Captain Paul Watson's Moral Compass Loses Its Way

Paul Watson standing in front of the renamed Sea Shepherd Vessel the Steve Irwin. It is ironic that Steve Irwin was not only a conservationist but a zoo owner and his daughter, Bindi Irwin, is now an ambassador for SeaWorld.

"Actually oceanariums are in many ways are victims of their own success. They educated the public so well about dolphins, whales, and other marine life that a public that didn't care a fig about these animals [...] Unfortunately this compassion for whales and dolphins is not harnessed as a force against the killing industry, but is instead turned against the teacher. Paul Watson, 1995"

Many might be aware of the activities of the conservation organisation Sea Shepherd and its controversial founder Paul Watson. In recent years, Sea Shepherd seems to have lost its way and has drifted into the realms of animal-rights. Rather than just opposing the killing of whales and dolphins in whaling and drive fisheries, in such countries as Japan and the Faroe Isles, they have moved their sites to attacking the maintenance of whales and dolphins in captivity.

In a recent commentary on their website Paul Watson decries the death of a killer whale at the Marineland in Antibes, France. The whale called Valentin died some time after a serious flooding incident that seriously affected not only the marine park but also the surrounding area and involved the death of at least 19 people.

Watson berates the death and  - without any supporting evidence - makes the statement that it was the flooding that killed this animal due to the ingress of contaminated water into the killer whale exhibit. In actual fact, the post-mortem revealed that the animal died of a twisted gut (torsion) which veterinarians believe is unrelated to the flooding incident. The other whales in the same exhibit remain at the time of writing healthy and well.  He also blames Marineland for being built on a floodplain. Although, during its 45 years of existence this is the worst flooding experienced by this facility. Moreover, as stated, this didn't just affect the park but the large area surrounding it.

Watson finishes his polemic in a predictable way with the now familiar rhetoric and unrealistic aspiration that:

"Marineland must be shut down and the animals rehabilitated and released to the wild [...] These tanks must be emptied and these facilities shut down. Marineland, SeaWorld and other cetacean prisons around the world are a disgrace to humanity and an ongoing ordeal of suffering for hundreds of animals denied their rights to be free and to live a full and productive life..."

This is of course a totally unrealistic objective for many and various reasons. The first of which is that all the killer whales at Marineland (including the recently deceased Valentin) were all born in captivity and have never been in the wild – as is the case for the vast majority of the 50+ killer whales currently displayed around the world in zoological collections.

Further, as the well-known failed release of the wild caught killer whale Keiko demonstrated,  that even with wild caught animals such endeavours are highly risky and likely to not only be hugely costly but also inevitably not successful. It is interesting to note that this fact has also now been accepted by Jean-Michel Cousteau whose organisation Ocean Futures were directly involved in the Keiko experimental release. 

Interestingly, this hasn't always been Paul Watson's position regarding whales and dolphins is in captivity. In a commentary in the June edition of animal people magazine in 1995 entitled The Cult of Animal Celebrity his position was very different.

Watson makes the very good point that:

"Not all facilities holding marine animals are the enemy. And the huge sums raised to free a few individuals could be more positively directed toward ending the slaughter of hundreds of thousands of nameless whales, dolphins, and seals on the world's oceans"

He goes on to say something that many believe are truisms when it comes to the public's changed perception over the years regarding whales and dolphins.

"Actually oceanariums are in many ways are victims of their own success. They educated the public so well about dolphins, whales, and other marine life that a public that didn't care a fig about these animals before 20 years ago now cares a great deal. Unfortunately this compassion for whales and dolphins is not harnessed as a force against the killing industry, but is instead turned against the teacher."

His final statement here is indeed very ironic because Watson is now engaging in the very behaviour he rightly criticises in this cited article.

In the closing passage of this article he makes a judgement that many feel is not without truth.

"There are hundreds of dolphins held in tanks around the world. There are millions whose numbers diminished daily in the world's largest human controlled killing tank of all: the ocean. If we don't hold the wanton killing in the wild, the only place dolphins will survive will be in captive facilities." 

So why has Watson apparently changed his mind completely regarding the captive care of whales and dolphins? Certainly, the situation for these animals in the wild has not really changed substantially. Animals are still being killed as is graphically shown in documentaries.  Watson's own efforts to highlight the drive fishery killings in Japan have failed to have little impact on the continuation of these hunts.

What seems to be happening is that Watson and others have decided that there might be a more lucrative return in targeting the small numbers of animals that are currently being caught in the Japanese drive fisheries for display in aquaria as this would generate better publicity and more public donations. The fact that these operations (which run in tandem within the drive hunt) have only been going on for decades compared with the hundreds of years history of the drive hunts seems unimportant.

This fact became very clear with the release of the 2009documentary The Cove. Whilst this film was very successful one criticism of its presentation was the overemphasis of the role of the live capture of dolphins in the drive hunt against the slaughter of the majority of the animals.  This of course comes as no surprise as the main protagonist featured in this documentary was the former dolphin trainer now animal-rights activist Ric O'Barry.

Whilst, there seems to be a considerable amount of common ground between the animal-rights lobby and the zoological communityregarding the use of drive fisheries for the acquisition of animals for captive display.  It should be noted that the USA and mainland European zoological collections now exclusively use self-sustaining captive breeding for the acquisition of display animals and not wild capture.  Unfortunately, opinions about the role that the captive display of whales and dolphins can positively provide in awareness to the protection and conservation of their wild counterparts seems to have been polarised. 

Sadly and ultimately the only ones that will suffer from this consequence will be wild dolphins, whales and the marine environment.  A situation recognised by Paul Watson in 1995 but seemingly now lost .

Further reading and links

Drive Hunts and Animals Acquired for Dolphinaria.

Cove Cultists?

Blackfish: Please Release Me Let Me Go

Killer whales, Politics and Animal-Rights.

I am sure that this animal-rights led pantomime will continue to roll on. Unfortunately, I am minded to think that the only people who will profit from this are lawyers and the least likely are going to be the killer whales and their care at SeaWorld. 

Perhaps it should be a given that politicians should be very wary of getting involved in areas of science where they have very little or no specialist knowledge. This is particularly true in the area of animal welfare – which actually can be considered a science that can be objectively studied. This situation has become even more complex since the inception of the philosophical concept of animal-rights which as many have pointed out bears little relationship to issues of animal welfare.

A recent case in point is the continuing controversy regarding the SeaWorld's zoological parks and their care and husbandry of killer whales. This has been exacerbated by the much promoted film Blackfish which those who have regularly read the comments and blogs on this site will be very familiar with. The problems with this particular film have been discussed elsewhere and therefore I will not revisit old ground in this particular article.

The latest developments in the saga of the animal-rights lobby groups particular the organisation People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PeTA) is an ongoing campaign to stop the SeaWorld Park developing larger habitats for their killer whales. This recently culminated in this organisation and its supporters lobbying the California Coastal Commission who have jurisdiction on allowing planning permission for SeaWorld's to undertake the new killer whale exhibit in San Diego. The resultant current outcome of the Commission's ruling aptly demonstrates the concerns regarding politics and animal welfare alluded to at the beginning of this article.

First, the California Coastal Commission is there to undertake stewardship of coastal resources in California and is primarily involved in making sure that planning decisions do not negatively impact on the environment. However, they are not there to make moral or other judgements on how organisations or businesses operate beyond that point. For them to give permission for the extension of the killer whale habitat at SeaWorld's but then bind it to issues regarding the husbandry of their animals - the cessation of their killer whale breeding programme and a banning of movements of animals within zoological facilities - is clearly not within their legal remit. For those people who do not understand this position a way to think of it is this: would it be acceptable for this same Commission to grant permission to allow the building of a new carnivore exhibit at San Diego zoo or Wild Animal Park and then turned round to that institution and tell them that they cannot breed these animals or move them to other facilities. This would be particularly pertinent if the animals concerned were also part of an international breeding programme.

Clearly it was the actions of the lobbying of PeTA that seems to have forced the Commissions hand in introducing these Draconian amendments to the planning permission of SeaWorld's new killer whale habitat. Interestingly, the same set of criteria was forcibly imposed on the publicly owned Vancouver Aquarium last year. The board that oversees the aquariums operation tried to initially ban the display cetaceans at the aquarium and when this failed tried to force a ruling that banned animal breeding and movement between other zoological facilities. Again this was a group of local politicians who had been influenced or had sympathies with the animal-rights movement. Fortunately, the animal management team at the Vancouver Aquarium challenge this ruling and it was overturned.

A second point to ponder is that PeTA and their associated protesters – who lobbied at the Commission meeting – have all publicly made declarations they wish to acquire the killer whales at SeaWorld's to be takento a sanctuary (zoo) run by themselves or their associates. Therefore, it would seem that here we may well have a legal conflict of interest insomuch that these animal-rights lobby groups and their supporters are actually taking action against a "business competitor" e.g. SeaWorld's which may well be at the very least legally dubious. This seems to have been something that the Commission has not fully realised.

I am sure that this animal-rights led pantomime will continue to roll on. Unfortunately, I am minded to think that the only people who will profit from this are lawyers and the least likely are going to be the killer whales and their care at SeaWorld. 

As a final thought, because we are now seeing a considerable amount of blurring of lines between a political ideology of animal-rights and the realities of animal welfare – not helped by the involvement of naive politicians – we are going to depressingly see considerably more examples of this nonsense in years to come.


Update: 15 October 2015. SeaWorld announced that it will challenge  ruling that banned the company from breeding captive killer whales at its San Diego park.

John Michel Cousteau Wants To Save SeaWorld. Really?

 "...Marine-animal expert Jean-Michel Cou­steau — who worked on the successful release of Keiko, the star of “Free Willy,” into a seaside pen (before he died in the wild) — said SeaWorld Entertainment can move its orcas to seaside sanctuaries without costing it money.This brief news article is the musings of John Michel Cousteau (the son of Jacques Cousteau) whose organisation Ocean Futures was involved in the release project of "Keiko" the killer whale..."

  
The comments in the above-linked article in the New York Post by Claire Atkinson are of course misleading. Let us make it clear the "Keiko" project was not a success. In making this statement, I mean that the plan to reintegrate this animal back into a population of wild killer whales off the shores of Iceland did not succeed despite huge amounts of time, money and planning. This is not just my opinion this is the conclusion of the peer review paper published in 2009 in the journal Marine Mammal Science HERE.

John Michel Cousteau himself has also made it clear that he does not now consider it viable to release long-term captive killer whales back to the wild.  

My blog goes into more detail regarding returning captive cetaceans back to the wild HERE.

The releasing of former captive cetaceans has been given some extra impetus in 2012 with the Born Free Foundation's project to release two former captive Turkish dolphins after extensive rehabilitation. Although, details of this project have never been published in any scientific journals. Moreover, as with all these projects, there needs to be a considerable amount of context to understand what they actually mean. These two animals released had in fact not been in captivity for any particularly long period of time; they had been caught within the area they returned to and they were young male bottlenosed dolphins. These three criteria are the actual reason that this release project was likely to have a high degree of success. In addition, it should be noted that it followed a protocol that was used in a successful experimental capture and release project by the late Dr Ken Norris and cetacean biologist Dr Randall Wells published in 1998 HERE.

As to Cousteau's involvements with the eight bottlenose dolphins currently displayed at the Baltimore Aquarium (of which only one was caught in the wild) I have blogged this in some detail linked HERE.

As an opinion, I would say that removing these animals from an urban aquarium to Hawaii goes completely against any value that displaying these animals could have had as there are a number of both captive and wild dolphin viewing opportunities in this particular part of the world. The fact that somebody like Cousteau does not understand the value of urban zoological collections (particularly displaying animals that people are unlikely to experience) speaks volumes and sadly smacks of rather distasteful celebrity elitism.

PETA & Chips or Should Aquariums Serve Their Exhibits Cousins As Food?

 This in itself strikes as total hypocrisy to an organisation that espouses the rights of animals and speaks for “all the fish in the sea” but then decided to kill other species in proxy of their rights.

The People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) is not adverse to running campaigns that do very little to further animal welfare or conservation. The most recent example can be found in a letter these self-publicists wrote to the U.K.'s National Marine Aquarium in Plymouth.  The story was picked up by the Plymouth Herald and under the headline: "Plymouth's National Marine Aquarium Defends Decision to Serve Fish in Restaurants after Complaints from Animal-Rights Campaigners" the newspaper reported PETA's complaint regarding the ethics of fish being served to customers in the aquariums cafe.

PETA’s Dawn Carr's letter on behalf of “all the fish in the sea [sic]” stated:

“The National Marine Aquarium advertises itself as a place where people can cultivate an understanding of and admiration for sea animals. Yet after inviting people to look on these glorious, fascinating animals in awe, it's odd that your café then invites people to stick a fork in them..."

Further it claimed that:

“... the seafood in your cafés is made from living sea animals who treasured life and were needlessly subjected to pain and fear..."

The aquarium rightly pointed out that all the fish served in their food outlets come from  recognised sustainable sources. 

It further stated:

“All fish and seafood served in the aquarium cafe is ethically sourced and MSC compliant...We have a robust purchasing policy in place that is proactive in sustainable and seasonal fish, ensuring we maintain the highest levels of sustainable fish sourcing practices possible.”

Dr David Gibson the aquarium's Managing Director further added that the aquarium aims to educate consumers on how best to source and eat fish and seafood responsibly.

“We’ve also spearheaded a number of initiatives, including helping Plymouth to win the world’s first Fish2fork Blue Fish award and our current campaign for Plymouth to become a Sustainable Fish City.”

So should aquariums not feed their customers fish?  Data collected in 2012 found that 2% of those surveys in the UK identified themselves as vegetarian with less than 1% reported following a vegan diet – a lifestyle that is promoted by PETA. (Source: The Vegetarian Society).

Ironically, some of those who identify themselves of vegetarian also admit eating fish as part of their diet. Further the number of people identifying as vegetarian seem to have declined slightly over recent years.

One interesting demographic from 2007 found that the highest number of vegetarians/vegans (7%) were found to be 16-29 year old females. Now while many of these people have sincere beliefs in being vegetarian (for reasons of health or ethics as regards the rearing and killing of animals) it does not necessarily follow that they would support some of the extreme positions of groups such as PETA - for example their opposition to animals in aquariums and other zoological collections. Nonetheless, these are exactly the people PETA pursue as they believe they are more easy to indoctrinate to accept this groups own brand of animal rights ideology.

Going back to the above-cited data it is clear that vegetarianism in the UK is not representative of the general population with the majority consuming animal proteins (fish and/or meat) as part of their diet. Therefore, it would seem that there should be no issue in aquariums serving fish (or other animal protein) in their restaurants any more than it would be for them to offer vegetarian options so to be inclusive to all their customers.

Moreover (and as pointed out by the aquarium themselves) it would appear that an aquarium could be an obvious place to educate the public on fishing which would include issues of overfishing and the use of sustainable fishing techniques.

However, those who follow the behaviour of groups such as PETA are fully aware that this organisation really does not have any commitment to real animal welfare or conservation.

As an organisation they have been found guilty of annually killing large numbers of unwanted pet animals that could have been re-homed. This in itself strikes as total hypocrisy to an organisation that espouses the rights of animals and speaks for “all the fish in the sea” but then decides to kill other species in proxy of their rights. Moreover this is an organisation that has huge amounts of capital that could be used to re-house animals that have been abandoned but chooses not to do this.

One final point to ponder is that PETA admit they are absolutely against animals being displayed in aquariums and zoos. Yet when they wish to target aquarium visitors to further their vegan agenda they engage in a rather bizarre argument were the 'beauty and fascination' of the animals exhibited in the aquarium is of positive benefit.  Which seems to suggest they metaphorically want both their fish and eat it.

National Aquarium in Baltimore: Who's Pulling The Flippers?

It would seem that the aquarium's management have completely lost site of the reasons why urban zoos and aquariums are so important in their ability to give visitors (particularly the young) a close-up and personal experience of wildlife and its importance in matters of conservation.

The National Aquarium in Baltimore has displayed dolphins for many years but are now considering retiring them to a "sanctuary".  CEO John Racanelli states in a recent article in the Baltimore Magazine that films such as "Free Willy", "The Cove" and "Blackfish" have driven such an agenda. 

If this is the case, then this really is an absurd idea and the reason given for promoting it by the aquarium's CEO are weak to say the least.  If he is honestly justifying removing the dolphins from the aquarium on the basis of the above mentioned films then the lunatics really have taken over the asylum. 

First, it is important to understand that the 1999 feature film "Free Willy" is a work of fiction:  a young boy befriends a lone killer whale in a theme park whose owner plans to kill the whale to gain a $1,000,000 insurance policy; after a series of adventures, the boy manages to free the whale back to the wild.

Ironically, Kieko (the whale used in the film) was being held alone in a Mexican theme park.  The film generated concern over his care and a project was mounted to release him back to the wild.  The first stage of this plan was his removal to a purpose built pool at the Oregon Coast Aquarium and then to a sea pen in Iceland were he would be rehabilitated back to the wild.  Unfortunately, the project was beset with problems and political wrangling within the animal-rights lobby groups  promoting the project. 

Keiko was freed in August 2002 but rather than integrating with wild whales he was discovered 3 weeks later seeking human interaction and begging for food from people in a Norwegian fjord.  This is where he ended his days being cared for by appointed keepers.  He died of suspected pneumonia in December 2003. The project was deemed a failure and certainly did not have the same 'feel good' ending to the Free Willy movie that was, as stated, a work of fiction.

Second, the 2009 film "The Cove" examined the traditional but bloody Japanese drive hunt fisheries of dolphins and whales in the coastal town of Taiji.  Some have criticised the film stating its prime impact was lost as regards the hunt.  They cite that people such as activist Ric O'Barry steered the films ethos to their own anti-captivity agenda regarding the small number of animals removed alive from the hunt for aquariums rather than the prime reason for the hunt as 'pest control' and the killing and butchering of animals for meat.
  
Third, the 2013 film "Blackfish" directed by Gabriela Cowperthwaite purports to show the mistreatment of killer whales at the SeaWorld marine parks in the USA. Cowperthwaite maintains she made the film due to an interest in the accidental killing of a trainer Dawn Brancheau by a whale in the Orlando SeaWorld park in 2010; this death also resulted in the 2012 book "Death at Seaworld" by David Kirby.  The film not only relied heavily on Kirby's  book but also on the anecdotal evidence from a handful of disgruntled former animal staff and archive video clips from television news interviews and You Tube.  SeaWorld and Dawn Brancheau's family refused to take part in the film as they rightly suspected that the film would be promoting an animal-rights agenda.

The National Aquarium in Baltimore has exhibited dolphins in its current facility since 1990.  The animals are bottlenose dolphins (Tursiops truncatus) not killer whales (Orcinus orca) so any association with allegations made in the film "Blackfish" are a non sequitur.  Although the animal-rights lobby have tried very hard to pursue their personal agendas against aquariums and zoos off the back of this film to encompass not just other aquatic mammals and also terrestrial mammals such as elephants. 

Of the seven dolphins housed at the National Aquarium, all have been acquired via captive breeding.  Therefore, any relationship these animals have to the film "The Cove" is none existent, as they were not obtained from any drive fishery. 

In a further comment in the Baltimore Magazine CEO John Racanelli makes the further strange observation that:  

“...Most large mammals in zoos get to ‘retire’ in elephant or lion sanctuaries...”

This is an entirely false and it is puzzling a zoo professional should make such a misleading statement.

There are no elephant or lion 'sanctuaries' in the USA unless you count those set-up by animal-rights groups such as Performing Animal Welfare Society - PAWS.  

This group were controversially involved in removing three elephants from the Toronto Zoo against the wishes of the zoos management and keeping staff in October 2013.  The move was sanctioned by local politicians under pressure from animal-rights groups and their supporters and many consider it was undertaken for political reasons.  Due to this action the zoo subsequently lost its accreditation to the Association of Zoos and Aquariums (which accredits most major zoos in North America).

Therefore, it is reasonable to ask as to the furture of the aquarium's dolphins - who is pulling the strings here - zoo professionals or the animal-right lobby.

In 2012, the aquarium decided to abandon scheduled dolphin shows for a more free form interaction between staff, dolphins and the public.  At the time, the reasons given was that the scheduled shows were oversubscribed and visitors could feel disadvantaged not being able to see the animals performing.  

Now we see the muted development of a sanctuary where animals will be removed entirely from the aquarium to a seaside location with suggestions that they could be viewed via Skype.  It would seem that the aquarium's management have completely lost site of the reasons why urban zoos and aquariums are so important in their ability to give visitors (particularly the young) a close-up and personal experience of wildlife and its importance in matters of conservation.  The suggestion that Skype and other technological facsimiles could have equal impact is alarmingly naive.

Finally, one could question as to why other alternatives have not be pursued to ensure the dolphins remain at the aquarium.  The most obvious would be to redeveloped and maybe expand the current exhibit into a more naturalistic habitat as has been undertaken in Harderwijk Marine Mammal Park in The Netherlands with its Dolphin Lagoon.  Further Reading

Free Willy! Free Kieko?

The Cove and Animals Acquired For Dolphinaria

Blackfish and the Black Arts of Propaganda

Update October 2017

True to form The National Aquarium in Baltimore CEO John Racanelli takes part in a fringe meeting on "dolphin sanctuaries" a the 22st Biennal Conference on the Biology of Marine Mammals in Halifax, Nova Scotia organised by various animal-rights activists.  One has to question whether this person is fit to representing a large zoological collection. This unfortunately  follows on from the foolish and naïve actions of the American Zoo Association inviting  a well known animal-rights activist Wayne Pacelle, CEO of the Humane Society of the United States to give a key note speech at their 2017 Conference.