Wildlife deserves conservation, not Vancouver Aquarium expansion
By Peter Hamilton
The Vancouver Aquarium is seeking government money for its $120-million expansion at a time when the economy and wildlife protection are in troubled waters. Aquarium expansions threaten animals and Stanley Park land. Scarce funds must protect endangered species in the wild. Tax monies must not exploit captives for entertainment and as research “tools”.
Monies are desperately needed to hire conservation officers to enforce new wildlife regulations. For example, boat-traffic harassment of local orcas causes major stress and interrupts foraging. Orcas under stress are more susceptible to deadly health problems and extinction. It’s illegal but not properly enforced.
Captivity is cruel because it does not provide for natural social and behavioural needs. In the wild, animals enjoy a diverse, vast ecosystem with complex social structures. But now the aquarium plans to get more out of captives by also seeking lucrative government research grants. Test-tube studies do not represent the whole picture of life in the wild. Marine Mammals in the Lab: Tools for Conservation and Science, a report from a 2007 North Pacific Universities Marine Mammal Research Consortium workshop, hosted by the aquarium and UBC Marine Mammal Research Unit, included reasons why it is impossible to accurately compare captive animals to wild ones.
Aquarium experiments could be applied to controversial military purposes. At the 2007 workshop, the U.S. Navy Marine Mammal Program participated. Decades ago, the U.S. Navy did study the belugas at the aquarium and held some in Nanoose Bay. Since the ’60s, military experiments have mistreated animals as weapons of war. Presently, dolphins and sea lions are kept in child-like portable pools when not on patrols on U.S. bases and in war zones.
While the aquarium jumped onto the “green” bandwagon because it is good for business, conservation programs have been and will continue to be achieved without putting animals in captivity. Its anticonservation message irresponsibly urges all to “get up close with nature” by petting and training captives. The aquarium’s attempt to kill an orca for a model for a sculpture started the orca slave trade that led to the depletion of the now-endangered orcas. The blood of many dolphins is on its hands with captivity and continued business deals with Japan, notorious for whaling and dolphin slaughters.
Stanley Park has a diversity of natural fauna and flora. It is a free ecology classroom that should be protected. The aquarium expansion will consume 30 percent more public green space. It is subject to the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act, as was the 1990 beluga-pool expansion, but the aquarium then ignored the law. This must not happen again.
The public does not want captive B.C. species that can be seen in the wild in “Super, Natural B.C.” The public voted against a zoo in Stanley Park with river otters, beavers, and others now on the aquarium list.
More pools means more animals will be confined and suffer. There have been 33 deaths of dolphins at the Vancouver aquarium. Bjossa had three babies that died and that helped stop the captivity of orcas. Now Hana has had two babies die, and this must stop the import of more Pacific white-sided dolphins.
If breeding is successful, the families can be split up or warehoused out of public view under horrible conditions. The sea otter Nyac’s first baby was sent to a zoo. One beluga is on loan to SeaWorld San Diego, while two are kept in a 50-square-foot barren pool surrounded by caged sea lions and newly captured fur seals in Vancouver.
The last NPA park board overturned Vancouver citizens’ right to vote on aquarium expansions and watered down the cetacean bylaw that was to phase out dolphin captivity. If the aquarium expands again, cage-crazy animals will be pacing back and forth like the otters and polar bears in the past. Dolphins will endlessly swim around and around and around. The new park board must keep their election promises. They must overturn those conservation setbacks and stop this expansion.
Economics and ethics will eventually end the barbaric prisons and experiments at the Vancouver Aquarium. Instead of perpetuating animal cruelty, protecting the environment has greater public support. Funding habitat preservation not animal prisons will help people truly understand and respect wildlife. We must save the wildlife, not the Vancouver Aquarium.
Peter Hamilton is the founding director of Lifeforce.
Comments
6 Comments
BELDER
Feb 10, 2009 at 2:10pm
I agree captivity is cruel and unusual punishment. But, what about many of the animals that the aquarium has saved. What about the valuable research that goes into saving these animals.
Somehow I doubt that any funding the aquarium gets (which is a non profit organization) will be taken away from the desperately needed conservation officers. What better way to create jobs in this time of uncertainty, then to spend $120 million on an expansion. Not to mention the jobs that would be created once it is done.
You cite a research paper that the aquarium was involved in to try and prove your point. However by citing this research paper you are actually proving that the aquarium does important research.
What about the ocean wise program that the Aquarium founded to promote sustainable fishing.
I agree with you on many levels as an environmentalist, however I believe that research is the only way to understand what is truly going on in our ecosystem. An aquarium is the only controlled environment in which certain research can be done.
Lifeforce
Feb 11, 2009 at 12:24pm
I always find it interesting when one agrees that captivity is "cruel and unusual punishment" and then attempts to justify the abuses with myths and fallacies by Aquarium spin doctors.
As I stated in the article the Vancouver Aquarium research is not only the cruel "punishment" but are test tube studies that may or may not apply to life in the wild. The "paper" I cited was a report from a meeting of those that want to get more out of the captive and get more government resarch funds. The participants agreed that it is impossible to accurately compare captive animals to wild ones. This is the problem with using animal models - it is studying what is controlled by the researcher not what may be the actual problem occuring in the complex ecosystem. It is not important research. The non-invasive field studies have been and continue to provide the insight to protect wildlife and habitats for all life.
The "green" issues that make good pr for the aquarium and zoo industry can be and will continue to be done by true conservation organizations without keeping animals in captivity. Search the internet and you will find the organizations who can tell you what is sustainable food and even how to reduce greenhouse gases by not eating meat. They don't have dolphin prisons.
Further, there are the marine and wildlife rescue organizations that save wildlife and do not promote or keep animals imprisoned. Just visit our website and go to "SADquarium" the 50 years of sadness and death of the victims of the Vancouver Aquarium entertainment business.
(http://www.lifeforcefoundation.org/pdfs/stanley_report.pdf)
Peter Hamilton
Lifeforce Founding Director
www.lifeforcefoundation.org
Simeon Zekic
Mar 28, 2010 at 4:46pm
I disagree with you. You act like the aquariums mission is to destroy the ecosystem. So far they have kept their promise not to capture whales and dolphins from the wild for entertainment anymore. They are doing conservation projects themselves. And furthermore, how will people care for these animals if they never seen them before. Some people these days don't have a care in the world for these animals because they never seen them. Would you donate money to save a species you haven't even heard about? More species are getting rarer and rarer each day, that even if people tried hard they wouldn't be able to see them in the wild. Also the Vancouver Aquarium educates tourists about local species that they probably never heard of. Would a person, say, from Texas or Ontario or Mexico, or even as close as Alberta ever hear of a Pacific white sided dolphin from where they come from? I don't think so. Even some other people around Vancouver are probably blind to what lies just below the surface. Some people probably wouldn't even be helping you with your projects if the Vancouver Aquarium didn't show what species you are trying to save. For last evidence, aquariums are safe havens for species coming closer to extinction, like the Waikiki Aquarium in Hawaii that houses 2 critically endangered Hawaiian monk seals. The Vancouver Aquarium is housing stellar sea lions and northern fur seals, which are coming close to post extinction in Alaska. The research is helping the species, so the Alaskan crisis can stop and so another crisis doesn’t happen in B.C. Those sea lions might be in the belly of an orca if the aquarium hadn’t taken them in. Before I stop, I want you to think about what I have typed, and of all the rescues the aquarium has done. About the beached gray whale the aquarium returned to the water. About all the elephant seals rehabilitated and released, even though an elephant seal on display would draw in the crowds. About the stranded baby orca that was rehabilitated and successfully returned to her family pod. I am almost 13 years old now, but because of what the Vancouver Aquarium has taught me, I already have made up my mind to become an environmentalist when I am older. If I didn't go to the aquarium that much when I was young, I would probably have a different interest, like spending my time shopping in a mall or some think. Think about it.
Lacy MacDougall
Apr 28, 2010 at 1:52am
A few words on the post before mine. The aquarium has saved many animals, and creating the expansion would open up many job opportunities. But these are facts are irrelevant to the point trying to be made, which is that captivity of these animals is cruel. Period. Jobs will open up in other areas. To try and say that job creation, research etc. are excuses for the mistreatment of these wonderful creatures is ridiculous.
Becci
Dec 16, 2010 at 1:09pm
The aquarium is a sick joke and it won't be long before people are embarrassed by the concept of keeping these animals in captivity.
grant
Dec 9, 2013 at 11:11pm
watch the documentary blackfish, it details the deception and propaganda they dole out. Former trainers speak of terrible living conditions and mistreatment, while they were told to tell audiences a different story, if this is true of treatment of whales/dolphins it can only be assumed it carries over to other animals in captivity.