Author: timzimmermann

Seeing (And Knowing) Is Important: Part 2

The photo I published yesterday is leading in interesting directions.

First up, I wanted to post this clip of the Taiji dolphin drives. You’ve likely seen video of what the drives involve, and The Cove has done a lot to go behind the screens and try to help the public see the reality of the drives. I am posting this clip not to gratuitously add to the bloody imagery. I am posting it because it is a clip filmed for the BBC in 1986. So it is a reminder that this goes on year after year, and has been going on year after year for a long time. It is hard to imagine the sheer number of dolphins and whales who have gone through this, but the time span between this clip and today forces you to stat grappling with that question. The clip also makes me wonder whether humanity, and humanity’s awareness of this cruelty, will evolve enough to mean that the drives will no longer be going after another 35 years have passed.


[h/t: JW]

Next up, is another account of the thought-provoking unnatural paths which life at a marine park can lead an animal down. I don’t have pictures (so this is more of a “Knowing Is Important” item), but this is the story of a dolphin called Shalest, who was at SeaWorld Florida in the 1980s/1990s. I had heard of Shalest before, but her story was brought up again in response to my effort to find out if there were more stories like the one posted in a comment, by Jen, on yesterday’s Seeing Is Important post:

There was a dolphin called Bubbles in the the Gasser families travelling circus that had to have a pectoral flipper amputated after catching a serious pseudomonas infection that caused the fin to rot and Gangrene set in. She recovered and performed in shows again but died a few months later after developing Hepatitis.

My search for more stories prompted this, on Shalest, from former SeaWorld trainer Jeffrey Ventre:

One day she was in a small side pool at W&D stadium with other dolphins (circa 1991) all of which were more dominant than she. Although it wasn’t directly witnessed, what apparently happened was she was being chased and tried to flee (a nice option for wild animals); similar to how Morgan kept trying to get away from the animals at LP on that video… but much smaller space with quicker movements, in a shallow side pool; so nowhere up or down to go in the water column, either. 

She must have been near the perimeter of the pool and when she accelerated, she severely sliced a large piece of her tail fluke… but not quite all the way off.  The median notch divides the tail into two lobes, each being a fluke.  So she sheared about half of one lobe/fluke… but it was hanging on…   not completely severed. And it was bleeding.   

 I remember inspecting the pool to try and determine what could have caused the partial amputation. When I looked into the water outflow pipe, which was of fairly large caliber (guessing 12 inches in diameter) the pipe tube was lined with PVC…  The edge of the PVC liner formed a sharp plastic angle where it was cut with a saw, I think.  If you’ve ever worked with PVC, then you can imagine how sharp an edge can be. 

 The fluke (lobe) was severely severed, but only about 2/3 of the way through… so it was hanging on. The incision began from the leading edge of the fluke (lobe) and made it about 2/3 of the way to the trailing edge. 

It was not a stable injury. It was a displaced partial amputation made worse with swimming.  Vet Mike Walsh tried to suture it back on, but it didn’t take, began to show signs of infection and/or necrosis, and so the fluke was fully amputated later.  The tissue eventually granulated and she survived it, but did die a tragic death later. 

Regarding Shalest’s death, I have a number of memories of Shalest from a discussion between former SeaWorld trainers, which explain what happened. These trainers no longer support captivity, and Shalest deeply affected their thinking (see, KNOWING is important). It is hard to know whether Shalest’s death was connected to the stress of the injury, or the general stress of being a small dolphin in a confined pool. But every story is important, because it brings forth details that are unique to the experience of each animal. The aim is not to anthropomorphize, but to individualize.

From one former SeaWorld trainer:

My most painful Sea World memory was of the Atlantic Bottlenose dolphin Shalest, who died from, in my opinion, stress-induced malnutrition/starvation. Looking back it seems tragically ironic that a dolphin born and raised in captivity under the principles of behavior modification, learned them so well that the food SW trained her to eat no longer continued to be reinforcing for her. It was attention from these same people that she solicited and appeared to crave most prior to her death.

Samanatha Berg, at SeaWorld Florida's Whale & Dolphin Stadium

From Samantha Berg, another former SeaWorld trainer, in response:

I remember Shalest, especially during her last days looking like a skeleton with the ghost of a dolphin exterior.  She literally starved to death.  I can still see her in the back pool swallowing and regurgitating the same herring all day long.  Before Shalest got sick, she was such a phenomenal animal.  You could get in the water with her and hug her for hours and she would just hang out.

Dolphin anorexia is a good description.  She started regurgitating her food and playing with it.  It was more reinforcing for her to do that than eat it.  The animal care staff tried force feeding her, but it didn’t do any good.  She just kept eating and throwing up.  Eventually starved herself to death.

Again, the point here is not to gratuitously dramatize, though this is a dramatic story. It is to dig deep into the reality of Shalest’s experience, so we can better understand, which is the key to critical thinking and judgement.

Feel free to share more stories or pictures in the Comments.

Seeing Is Important

No matter what your views on marine parks, it is important that you know as much about the lives of the animals there as possible. Otherwise, you can’t really hold whatever views you have honestly. A few days ago, a picture came across my desk, and Elizabeth Batt has written up the backstory over at Digital Journal.

I hesitated to publish the picture because it is dramatic and open to mis-interpretation. But the more I thought about it, the more I felt that not publishing it also is a dis-service, and also dishonest. And that you can never know or understand more by NOT seeing something.

So below is the picture that got Elizabeth going on her article. It shows a team at an Asian marine park trying to save a dolphin’s life by amputating an infected dorsal. One one level it is hard to object to what they are doing, as brutal as the procedure might be for an animal that can’t handle general anesthetic. But the picture also shows the sort of lives and experience marine mammals at marine parks live, in contrast to the lives they live in their natural environment.

If this dolphin came from the Taiji drives, as seems likely from Elizabeth’s reporting, you can say that it is “lucky” to be alive, and you would be right in the sense that getting sold to a marine park is possibly better than being slaughtered in a cove (though who really knows which of those two fates a dolphin would choose it if could choose between those two fates). But that doesn’t take away from the truth of what the picture shows about the alien (to a marine mammal) world of marine mammal captivity (plus, it is the sale of dolphins to marine parks that underlies much of the economic incentive for the Taiji drives, so there is a bigger picture).

Finally, yes, the ocean can be a tough place, and dolphins no doubt get injured and die at sea. But this situation is a result of human choices and human culture. So I am publishing the picture so it can be seen by human eyes.

Kayla Next Up For Pregnancy?

Last November, I wrote about the pregnancies of SeaWorld orcas Kohana, Kasatka, and Takara (much to the skepticism of some readers). Not sure what my critics are thinking right now, but I can add some detail to my previous post by reporting that I am told that Takara is expected to deliver in December, with Kasatka following in January.

Also, at the risk of inflaming the skeptics again I’ve heard that Kayla is next on the breeding list, and the hope is that she can be impregnated by artificial insemination using a sperm donation from Mundo Marino’s Kshamenk–which reflects the fact that SeaWorld is doing what it can to diversify the limited captive gene pool.

If Kayla is successfully impregnated it will raise questions, given Kayla’s checkered breeding history. She was born at SeaWorld San Antonio to Kenau (sired by Orky) in November 1988. According to her profile, when she was 11 months old she was separated from Kenau, and when she was 2 years old was shipped off to SeaWorld Ohio, eventually returning to SeaWorld San Antonio in 1999.  The profile says that while Kayla has had behavioral issues, she was consistent with husbandry and in November 2001 was artificially inseminated. That AI, however, did not lead to a pregnancy.

From April-November 2003, blood samples showed high progesterone levels indicating a possible pregnancy. The profile notes that Kayla’s behavior changed over this period, and she showed aggressive tendencies toward trainers. However, as winter arrived her progesterone returned to normal levels, and her behavior improved.

Kayla finally became pregnant (for certain) in the summer of 2004 (in the early months of her pregnancy her behavior again became inconsistent, before stabilizing further into her pregnancy). Keet reportedly was the father, and she gave birth to a female calf, called Halyn, in October 2005. As her profile records, she immediately became aggressive with her calf, pushing Halyn against the glass, picking her up in her mouth and throwing her, “fluking” her out of the pool onto the slideout, and then pushing her back in and up against the glass. Trainers got Kayla through a gate to separate mother from calf, and then then removed Halyn from the stadium. Kayla allowed herself to be milked a few times a day for about six weeks. Sadly, Halyn died in June 2008, at 2 years and 8 months old.

Halyn being bottle-fed.

In November 2006 Kayla was transported to SeaWorld Florida. She was pregnant during the transfer (so within a year of giving birth to Halyn, again by Keet) according to the profile. But in April 2007 an ultrasound showed no fetal movement. Shortly after, she delivered a stillborn male calf.

If SeaWorld is successful with an AI of Kayla, it would be her first calf since Halyn. It would be interesting to know whether the training and animal care staff believe that an older, more mature, Kayla would handle a calf better than she handled Halyn, and if so, why. Or it could be that SeaWorld is more confident about its ability to hand-rear a calf, if necessary, based on the success (so far) of raising Adan at Loro Parque despite Kohana’s refusal to nurse and lack of involvement. We’ll have to see how it all plays out.

I last wrote about Kayla here, because she reportedly helped shut down the Believe show that took place before the Dine With Shamu show in which Tilikum killed Dawn Brancheau. Here she is, putting her stamp Kalina is, after Kayla worked her over during another show a few months later.

And speaking of Tilikum, there has been a lot of concern and chatter about the fact that he wasn’t well earlier this year. For what it is worth, I have been told that SeaWorld believes he is on the mend now, but that it was a close-run thing and he has lost a fair bit of weight.

Double Depravity: Dolphins Die So Sharks Can Be Finned

Sorry if you just had breakfast. Because this photo essay by Paul Hilton on the fishing practices he documented in Lombok, Indonesia is not easy on the stomach, or the human conscience. (Hilton recently won a World Press Photo award for a series on shark finning, and his work is well worth a look).

The basic story is that fishermen capture dolphins, use the meat to longline for sharks (to fin), and sell any surplus at local markets. It’s like a perfect storm of destruction. It’s the pictures, though, that really illustrate how sad this is.

Here’s Hilton, describing the scene:

In August of 2011, I headed to Indonesia to investigate. On the first morning I woke to the sounds of prayer at the local mosque, grabbed my camera and a notebook and headed down to Tanjung Luar, the largest fish market in Eastern Lombok. The smell was over powering. The crowd was a mix of tourists and locals.  I watched as the crew of two Indonesian longliners, tied up alongside each other, started dumping large fish over the sides into the shallow waters to be dragged into shore. I quickly made a list of species being offloaded. Scalloped hammerheads, thresher, mako, blue, silky, bull, tiger and oceanic white-tips sharks, manta and mobula rays, spinner dolphins and pilot whales. All coming off the same two boats, and not a tuna in sight.

The pictures, and the fact that this sort of fishing is going on–both killing highly intelligent mammals, and contributing to the destruction of shark species–can easily inspire outrage and condemnation (as it should). But it is important to remember the underlying cause of such a destructive practice is poverty. It may be easy to judge, or to assume that we wouldn’t make the same choices these fishermen are making, but many are subsistence fishermen simply trying to feed their families (though I have only scorn and antipathy for industrial shark finning operations that are all about corporate profit).

So anyone who really cares about ending human exploitation of dolphins and sharks (and other species) has to face this inconvenient truth: these practices (along with so many other destructive environmental practices) will not stop until the world gets serious about addressing global poverty. That’s not easy to do, but it is something that rarely gets acknowledged in policy and political debates.

Poverty and environmental destruction and cruelty are intimately linked. So if you want to oppose what you see here, it is incumbent on you to open your mind to what can be done about the underlying problem.

Fields Of Friendly Fire

Forget the Oscar overload, and whether Jennifer Lopez’s dress covered all the right parts of Jennifer Lopez. If you are going to read one story today, you should make it this one: the story of a father who refused to let the US Army whitewash the friendly fire death of his son.

I had a number of very powerful reactions to the story, but I will let you read it fresh, with no preconceptions.

Here’s how it starts (in case you need any further inducement to give it a read):

Dave Sharrett Sr. still sees his son in his dreams.

In one, the son is home on leave from Iraq, a warrior, a man. His boots are caked in mud. His fatigues are dirty. “And as we talk,” Sharrett says, “I realize I have to tell him that I know how he is going to die.”

Read on….

Henry Miller On Writing

Every writer has his or her own formula for getting the work done, and making writing a profession that sustains.

So I am always interested in what writers have to say about how they go about it.

Here is an excellent set of “Commandments” from Henry Miller, who wrote a lot and wrote well (and appeared to have quite a bit of fun while doing it):

Work on one thing at a time until finished.

Start no more new books, add no more new material to “Black Spring.”

Don’t be nervous. Work calmly, joyously, recklessly on whatever is in hand.

Work according to Program and not according to mood. Stop at the appointed time!

When you can’t create you can work.

Cement a little every day, rather than add new fertilizers.

Keep human! See people, go places, drink if you feel like it.

Don’t be a draught-horse! Work with pleasure only.

Discard the Program when you feel like it—but go back to it next day. Concentrate. Narrow down. Exclude.

Forget the books you want to write. Think only of the book you are writing.

Write first and always. Painting, music, friends, cinema, all these come afterwards.

The Terrestrial World Is Giving The Ocean World Flu

Parasites and pathogens that infect humans, pets and farm animals are increasingly showing up in marine mammals.

This isn’t really surprising, but it’s just one more reminder that EVERYTHING humans do matters to the system as a whole.

Here’s the gist (full story here):

Between 1998 and 2010, nearly 5,000 marine mammal carcasses were recovered and necropsied along the British Columbia and Pacific Northwest region of the U.S., including whales, dolphins and porpoises, sea lions and otters.

“Infectious diseases accounted for up to 40 per cent of mortalities of these marine animals,” says Stephen Raverty, a veterinary pathologist with the Animal Health Centre in the British Columbia Ministry of Agriculture and Lands, and an adjunct professor in UBC’s Marine Mammal Research Unit.

“In many cases, the diseases found in these marine mammals have similar or genetically identical agents as those infecting pets and livestock. We don’t yet know how these diseases are affecting the health of marine mammals” says Raverty.

There are no obvious policy responses, except to say that it is increasingly important that the earth be viewed as a single, integrated, system with no barriers.

How Would You Like Your Test Tube Burger?

Right now they are very rare (get it?). But scientists, as they will, are plowing ahead with the development of in vitro meat, also dubbed Frankenmeat.

Isn't technology fun?

From a moral and environmental point of view, the logic is unassailable:

So-called test-tube meat is being developed to slash the environmental impacts of factory farming, improve consumer health and lessen the suffering of animals. Last June, an Oxford University study concluded that compared with conventionally grown and produced meat, “in vitro” or “cultured” meat would generate 96% lower greenhouse gas emissions, use 45% less energy, reduce land use by 99% and cut water use by 96%.

“Animal farming is by far the biggest ongoing global catastrophe,” Patrick Brown of the Stanford University School of Medicine told reporters, AFP says. “More to the point, it’s incredibly ready to topple … it’s inefficient technology that hasn’t changed fundamentally for millennia.”

From a culinary point of view it sounds (and looks–so far) pretty disgusting.

Yum. Can't wait.

The meat-eating world is already starting to argue that it will be incumbent upon vegans and vegetarians to eat the stuff, to help it take off commercially.

Actually, I think it is incumbent upon me to keep making the argument that the simplest thing is for people to stop eating meat (why do some technological solutions sometimes seem so grotesque? Not sure I want to see what unintended consequences Frankenmeat will arrive with). And that meat should be taxed according to the environmental and health costs it imposes on the planet (it would be impossible to quantify or even compensate for the suffering factory meat-farming inflicts on animals).

Simply making people pay what meat really costs would be by far the fastest and simplest way to solve the meat problem (and the strongest incentive for going vegetarian). And for any die-hards who would prefer test-tube meat to no meat at all, the right price on factory-farmed meat would make lab-farmed meat commercially viable in a hurry.

So, no thanks. I’ll pass on that Frankenburger.

Driftnet Destruction

The problem with drift nets is that they, well, drift. For a long, long, time.

The non-profit The Blackfish is launching a new campaign to stop illegal drift net use in the Mediterranean.

Here’s what got them going:

http://www.theblackfish.org/news/driftnet-victims.html

A New Orca Website Worth Following

There is no one who has more knowledge and credibility when it comes to what really goes on for trainers and whales at marine parks than former orca trainers.

Now four former SeaWorld trainers, all of whom have contributed enormously to my reporting on SeaWorld and orcas, have launched a cool new website called Voice Of The Orcas. It’s got tons of background info about orca captivity, and links to a wide range of resources. It will no doubt also become Voice Of The Orca Trainers, as they use the site to share their take and experience on every aspect of orca captivity.

Check it out here.