embed it). You owe to yourself the click over if you’ve gotten this far.)
My compatriots who stand in front of the aquariums around the world trying to educate the public about the true nature of marine mammal captivity have all, at one time or another – or all the time for some of us – had the uncomfortable recognition of “there but for the grace of god go I” when we see animals being held against their will in a concrete tank and enclosure.
Whether those animals are also required to perform, circus-like, or just held in a tank to swim around in circles for the rest of its existence; whether its companions are part of those truly gawdy “shows” or “extravaganzas” with shiny lights, shiny clothes and shiny names, like Stargazer; whether or not there is loud music, any too loud for creatures who use echolocation to communicate with its world but who can no longer do so in the same way with all that racket; the captivity, the willingness of humans to enslave, is at the root.
Animal rights advocates are not shy about acknowledging the parallels between a willingness to justify keeping these animals in captivity, on the one hand, with racism, on the other. How far removed is a willingness to enslave an animal from a willingness to see humans also in some hierarchy of worth and to treat them accordingly?
Harpers, June 2012, Front Cover
Thanks to David Samuels for his fine article in Harpers, we learn the history of zoos in America, from its most significant founder, Madison Grant, and uncovers something more than “parallels” in the connection between our willingness to set standards for others – whether those “others” are human or some other form of life on this planet – that are based in anything other than their own native rights.
“The Nordics are, all over the world, a race of soldiers, sailors, adventurers and explorers, but above all, of rulers, organizers, and aristocrats,” Grant wrote. Mocking the idea that environment, education, and opportunity could alter heredity, Grant expressed his great disgust for Negroes and issued dire warning about the Jewish immigrants, whose “dwarf stature, peculiar mentality and ruthless concentration on self-interest are being engrafted upon the stock of the nation.” Unchecked immigration of Jews from Eastern Europe, and southern Italians, he warned, had turned New York City into a “cloaca gentium,” producing racial horrors that future anthropologists would find impossible to unravel.
I urge you to read this article, especially if you are interested in the historical roots of today zoos – and, by extension, the relative newcomer, the aquarium.
It will bear out factually what many of you have heard reverberate through every justification of the enslavement of animals. For those of you who have either personally or historically experienced a racial or ethnic discrimination at the hands of a more powerful band of humans, I just don’t get how you can support animal enslavement for your amusement.
I just want to say it again: a year ago, a bullhook could not be used in the City of Atlanta, Georgia, to “guide” elephants to stand on their heads, to step on a cutely painted stool, or even to support The Lovely Viola.
Now, due to a joint effort of the usual suspects – Ringling Brothers Circus, Feld Entertainment, Universoul Circus, Mayor Kasim Reed and the Public Safety City Council Committee, et al., circuses are on the verge of, once again, being able to bullhook elephants in Atlanta to their very little hearts’ delight.
Unless you do something about it. Like, now.
Here’s the City Council’s email address, if you’ve heard enough and want to start pounding your keyboard to tell the Atlanta City Council and Mayor Reed that we want our city to stand in a public policy that is based in more than a blood-soaked revenue stream: atlantacouncil@atlantaga.gov.
But, lest you want more info, I’ll keep pounding mine. So to speak.
The Public Safety Committee of the Atlanta City Council met today to consider an ordinance in which the bullhook ban will be removed. The use of a bullhook in Atlanta has been, since June 1, 2011, outlawed, when Fulton County passed the ban. Because of the contract between the City of Atlanta and Fulton County in which the County provided the City’s animal welfare services, the City was bound by the Fulton County ordinance.
Hello. I am a bullhook. Ringling likes to call me a "guide". But you and I both know that I have one purpose, and that is to inflict pain. Oh, no, wait. Two purposes. One, to inflict pain and, two, to put in fear of imminent pain. But they like to call it "guiding".
As was Universoul Circus when they performed this past February. That little factoid couldn’t seem to quell the enthusiasm with which Mr. Benjamin Johnson, a representative of Universoul, proclaimed that Universoul used the bullhook during its February 2012 performance, despite that little detail of its apparently being illegal.
While Ringling had the savvy, and the deep pockets with which to hire legal counsel from Troutman Sanders to put a temporary restraining order on implementation of the lawfully-executed ordinance so that Ringling could bullhook its elephants as much as it felt it needed to, Universoul must not have caught that little legal technicality. Or perhaps they felt they had cover under the TRO.
But this isn’t meant to focus on Universoul. I only mean to point out that the deep pockets of Ringling are here to preserve its right to bullhook. No surprise there. Most of the proponents of the bullhook, no, wait, ALL of the proponents of the bullhook who spoke at the microphone were from out of town. The Atlanta residents who spoke were all, to a person, opposed. The Public Works Committee doesn’t seem to have noticed that. Well, except for C.T. Martin and Joyce Sheperd, who voted against the current draft of the ordinance.
Time out to let you watch some video by PETA of how the bullhook is wielded against elephants by Ringling.
So, I’ve finished pounding mine, and would like very much for you to Tweet (using the hashtag #bullhook would be good), share on Facebook, or write an email to the Atlanta City Council to urge the City to add the words “use a bullhook” to proposed City Ordinance Section 18-123(a). A good place might be after the words “cruelly treat” and before “maim”. Or maybe before “bruise.” Putting a specific reference to bullhooking is just clearer that way. Even though we know that the elephants are, in fact, bruised by use of the bullhook. Otherwise, why use a bullhook. The sole intention of a bullhook is to inflict pain.
No, that’s wrong. There are two intentions.
The first intention is to inflict pain. The second is to instill a fear of imminent pain. That’s how this “guiding” works. The bruising is secondary to the pain and the fear of pain.
Go on. Write your email. If you’re feeling chatty, call Mayor Reed at (404) 330-6100. Tell him to put Atlanta on the map for a policy based in a clear statement of ethics. While bruising is good to prohibit, saying the City is against bruising, but won’t specifically call out the bullhook, is hypocrisy at its finest.
You can’t bullhook a hooker. Or something like that.
