Pets Peeved

Wed, 06 Dec 2006 04:11:06 GMT

Hello again from the place where it never stops snowing!

The Blizzard Fence is finished!! Hooray! Hooray!

Now we just have to get through the “Snow Deck” and all our outdoor work is finished (for now). Sigh.

Our life, at this juncture, involves waking up, slurping down coffee/tea and porridge, schlepping out to the freezing cold job site, hammering, sawing, and nailing until dark (which arrives at 4:30), dragging our icy butts back to the Shagalicious rental pad, stuffing food into our gullets, showering (if we have the energy), and falling asleep at some ungodly early hour. That is to say, we are supremely uninteresting humans right now.

In this cold, Prez’s knees send him constant reminders that he was once a stuntman and did hideously painful things to his body on a regular basis. As a result, he can often be found staring wistfully at the PADI dive magazines we receive twice per month. As I write, he is on Expedia checking on airfare to Curacao or some other tropical locale. It doesn’t help that the Ripster and Mountain Momma just returned from Costa Rica with tales of waves and jungles.

So, seeing as our lives are so pitifully dull right now (although I did have a fabulous dream about a dancing hippo) my thoughts this past week have been on a whale of a tale I saw on the news. It seems one of the marine mammal “slaves” at Sea World tried to drown one of the trainers. During a routine Kasatka, an Orca, held a trainer underwater twice, almost drowning him. Call me cruel, call me insensitive, but when I saw the report I gave a silent cheer for the whale.

I love animals, that’s no secret. People are great on an individual basis but the human race as a whole leaves much to be desired. That’s not to say that I favour animal welfare over human welfare, not at all. My feeling is simply that humans create their own mess – messes that often victimize the other critters we share this planet with.

So, let’s talk about zoos and aquariums. Here’s the argument most people will give you in favour of places which keep animals in captivity: “Seeing animals at zoos/aquariums makes people love them and want to protect them, therefore, a few animals must suffer for the greater good”. To this I say: “Hogwash”. Yes, some zoos and aquariums do some good for some animals. There are species in real danger of unnatural extinction and these facilities provide safe habit for them. And, yes, they do provide some educational programs and I’m always a fan of education. But the hard truth is most zoos/aquariums – I’m talking globally – provide small, substandard facilities bordering on abuse. As long as I live, I will never get the image of the black bear I saw at a Japanese zoo, stuffed into a cage so small he almost couldn’t turn around, out of my head.

But nothing is as heartbreaking, to me, as a marine mammal in captivity.

I’ll come clean with you, I used to loooooooove going to the zoo or the aquarium. As a young girl, I begged to stay up past bedtime to watch Jane Goodall on TV, and dreamt of perhaps becoming a zoologist or a marine biologist when I grew up. And yet, it wasn’t until the day I first saw dolphins in the wild that I started to really care, to really speak out for the wild things of this world. No aquarium, no matter how large the pool, can show you how truly magnificent dolphins and whales are. Only in their natural habitat, jumping and flipping for sheer pleasure, can you begin to understand the beauty and power of these creatures. Once you’ve seen them interacting socially (dolphins sometimes congregate in the thousands), hunting for prey, playing, protecting their young, traveling hundreds of miles at a time; once you’ve looked into their eyes and seen not the blank stare of a fish but the knowing gaze of a highly intelligent mammal; you see how barbaric it is to pen them up and make them do tricks for humans.

To put a marine mammal in a pool, well, just imagine spending the rest of your life in a broom closet that should give you some idea.

I know there are those who will say we were given dominion over the animals, we are the top of the food chain, and we shouldn’t be wasting our time worrying about animal problems when there are so many human problems to contend with. I’ve heard people complain about animal rights activists and that if they had their way we wouldn’t be able to build anything anywhere because of one poor spotted owl. To which I say, again, HOGWASH.

We should be judged, not by how we treat our equals, but by how we treat the lowest of the creatures of this earth. If some entity has given us dominion over all the creatures of this earth, then don’t we have a responsibility to take that job seriously and make sure no undue harm comes to those creatures as a result of our greed, ignorance, or anger? Humans swarm over the earth like locusts, we push animals out of their habit, we enslave them, we genetically modify and mass-produce them for consumption – we’re pretty crappy caretakers if you ask me. Animal activists (the non-crazy ones) only want balance and fairness and those qualities are good for all animals, even the hairless ones who walk around on two legs.

So, back to the rebel whale. Orcas are known as “Killer Whales”, this is a bit of a mix up from the native description of them as “Whale killers”. You see, an Orca’s favorite prey is the Grey whale. What they do is hunt down a sow and her calf, get between them, and then drown the calf by grabbing its fins and holding it underwater. Drowning prey is completely natural behaviour for an Orca. So why is anyone surprised when an Orca tries to drown a human? I don’t care how much “training” these whales have had, they are wild animals and anyone who climbs in with a wild animal takes a risk. Yet, the spectators I listened to who had witnessed the incident, were shocked, horrified, one woman even suggested the whale should have been killed.

The whale should have been killed? For behaving naturally? Did this whale ask to be caged up for our amusement? Did the whale ask some stupid biped to hop on its back and go for a ride? No. Lady, you don’t like seeing a giant predator doing what it has done for thousands of years then stop supporting Sea World.

Sorry, hackles are up.

I will not EVER go to Sea World or any aquarium with marine mammals. I will not EVER go to any “Swim With the Dolphins!” operation, anywhere, under any circumstances. I will ALWAYS speak for those who have no voice no matter how unpopular that makes me.

And I will always cheer for the whale.QUESTION: Would you go to Sea World?

Great links: Orcas in Captivity
Marine Mammals in Captivity
What's Wrong With Swimming With Dolphins?
The Truth About the Violent Capture of Dolphins

Until next week, I hope this finds you all, no matter how many legs or fins you might have, healthy, happy & lovin’ life!

The Princess

The Coconut Chronicles: Animals

Pets Peeved