Thursday 9 August 2012

WDCS: Raking out the truth?


The UK Whale and Dolphin Conservation Society (WDCS) really does not like cetaceans in captive care and leaves no stone unturned to spend its’ members donations on this “conservation” issue even to the point of paying the salary for a “Captivity Programme Manager”.


Tuesday 7 August 2012

DOLPHINARIA DILEMMA - HARD FACT OR HYPE?

The article below was originally written and published over 20 years ago in 1991.  And yet, despite this not much has changed as regards the rhetoric and propaganda of the animal-rights groups opposed to dolphins in zoos and aquariums.


US Navy 050411-N-3419D-056 A female bottlenose...
US Navy 050411-N-3419D-056 A female bottlenose dolphin BJ performs her daily exercises while her trainer, Dera Look (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

                              DOLPHINARIA DILEMMA - HARD FACT OR HYPE?

Originally pubished in Ratel: Journal of the Association of British Wild Animal Keepers
Volume 18, Number 2. 1991 © The Association of British Wild Animal Keepers    

Public interest in dolphins and whales has increased in recent times. However, some concerns relating to the welfare of captive dolphins have been very much over-stated, and some otherwise well-meaning animal and environment lobby groups have presented a very unfair picture of the captive environment in which these animals live.

Monday 6 August 2012

Drive Hunts and Animals Acquired for Dolphinaria.




http://www.ammpa.org/doc_fisheries.html

 
The Cove is the 2009 award-winning documentary exposing the annual drive fisheries hunt of dolphins and whales in the whaling village of Taiji, Wakayama, Japan. 

Drive fisheries are not historically new and several countries aside from Japan also hunt (or have hunted) animals by this method such as the Solomon Islands, the Faeroe Islands and Peru. The drive fishery at Taiji is believed to have been in existence for more than 350 years. The Cove was actually not the first to document this controversial hunt which has been highlighted over the years by magazines such as the National Geographic and in the television series by the late Jacques-Yves Cousteau in the mid-1970s. Many have rightly been very concerned regarding these hunting methods and questioned both its operation on moral, ethical and animal welfare grounds.
However, one aspect of the film that has also proved to be controversial is that in recent years a percentage of animals from this fishery has not been killed but selected for live display in public aquaria and marine parks. In 2007 (the year The Cove was made) official figures show that 13,170 dolphins and whales were hunted and killed in Japan. Of that number 1,239 were hunted in by the drive fishery method and 90 (7.3%) removed alive for aquaria. 

Between the years 2000-2013, a total of 19,092 small cetaceans were taken in the drive fishery at Taiji, Japan. 17,686 of those were slaughtered while 1,406 were taken as live-capture for sale to zoos and aquaria. Graph and data courtesy of Cetbase.

Unfortunately, the makers of the film have taken the position that suggested that this supply of animals to aquaria and parks was the prime purpose of the hunt and that if it ceased so would the hunt itself. This is not surprising as one of the main protagonists in The Cove is animal-rights activist Ric O'Barry who is stridently opposed to dolphins being held in the care of humans in zoological parks. 

Moreover, the film suggests that animals from the hunt are being transported globally to countries such as the USA and that persons visiting these parks are in fact support the killing of dolphins and whales in Japan which is basically untrue. In fact, it should be noted that most of the popular cetaceans held in both the USA (and mainland Europe) are sustained via captive breeding and therefore these populations have no need to acquired animals via live capture operations from the wild. Animals from hunts such as Taiji are generally supplied to aquaria in Asia and the Middle-East and it has recently been alleged that 15 dolphins from a Japanese drive fishery have also been imported into Turkey in 2010.

The Cetabase web site has produced a contemporary map of global facilities that currently house animals derived for drive hunts HERE.

Further, several zoological collections and organisations involved in the captive care of marine animals have made clear statements against drive fishery hunts and consider them inhumane.


Only one drive-fishery animal has until recently been held in the USA. It is a false-killer whale called Kina originally imported by the US Navy's Marine Mammal Program from Ocean Park, Hong Kong in 1987; it was transferred to the Hawaiian Institute of Marine Biology in 2000. This animal was used for research and was not on general public display.  In September 2015 Kina and her two bottlenose dolphin companions were transferred to SeaLife Park in Hawaii. Studies on these animals echolocation and biosonar abilities will continue at the park in partnership with the University of Hawaii. Kina died at Sea Life Park in October 2019.

An attempt to import false killer whales to a US marine park acquired from a drive fishery in 1993 was blocked by the National Marine Fisheries Service as they considered such operations inhumane which has effectively banned further imports of animals into the USA from drive fisheries. 

Animal rights supporters elsewhere have also cited that Sea World in California was granted an import permit for a captive pilot whale from a Japanese aquarium which joined its current group of pilot whales at San Diego on in 2012. It should be pointed out that this animal is an alone stranded animal that was rescued in January 2004 and is deemed unsuitable for release. It should be noted that this animal was not acquired by deliberate capture nor from a drive fishery. 

The two facts anyone who watches The Cove should remember are:
(a) that the drive-fishery in Japan prime motive is 'pest control' and food as the animals are perceived to be in competition with fisherman and that the hunt has been undertaken for hundreds of years and animals for zoos and aquaria are a recent development and the numbers taken are small and if this stopped sadly the hunt would still continue;

(b) that no animals have been imported into the mainland Europe since 1980 and in the US since 1989 from any drive-fishery; the majority of animals displayed in these locations have come from captive breeding programs.
***

 Below a two-part video commentary on the inaccurate statements made by Richard O'Barry and others regarding the Japanese drive fishery and captive cetaceans in aquaria outside Asia and the Middle-East.



 

 


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Morgan - A suitable candidate for rehabilitation and release?

Free Morgan!
Free Morgan! (Photo credit: wietse?)


On 23 June 2010 a young killer whale was reported to be swimming in the Dutch Wadden Sea; a rare event for this species with the last stranding in Dutch waters in 1963. 

Some interesting information from the North Atlantic Killer Whale ID Project HERE.

The animal was monitored and it became clear the animal was in some distress and with the permission of the Dutch government the cetacean rescue foundation SOS Delfijn and employees from Dolfinarium Harderwijk rescued the animal and took it to a temporary holding pool at Harderwijk for assessment and treatment.