By Janos Maté

Prior to 1996, there was a pathetic zoo in Stanley Park, with a collection of over 50 animals, including snakes, emus, wolves, monkeys, kangaroos, and polar bears. Among the pathetic-looking animals, many of which were clearly suffering from the stress of confinement, were a few Humboldt penguins. Spectators would stand around the penguin pen, as the penguins routinely slid down a circular slide into a small and shallow pool.

The educational value of that spectacle was less than zero. Yes, children were entertained, but they learned absolutely nothing about the reality of penguin life. Then in 1994, as the zoo planned to upgrade, the citizens of Vancouver voted in a plebiscite to phase out the zoo.

Are our children deprived from learning about penguins as a result of the Stanley Park zoo closure? Absolutely not. March of the Penguins, the Academy Award-winning 2005 French film, narrated by Morgan Freeman, has been seen by hundreds of thousands of children around the world. Through this 90-minute film, children have learned much more about penguins than they could have ever learned by visiting the penguin exhibit in Stanley Park over a lifetime.

The beluga whales and other cetaceans that today languish in the Vancouver Aquarium fare no better than the penguins did in the zoo. And the educational value of seeing these majestic animals swimming in circles and doing acrobatics on demand is also about the same.

Essentially, children watching captive dolphins is miseducation. Children learn nothing about the reality of beluga life in the wild. They are not told that the animals they are watching are suffering. That some of them were forcibly taken from their families. That the life they are living in their small pools is not even a facsimile of their life in the wild. That they are seeing animals who have been deprived of the rich quality of life that nature has to offer them.

As Jacques Cousteau, the internationally respected oceanographer and educator stated: “The educational benefit of watching a dolphin in captivity would be like learning about humanity only by watching prisoners in solitary confinement.”

No one can dispute that cetaceans, that is whales and dolphins, are highly intelligent. More than that, they are sentient beings. An article in the October 2006 issue of the Journal of Applied Animal Behaviour Science concluded that cetaceans (dolphins and whales) have self-awareness; that they recognize themselves in a mirror; that they have humanlike emotions of joy and grief; that they exhibit culture, that is behaviour acquired through social learning; and that they have been observed looking after the sick ones in their community.

Furthermore, there is now scientific evidence that cetaceans and humans are members of the same exclusive evolutionary club, as we share similar type of brain cells, or spindle neurons (see “Is a Dolphin a Person?” in the February 2010 issue of Science Magazine). The difference is that cetaceans have been on this planet for 15 million years longer than our predecessors.

Little wonder that whales and dolphins, just like humans, suffer greatly in captivity. The Humane Society of the United States has concluded that “confining small cetaceans [like dolphins] in a pool that is at best only six or seven times their length is inhumane at nearly inconceivable level”. In 1995, the Vancouver SPCA publicly stated that the Vancouver Aquarium should be charged with cruelty to animals for keeping whales in captivity.

And whales and dolphins suffer whether or not they were taken from the wild or bred for captivity. It is a fabricated misconception that sentient beings born into captivity do not suffer because they have never experienced their natural habitat. Millions of years of evolution and adaptation to life are not erased in one generation.

If captivity is tantamount to cruelty, then why would any civilized society tolerate its presence? Why is such cruelty tolerated in Vancouver ?

Many citizens in Vancouver have for decades been advocating for the phase-out of cetacean captivity in the Vancouver Aquarium. Many also call for an end to all marine mammal captivity in Stanley Park. The park board has received over 20,000 signatures asking for a citywide referendum on the question of phasing out the cetacean captivity program of the Vancouver Aquarium. In addition, opinion polls have indicated that the majority of citizens in Metro Vancouver oppose keeping these intelligent beings in captivity.

Being respectful of the spirit of citizen involvement in our municipal democracy, an NPA-dominated park board in 1996 decided that should the aquarium request permission to expand in Stanley Park, a citywide referendum would be held. In the same spirit of civic democracy, a COPE-dominated park board in 2005 decided that the question of phasing out cetacean captivity in Stanley Park should be put to a citywide vote.

Unfortunately, in 2006, the last NPA park board, in cahoots with the aquarium, rescinded both of those earlier decisions. The park board then substituted the promised referendums with a so-called public consultation process. In blatant conflict of interest, this public consultation was paid for and managed by the aquarium. It was in essence a “public management” exercise, the results were predictable from the onset, and the so-predisposed park board used it to justify a vote in favour of allowing the aquarium to expand its facilities. An expanded aquarium will inevitably result in more captive cetaceans.

The current park board now has the opportunity and the responsibility to undo the wrongs of the previous park board. The proposed plebiscite is the first step.

The aquarium routinely claims that the public supports its programs and yet it has always opposed a citywide plebiscite or referendum. And yet a plebiscite during the civic election is the least expensive and most direct way to gauge public opinion. Why would anyone oppose asking the public what it thinks on such a contentious issue? The answer is simple. People who think that public opinion will go against them oppose giving the public a chance to vote.

Those of us who are opposed to the continuation of cetacean captivity at the aquarium are ready for a vigorous conversation with the public. We trust that intuitively and rationally most voters will cast their ballots in favour of freedom.

Park board chair Aaron Jasper has stated that holding plebiscite could leave the city open for a lawsuit by the aquarium because of the terms of lease agreement. Can that truly be the case? Can a lease agreement abrogate the democratic right of an elected board to gauge public opinion of deep concern through a non-binding plebiscite? Could that really be a breach of contract? Moreover, would it be in the aquarium’s interest to launch a lawsuit against the city and thus show contempt for the citizens of Vancouver for having expressed their opinion? And would the aquarium also launch a lawsuit should the plebiscite went in favour of keeping cetaceans in captivity?

A Vancouver plebiscite could set a worldwide precedent. It would be the first time that a major city like Vancouver would hold a plebiscite on cetacean captivity. In 1964, Vancouver set a precedent by being the first city to capture orca whales from the wild. Now the citizens of Vancouver would be given the opportunity to set a new precedent by signaling to the world the beginning of the end of the cetacean captivity era.

Janos Maté is the founder of WhaleFriends.