Zoos and aquariums are a touchy subject.
Some would say that these institutions are inherently good, putting a lot of money and resources into the rehabilitation and “saving” of animals who would be otherwise extinct.
Others claim that they do more harm than good, unnecessarily capturing animals and forcing them to endure confinement and public ridicule.
Where do we draw the line between helping animals and using them?
There’s a notable difference between rehabilitation and capture: rehabilitation involves release.
Places such as Sea World are not releasing the orcas, belugas, and dolphins they capture, but rather, training them to do public tricks and desensitizing them to hundreds of people touching them.
It only takes one viewing of “Blackfish” to see the mistreatment of these creatures first hand.
The documentary about the circumstances surrounding the death of a Sea World trainer at the hands of an orca was a lot of people’s first look at what was going on in places like Sea World.
Whales and dolphins suffer in particular because of their size, as they are forced to swim in tanks that are nowhere near as large as they need.
There’s another version of Sea World just across the border.
Canada’s side of Niagara Falls is home to Marineland , an amusement park/dolphin jail (don’t hate me this place is wildly problematic ).
Think Sea World but smaller, with less people but more baby deer rotting in cages type of vibe.
Just because Canadians are allegedly more polite, doesn’t mean they aren’t 100% as complicit as we are in this problem.
However, Canada has just taken huge steps to prevent further mistreatment of animals in these facilities.
The House Of Commons just passed a bill making the breeding and captivity of whales and dolphins illegal across Canada.
Parks and aquariums who are caught breeding or capturing whales, dolphins, or porpoises will have to pay a fine of $20,000 Canadian.
The “Free Willy Bill” is named after the 1993 orca-oriented movie.
Canadian officials are hoping that the bill ushers in a new wave of animal rights legislation for the country, and that it will have a ripple affect on the rest of North America.
The bill will also ban “the import and export of marine mammals in Canada, except for circumstances involving scientific research or when it is in the ‘best interest’ of the mammal.”
The bill has been in development for about four years now.
Senator Murray Sinclair released a statement regarding the bill to the Commons fisheries committee:
“The bill is a simple and straightforward one. It works from the presumption that placing these beautiful creatures into the kinds of pens that they have been kept in is inherently cruel.”
This is an amazing step in the right direction, but there is more work to be done.
We have a long way to go in terms of rehabilitation of animals that have already been in captivity before they are re-released.
Hopefully, bills like this once propel society forward into a new way of thinking that prioritizes animal health over entertainment.
h/t: CBC
