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So frustrating. The Vancouver acquarium was one of the top cetacean health, care, and research institutes in the world. It was one of the models of how good a

So frustrating. The Vancouver acquarium was one of the top cetacean health, care, and research institutes in the world. It was one of the models of how good a captive and public educational environment can be. Thanks to campaigns like this one, they had to close down and transfer their rescue orcas to the only organizations that could take them... Which turned out to be SeaWorld, where they died shortly after. Of course, SeaWorld is notorious for terrible conditions for the animals. It drives me nuts that kids growing up in my hometown now don't understand these magnificent creatures, don't feel any special connection to them. For many in my generation, it feels like a betrayal on the part of our local environmentalist movement. They killed our orcas and disconnected our children from one of the most amazing parts of their environment. They destroyed the model that powered legislative attempts to protect cetaceans around the world. We had a similar story with the beavers in Stanley park - our environmenal lobby campaigned to have the city stop dredging "Beaver lake", because it disturbed the beavers. They stopped dredging, the lake filled with silt and most of the beavers (and other wildlife) died. Now they're debating starting dredging again, to save the one surviving beaver. For people like me that care about our environment and the animals we share it with, it's rage inducing. The naturalist fallacy at work. :/

giarc 9y ago
I remember going to the Vancouver Aquarium as a kid 20 years ago or so and watching the dolphins do tricks. These might have been rescued, but they were still trained to for entertainment. The Vancouver Aquarium isn't totally innocent.
- noelwelsh 9y ago
  It's pretty common to teach intelligent animals tricks when they're in zoos or similar. Otherwise they get bored. This isn't a comment on the correctness of keeping dolphins in captivity but an explanation of why if one decides to keep dolphins teaching them tricks may be an ethical thing to do.
  - kobeya 9y ago
    The famous "dolphin blowing air rings" trick was invented in captivity by a bored dolphin. It was never observed in the wild until some rescue dolphins were released back.
    - pluma 9y ago
      Yes. You're agreeing with the parent. Animals are a lot less likely to get bored in the wild.
      - kobeya 9y ago
        Providing commentary yes. Just because I replied doesn't mean I'm disagreeing ;)
    - placeybordeaux 9y ago
      Thats really interesting, do you have a source?
      - kobeya 9y ago
        I learned it in an Aquarium, which unfortunately didn't provide a citation on the display.
- goodcanadian 9y ago
  Vancouver aquarium has not had animals doing "tricks" that were not wild behaviours for decades. As a sibling comment mentioned, the training and shows that did occur were as much about animal enrichment as they were about educating the public.
  - giarc 9y ago
    I don't think "they did them in the wild" is a good excuse. The fact that they get bored and require stimulation like this says to me that perhaps a tiny habitat isn't appropriate. I'm more concerned about the tiny area they are given to live out their lives. https://img.memesuper.com/fb3647c753a84754210e7d4879042b9d_seaworld-cares-this-much-more-about-cars-than-killer-whales-seaworld-parking-lot-meme_2000-1151.jpeg https://img.memesuper.com/fb3647c753a84754210e7d4879042b9d_s...
    - goodcanadian 9y ago
      And I was objecting to your characterization of Vancouver aquarium as a place where animals are made to do tricks for our entertainment. It is a serious research institution which takes animal welfare very seriously. Keep in mind that, for the most part, these are animals that would not survive in the wild. Vancouver has banned wild caught whales and dolphins for decades. Animals in captivity are always problematic, but there are sometimes good reasons for it both from an animal welfare point of view and from a human education point of view. In the meantime, great strides have been made in improving conditions for animals in captivity, and Vancouver has been a leader in this regard.
      - drjasonharrison 9y ago
        http://www.vancouveraquariumuncovered.com/ http://www.vancouveraquariumuncovered.com/ It's a "serious research institution" with only one peer reviewed publication based on data from captured belugas. While individuals may take animal welfare very seriously, the Vancouver Aquarium has attempted to confuse their marine mammal rescue with the captivity of cetaceans. 99% of the marine mammals they rescue are baby seals that humans have interfered with while their mother was out feeding. Next, regarding "tricks" and "entertainment," many people who experienced the shows found then entertaining. http://www.metronews.ca/news/vancouver/2017/05/11/we-dont-do-shows-and-we-never-have-vancouver-aquarium-ceo.html http://www.metronews.ca/news/vancouver/2017/05/11/we-dont-do... While I will agree that the Vancouver Aquarium can be considered to "take animal welfare seriously" I also feel that their president and website disingenuously conflate mammal with cetacean, hide the sources of "wild cetacean injuries" (eg, Japanese sourced dolphins), and vastly under spend when it comes to care of their cetaceans.
- pvaldes 9y ago
  Millions of people goes to the gym and repeat voluntarily again and again the same movements. Moving weight is painful so, why they do this? To feel better, to brag, to fight against stress, to improve their ego or impress the opposite sex. Several social reasons to explain this strange behaviour. When dolphins jump, leap, chase and obtain some fishes and human approval as reward they are entertaining humans of course. Is this bad? well, visitors pay their food, and the pool filters that keep the water clean, and the vets... but this is not all. They are exercising also. Some people says that dolphins are sad for this. Well, It seems that nowadays everybody is the true and sacred representant of dolphin race in the earth, so I can jump to that train also. Dolphins can and probably enjoy the play, the cooperative chase and the interaction with other dolphins and humans. Why? Because exercice leads to serotonin and adrenalin and this is known to have a positive effect in the mood of a vertebrate. More serotonin released by your brain will makes you a happier dolphin or guy. Trained dolphins have also the change of keep their brain active solving problems, feel better, brag, improve their ego or impress the opposite sex. Otherwise the dolphin or seal would snooze in their pool for entire weeks without no stimulus at all and this "solution" would be the definition of animal cruelty.
- ojiikun 9y ago
  many of the enrichment routines are actually based around behaviours that are needed to better care for the animals. for instance, training a command to swim to a platform and breach up and present their underside? this lets veterinarian more easily perform examinations. training a jump to a particular side of a pool and staying there can let the maintenance crews work on filters after hours. modern enrichment routines have many purposes beyond entertainment, and if they can also draw paying crowds and donors, so be it for the better. a marine mammal specialist at your local aquarium can probably talk your ear off on the topic if you were to go ask about the "tricks".
drzaiusapelord 9y ago
On the plus side it seems like they've learned their lesson with this regulation. Instead of shipping off these animals to poorly run facilities, they're just stopping the import of all new animals. I feel fairly mixed about all of this, but if you want to end whale and dolphin exhibits in aquariums then this is probably the best way to go. Let them live out their lives with their peer group and in an environment they are familiar with. I also wonder if they can shift away from the 'orphanage' model to a more 'foster' model by bringing in sick animals, nursing them to health, then releasing them shortly after. Not sure if this is in the cards politically, but it would be a middle ground between traditional aquariums and a total ban. Its important to note many of these animals get to aquariums because they've been injured by humans. We should feel a responsibility to help them if we are the ones hurting them. Washing our hands of this responsibility seems irresponsible to me and justifying it with feel good politics seems highly questionable.
- kobeya 9y ago
  > I also wonder if they can shift away from the 'orphanage' model to a more 'foster' model by bringing in sick animals, nursing them to health, then releasing them shortly after This is exactly how the Monterey bay aquarium works, fwiw.
  - hhw 9y ago
    That is already being done. The Department of Fisheries determines which animals go back to the wild, not VanAqua. The main detriment of this new ban is that now if there is a rescue that cannot realistically be later be returned to the wild after being rehabilitated, it will be necessary to euthanize instead. And this is PETA's intention, they'd rather see an animal euthanized than be in captivity.
    - kobeya 9y ago
      Ah yes, the let's-euthanize-the-Jews-instead-of-keeping-them-in-ghettos approach.
- allannienhuis 9y ago
jamesgagan 9y ago
"They killed our orcas" - really? 2 Belugas just died in captivity at that aquarium -it wasn't environmentalists who killed them, it was the aquarium. I have been to that aquarium and it was just depressing. Watching the Orca swim upside down around and around in circles was the saddest thing I've ever seen. Making intelligent creatures perform tricks for profit is hardly a noble enterprise. Have you seen Blackfish? http://www.blackfishmovie.com/ http://www.blackfishmovie.com/ Watch it and then come back and tell us that Tilikum had any kind of good life. These animals belong in the wild. They don't need to be "rescued". The idea that gawking at magnificent animals in captivity is somehow required to instill respect for them is ridiculous. The best way to respect all animals is to leave them alone.
- deanCommie 9y ago
  Counterpoint: The animals they are rescuing would have died in the wild. I personally think that although it'll make children watching the local news cry, we should help animals and immediately return them to the wild. If the only way to help them means taking them into captivity, we should not help.
  - jamesgagan 9y ago
    Despite the claims that these animals are all "rescued", those claims are hard to prove, and a number of these mammals are actually born in captivity. I do agree with the rest of your comment.
    - hhw 9y ago
      The determination on which animals in Canada to rescue, and which can be returned to the wild is done by the Department of Fisheries, so there is neutral oversight provided by a government entity. Those claims are easy to prove.
      - jamesgagan 9y ago
        here's a list of where their animals come from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vancouver_Aquarium#Animals_at_the_Aquarium https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vancouver_Aquarium#Animals_at_...
marricks 9y ago
There's been a lot of public outcry because coastal sanctuaries seem like the only place you can give these animals close to what they need "artificially". What it really boils down to is if you love someone, let them free, especially if you can't take proper care of them. You omitted also that recently the park killed two cetaceans: > Michael Wiebe, chair of the Vancouver Park Board, said that after two belugas died within days of one another at the aquarium last fall, the board decided they needed to look into whether it was right to keep bringing in more. The truth is people can't really build a tank large enough to take care of these creatures, or offer them the proper conditions. Killer whales can travel up to 100 miles a day, and dolphins sure do a lot of traveling as well. How do you offer that or allow for the group social dynamics in a cage? I'm not even sure how good the education value of seeing a dolphin locked up in a tank is. Anecdotally, I went to the zoo a lot as a kid but all I remember doing is gawking. Watching documentaries as a kid I actually heard about their social interactions and natural behaviors. Many of those behaviors don't come up surrounded by people in enclosures. If we want to "understand and appreciate" a creature it should be on their terms. For dolphins documentaries or visiting them in their habitat seems like the best way, not some aquarium where the parking lot for visitors is larger than their tanks.
- jlos 9y ago
  Note the belugas died from poisoning [1] [1] http://www.cbc.ca/beta/news/canada/british-columbia/vancouver-aquarium-poisoning-fish-1986-1.3874756 http://www.cbc.ca/beta/news/canada/british-columbia/vancouve...
  - eutectic 9y ago
    That article absolutely does not substantiate this claim.
    - throwaway2348 9y ago
      [http://vancouversun.com/news/local-news/vancouver-aquarium-phasing-out-its-captive-beluga-program](Follow-up http://vancouversun.com/news/local-news/vancouver-aquarium-p... article on the Aquarium's formal report) --- The aquarium now suspects that a toxin is responsible, although no lingering contaminants have been found in the tissues of the dead whales. While intentional poisoning hasn’t been ruled out, it’s also possible that a naturally occurring toxin is responsible. “The epidemiology of the scenario, the chain of events, lead us to be highly suspect of a toxin that came and went — and one that we may not identify,” Haulena said. --- Investigation continues, but it's a small town and the unproven truth is that one of the people behind this ban poisoned the two whales to 'save them'
wunderlust 9y ago
> It drives me nuts that kids growing up in my hometown now don't understand these magnificent creatures, don't feel any special connection to them. So you're saying that to have a "special connection" to ocean wildlife we need to keep animals captive in a small pool? Obviously we can't all go on excursions into the sea, but aquariums don't seem like the best model for understanding and appreciating wildlife.
- dacox 9y ago
  https://www.facebook.com/KyleKittleson/videos/681138598735973/?pnref=story https://www.facebook.com/KyleKittleson/videos/68113859873597...
- djsumdog 9y ago
  If you ever ride the ferry from Wellington to Picton, most of the time you'll see Bottlenose Dolphins chasing after the boat. It's a pretty cheap ride and is less than an hour. I've heard similar stories about ferries in Seattle. You don't need to pay for expensive tourist rides to see some of these creatures. If you live in the right areas, and if we take care of our waterways, you can see all kinds of amazing creatures just by riding a ferry.
- pm90 9y ago
  Agreed. Keeping animals in captivity is a relic of the past when that was the only way to view animals. Now we have high-resolution cinematography and underwater photography...why not educate children using NatGeo, and inspire those that find it exciting to go further?
BrainInAJar 9y ago
> It drives me nuts that kids growing up in my hometown now don't understand these magnificent creatures, don't feel any special connection to them. Pods of orcas visit Stanley Park and False Creek at least once every couple years, usually more. And thats a magical day when they do. If you think that kids dont feel special connections to these creatures that come visit downtown once in a while, you're deluded
- mynameisvlad 9y ago
  I had lived in Vancouver for close to 15 years and never heard anything about this "magical day", it's clearly not as heavily publicized as you make it out to be.
  - whale_watcher 9y ago
    Most people in Vancouver aren't interested enough in whales to go out and watch them, so unless your friends are nature lovers you might not hear about them unless you ask. I've lived in Vancouver or on Vancouver Island my whole life. Not only is the Strait on the migration path for orcas but there are also resident orcas, who live in the area year-round. I don't know about Stanley Park and False Creek specifically, but for not much more than the cost of the aquarium ticket, you can take your kids on a whale watching tour. Or if you make the habit of taking the ferry, you can just watch out the windows. I've seen a couple pods that way. There's a reason orcas feature heavily in First Nations art, local sports team mascots, etc here. They're beautiful animals but they're not exotics.
    - mynameisvlad 9y ago
      Sure, I know about whale watching tours around the straight, and especially on the island side. Those are pretty heavily advertised. I meant specifically the orcas visiting downtown that I had never heard of. I did not know this was a thing and can't recall hearing it on the news.
    - mthoms 9y ago
      >for not much more than the cost of the aquarium ticket, you can take your kids on a whale watching tour. That's laughable. A cursory check indicates the pricing starting at ~$80 for a single child. A family of four? That's ~$420. Children's tickets are ~$20 at the aquarium (and they have special discounts for kids from local schools and the disabled). A family of four at the aquarium would cost ~ $110 In what world does a 4x multiple qualify as "for not much more..."?
throwaway2348 9y ago
I am rather for a ban on cetaceans in any tank too small to use their sonar, but as a Vancouverite I am extremely uncomfortable with who and how this ban was made. Vision Vancouver, the political party, is very slick and spends an order of magnitude more on PR than anybody else in the city, in a town now with little news reporting. 1. It's well known who killed 2 of belugas -- somebody who publicly presents themselves as caring for whales -- but there is no discussion of it in the reporting. 2. There has been zero effort to have a conversation with the people at the Aquarium. There is an intentional effort to get shock value, encourage a public squabble that rouses some of their base and that distracts from their overall performance. Vision Vancouver is now feeling the heat for freezing upzoning of single family home neighbourhoods so that they can direct hundreds of millions annually in buildable land grants in one-off variances to the large developers who are their main donors (Wall, Westbank, Concord). The problem in Vancouver is a monopoly of new buildable land where a single marketer, Bob Rennie, can dictate pricing for a year by virtue of controlling over 80% of new units in any given year under Vision Vancouver. The next municipal election is a year away, but they've been around at full speed hiring PR folks on the public dime, setting up astroturf groups, wining and dining the few remaining beat reporters, and sending moles to infiltrate the new Vancouver Renters' Union. They're picking fights that are fake and real, any news is good news now if they can be ahead of the story instead of chasing to catch up for once. --- Disclosure: I volunteered for the last two Vision Vancouver campaigns, as a favor to a friend and when I believed they actually meant what they said. I had already given up on them when I was asked to join an astroturf group by Mike Magee last summer
- throwaway2348 9y ago
  # 'an intentional effort to get shock value', 'pick fights': There are 5 beluga whales on loan to other facilities, in preparation for the construction of new tanks in September. Everyone agrees that the welfare of these whales is better served in those new tanks, than where they are currently staying. This ban prevents the return of the whales currently on loan. As I said, I am for a ban on cetaceans but this is a PR exercise and not about the whales.
  - drjasonharrison 9y ago
j2bax 9y ago
Kids can always watch documentaries like Planet Earth.
alpha_squared 9y ago
> Of course, SeaWorld is notorious for terrible conditions for the animals. I'm sure this is going to be a very unpopular comment here, but for the sake of a different perspective... Every time I see this sentiment, it tends to come from fans of Blackfish. I watched that "documentary", which was very cherry-picked to push a biased perspective. I've also lived near a SeaWorld and have noticed, first-hand, the conservation they do of the environment and cetacean life. Yes, SeaWorld is for-profit, while many zoos are non-profit, but they do make some meaningful effort to help out.

giarc 9y ago

I remember going to the Vancouver Aquarium as a kid 20 years ago or so and watching the dolphins do tricks. These might have been rescued, but they were still trained to for entertainment. The Vancouver Aquarium isn't totally innocent.

noelwelsh 9y ago
It's pretty common to teach intelligent animals tricks when they're in zoos or similar. Otherwise they get bored. This isn't a comment on the correctness of keeping dolphins in captivity but an explanation of why if one decides to keep dolphins teaching them tricks may be an ethical thing to do.
- kobeya 9y ago
  The famous "dolphin blowing air rings" trick was invented in captivity by a bored dolphin. It was never observed in the wild until some rescue dolphins were released back.
  - pluma 9y ago
    Yes. You're agreeing with the parent. Animals are a lot less likely to get bored in the wild.
    - kobeya 9y ago
      Providing commentary yes. Just because I replied doesn't mean I'm disagreeing ;)
  - placeybordeaux 9y ago
    Thats really interesting, do you have a source?
    - kobeya 9y ago
      I learned it in an Aquarium, which unfortunately didn't provide a citation on the display.
goodcanadian 9y ago
Vancouver aquarium has not had animals doing "tricks" that were not wild behaviours for decades. As a sibling comment mentioned, the training and shows that did occur were as much about animal enrichment as they were about educating the public.
- giarc 9y ago
  I don't think "they did them in the wild" is a good excuse. The fact that they get bored and require stimulation like this says to me that perhaps a tiny habitat isn't appropriate. I'm more concerned about the tiny area they are given to live out their lives. https://img.memesuper.com/fb3647c753a84754210e7d4879042b9d_seaworld-cares-this-much-more-about-cars-than-killer-whales-seaworld-parking-lot-meme_2000-1151.jpeg https://img.memesuper.com/fb3647c753a84754210e7d4879042b9d_s...
  - goodcanadian 9y ago
    And I was objecting to your characterization of Vancouver aquarium as a place where animals are made to do tricks for our entertainment. It is a serious research institution which takes animal welfare very seriously. Keep in mind that, for the most part, these are animals that would not survive in the wild. Vancouver has banned wild caught whales and dolphins for decades. Animals in captivity are always problematic, but there are sometimes good reasons for it both from an animal welfare point of view and from a human education point of view. In the meantime, great strides have been made in improving conditions for animals in captivity, and Vancouver has been a leader in this regard.
    - drjasonharrison 9y ago
      http://www.vancouveraquariumuncovered.com/ http://www.vancouveraquariumuncovered.com/ It's a "serious research institution" with only one peer reviewed publication based on data from captured belugas. While individuals may take animal welfare very seriously, the Vancouver Aquarium has attempted to confuse their marine mammal rescue with the captivity of cetaceans. 99% of the marine mammals they rescue are baby seals that humans have interfered with while their mother was out feeding. Next, regarding "tricks" and "entertainment," many people who experienced the shows found then entertaining. http://www.metronews.ca/news/vancouver/2017/05/11/we-dont-do-shows-and-we-never-have-vancouver-aquarium-ceo.html http://www.metronews.ca/news/vancouver/2017/05/11/we-dont-do... While I will agree that the Vancouver Aquarium can be considered to "take animal welfare seriously" I also feel that their president and website disingenuously conflate mammal with cetacean, hide the sources of "wild cetacean injuries" (eg, Japanese sourced dolphins), and vastly under spend when it comes to care of their cetaceans.
pvaldes 9y ago
Millions of people goes to the gym and repeat voluntarily again and again the same movements. Moving weight is painful so, why they do this? To feel better, to brag, to fight against stress, to improve their ego or impress the opposite sex. Several social reasons to explain this strange behaviour. When dolphins jump, leap, chase and obtain some fishes and human approval as reward they are entertaining humans of course. Is this bad? well, visitors pay their food, and the pool filters that keep the water clean, and the vets... but this is not all. They are exercising also. Some people says that dolphins are sad for this. Well, It seems that nowadays everybody is the true and sacred representant of dolphin race in the earth, so I can jump to that train also. Dolphins can and probably enjoy the play, the cooperative chase and the interaction with other dolphins and humans. Why? Because exercice leads to serotonin and adrenalin and this is known to have a positive effect in the mood of a vertebrate. More serotonin released by your brain will makes you a happier dolphin or guy. Trained dolphins have also the change of keep their brain active solving problems, feel better, brag, improve their ego or impress the opposite sex. Otherwise the dolphin or seal would snooze in their pool for entire weeks without no stimulus at all and this "solution" would be the definition of animal cruelty.
ojiikun 9y ago
many of the enrichment routines are actually based around behaviours that are needed to better care for the animals. for instance, training a command to swim to a platform and breach up and present their underside? this lets veterinarian more easily perform examinations. training a jump to a particular side of a pool and staying there can let the maintenance crews work on filters after hours. modern enrichment routines have many purposes beyond entertainment, and if they can also draw paying crowds and donors, so be it for the better. a marine mammal specialist at your local aquarium can probably talk your ear off on the topic if you were to go ask about the "tricks".

drzaiusapelord 9y ago

On the plus side it seems like they've learned their lesson with this regulation. Instead of shipping off these animals to poorly run facilities, they're just stopping the import of all new animals. I feel fairly mixed about all of this, but if you want to end whale and dolphin exhibits in aquariums then this is probably the best way to go. Let them live out their lives with their peer group and in an environment they are familiar with. I also wonder if they can shift away from the 'orphanage' model to a more 'foster' model by bringing in sick animals, nursing them to health, then releasing them shortly after. Not sure if this is in the cards politically, but it would be a middle ground between traditional aquariums and a total ban. Its important to note many of these animals get to aquariums because they've been injured by humans. We should feel a responsibility to help them if we are the ones hurting them. Washing our hands of this responsibility seems irresponsible to me and justifying it with feel good politics seems highly questionable.

kobeya 9y ago
> I also wonder if they can shift away from the 'orphanage' model to a more 'foster' model by bringing in sick animals, nursing them to health, then releasing them shortly after This is exactly how the Monterey bay aquarium works, fwiw.
- hhw 9y ago
  That is already being done. The Department of Fisheries determines which animals go back to the wild, not VanAqua. The main detriment of this new ban is that now if there is a rescue that cannot realistically be later be returned to the wild after being rehabilitated, it will be necessary to euthanize instead. And this is PETA's intention, they'd rather see an animal euthanized than be in captivity.
  - kobeya 9y ago
    Ah yes, the let's-euthanize-the-Jews-instead-of-keeping-them-in-ghettos approach.
allannienhuis 9y ago

jamesgagan 9y ago

"They killed our orcas" - really? 2 Belugas just died in captivity at that aquarium -it wasn't environmentalists who killed them, it was the aquarium. I have been to that aquarium and it was just depressing. Watching the Orca swim upside down around and around in circles was the saddest thing I've ever seen. Making intelligent creatures perform tricks for profit is hardly a noble enterprise. Have you seen Blackfish? http://www.blackfishmovie.com/ http://www.blackfishmovie.com/ Watch it and then come back and tell us that Tilikum had any kind of good life. These animals belong in the wild. They don't need to be "rescued". The idea that gawking at magnificent animals in captivity is somehow required to instill respect for them is ridiculous. The best way to respect all animals is to leave them alone.

deanCommie 9y ago
Counterpoint: The animals they are rescuing would have died in the wild. I personally think that although it'll make children watching the local news cry, we should help animals and immediately return them to the wild. If the only way to help them means taking them into captivity, we should not help.
- jamesgagan 9y ago
  Despite the claims that these animals are all "rescued", those claims are hard to prove, and a number of these mammals are actually born in captivity. I do agree with the rest of your comment.
  - hhw 9y ago
    The determination on which animals in Canada to rescue, and which can be returned to the wild is done by the Department of Fisheries, so there is neutral oversight provided by a government entity. Those claims are easy to prove.
    - jamesgagan 9y ago
      here's a list of where their animals come from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vancouver_Aquarium#Animals_at_the_Aquarium https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vancouver_Aquarium#Animals_at_...

marricks 9y ago

There's been a lot of public outcry because coastal sanctuaries seem like the only place you can give these animals close to what they need "artificially". What it really boils down to is if you love someone, let them free, especially if you can't take proper care of them. You omitted also that recently the park killed two cetaceans: > Michael Wiebe, chair of the Vancouver Park Board, said that after two belugas died within days of one another at the aquarium last fall, the board decided they needed to look into whether it was right to keep bringing in more. The truth is people can't really build a tank large enough to take care of these creatures, or offer them the proper conditions. Killer whales can travel up to 100 miles a day, and dolphins sure do a lot of traveling as well. How do you offer that or allow for the group social dynamics in a cage? I'm not even sure how good the education value of seeing a dolphin locked up in a tank is. Anecdotally, I went to the zoo a lot as a kid but all I remember doing is gawking. Watching documentaries as a kid I actually heard about their social interactions and natural behaviors. Many of those behaviors don't come up surrounded by people in enclosures. If we want to "understand and appreciate" a creature it should be on their terms. For dolphins documentaries or visiting them in their habitat seems like the best way, not some aquarium where the parking lot for visitors is larger than their tanks.

jlos 9y ago
Note the belugas died from poisoning [1] [1] http://www.cbc.ca/beta/news/canada/british-columbia/vancouver-aquarium-poisoning-fish-1986-1.3874756 http://www.cbc.ca/beta/news/canada/british-columbia/vancouve...
- eutectic 9y ago
  That article absolutely does not substantiate this claim.
  - throwaway2348 9y ago
    [http://vancouversun.com/news/local-news/vancouver-aquarium-phasing-out-its-captive-beluga-program](Follow-up http://vancouversun.com/news/local-news/vancouver-aquarium-p... article on the Aquarium's formal report) --- The aquarium now suspects that a toxin is responsible, although no lingering contaminants have been found in the tissues of the dead whales. While intentional poisoning hasn’t been ruled out, it’s also possible that a naturally occurring toxin is responsible. “The epidemiology of the scenario, the chain of events, lead us to be highly suspect of a toxin that came and went — and one that we may not identify,” Haulena said. --- Investigation continues, but it's a small town and the unproven truth is that one of the people behind this ban poisoned the two whales to 'save them'

wunderlust 9y ago

> It drives me nuts that kids growing up in my hometown now don't understand these magnificent creatures, don't feel any special connection to them. So you're saying that to have a "special connection" to ocean wildlife we need to keep animals captive in a small pool? Obviously we can't all go on excursions into the sea, but aquariums don't seem like the best model for understanding and appreciating wildlife.

dacox 9y ago
https://www.facebook.com/KyleKittleson/videos/681138598735973/?pnref=story https://www.facebook.com/KyleKittleson/videos/68113859873597...
djsumdog 9y ago
If you ever ride the ferry from Wellington to Picton, most of the time you'll see Bottlenose Dolphins chasing after the boat. It's a pretty cheap ride and is less than an hour. I've heard similar stories about ferries in Seattle. You don't need to pay for expensive tourist rides to see some of these creatures. If you live in the right areas, and if we take care of our waterways, you can see all kinds of amazing creatures just by riding a ferry.
pm90 9y ago
Agreed. Keeping animals in captivity is a relic of the past when that was the only way to view animals. Now we have high-resolution cinematography and underwater photography...why not educate children using NatGeo, and inspire those that find it exciting to go further?

BrainInAJar 9y ago

> It drives me nuts that kids growing up in my hometown now don't understand these magnificent creatures, don't feel any special connection to them. Pods of orcas visit Stanley Park and False Creek at least once every couple years, usually more. And thats a magical day when they do. If you think that kids dont feel special connections to these creatures that come visit downtown once in a while, you're deluded

mynameisvlad 9y ago
I had lived in Vancouver for close to 15 years and never heard anything about this "magical day", it's clearly not as heavily publicized as you make it out to be.
- whale_watcher 9y ago
  Most people in Vancouver aren't interested enough in whales to go out and watch them, so unless your friends are nature lovers you might not hear about them unless you ask. I've lived in Vancouver or on Vancouver Island my whole life. Not only is the Strait on the migration path for orcas but there are also resident orcas, who live in the area year-round. I don't know about Stanley Park and False Creek specifically, but for not much more than the cost of the aquarium ticket, you can take your kids on a whale watching tour. Or if you make the habit of taking the ferry, you can just watch out the windows. I've seen a couple pods that way. There's a reason orcas feature heavily in First Nations art, local sports team mascots, etc here. They're beautiful animals but they're not exotics.
  - mynameisvlad 9y ago
    Sure, I know about whale watching tours around the straight, and especially on the island side. Those are pretty heavily advertised. I meant specifically the orcas visiting downtown that I had never heard of. I did not know this was a thing and can't recall hearing it on the news.
  - mthoms 9y ago
    >for not much more than the cost of the aquarium ticket, you can take your kids on a whale watching tour. That's laughable. A cursory check indicates the pricing starting at ~$80 for a single child. A family of four? That's ~$420. Children's tickets are ~$20 at the aquarium (and they have special discounts for kids from local schools and the disabled). A family of four at the aquarium would cost ~ $110 In what world does a 4x multiple qualify as "for not much more..."?

throwaway2348 9y ago

I am rather for a ban on cetaceans in any tank too small to use their sonar, but as a Vancouverite I am extremely uncomfortable with who and how this ban was made. Vision Vancouver, the political party, is very slick and spends an order of magnitude more on PR than anybody else in the city, in a town now with little news reporting. 1. It's well known who killed 2 of belugas -- somebody who publicly presents themselves as caring for whales -- but there is no discussion of it in the reporting. 2. There has been zero effort to have a conversation with the people at the Aquarium. There is an intentional effort to get shock value, encourage a public squabble that rouses some of their base and that distracts from their overall performance. Vision Vancouver is now feeling the heat for freezing upzoning of single family home neighbourhoods so that they can direct hundreds of millions annually in buildable land grants in one-off variances to the large developers who are their main donors (Wall, Westbank, Concord). The problem in Vancouver is a monopoly of new buildable land where a single marketer, Bob Rennie, can dictate pricing for a year by virtue of controlling over 80% of new units in any given year under Vision Vancouver. The next municipal election is a year away, but they've been around at full speed hiring PR folks on the public dime, setting up astroturf groups, wining and dining the few remaining beat reporters, and sending moles to infiltrate the new Vancouver Renters' Union. They're picking fights that are fake and real, any news is good news now if they can be ahead of the story instead of chasing to catch up for once. --- Disclosure: I volunteered for the last two Vision Vancouver campaigns, as a favor to a friend and when I believed they actually meant what they said. I had already given up on them when I was asked to join an astroturf group by Mike Magee last summer

throwaway2348 9y ago
# 'an intentional effort to get shock value', 'pick fights': There are 5 beluga whales on loan to other facilities, in preparation for the construction of new tanks in September. Everyone agrees that the welfare of these whales is better served in those new tanks, than where they are currently staying. This ban prevents the return of the whales currently on loan. As I said, I am for a ban on cetaceans but this is a PR exercise and not about the whales.
- drjasonharrison 9y ago

j2bax 9y ago

Kids can always watch documentaries like Planet Earth.

alpha_squared 9y ago

> Of course, SeaWorld is notorious for terrible conditions for the animals. I'm sure this is going to be a very unpopular comment here, but for the sake of a different perspective... Every time I see this sentiment, it tends to come from fans of Blackfish. I watched that "documentary", which was very cherry-picked to push a biased perspective. I've also lived near a SeaWorld and have noticed, first-hand, the conservation they do of the environment and cetacean life. Yes, SeaWorld is for-profit, while many zoos are non-profit, but they do make some meaningful effort to help out.