Moments of Permanence - June 9th, 2014

About June 9th, 2014

Some people are terrible at arguing 09:04 am
So, there's this SeaWorld debate. And there was a roundtable discussion.

And in response to a question about whether captivity was unhealthy for orcas, the SeaWorld dude brought out a chart showing that orca longevity in captivity used to be super-terrible, but now it's about on par with survival in the wild.

Dude, you are making the opposite point to the one you want. That's, "Well, obviously it's been terrible, but we've finally caught up and now it's arguably not actively detrimental if you do it really, really well!!!"

Just... no. You are only making a case for animal captivity if they live significantly longer.

For example, circa 2009 at least, there was a female example of the extremely endangered Amur tiger (formerly known as the Siberian tiger, but there aren't any in Siberia any more) at the Highland Wildlife Park. Which kept seeming wrong to me, because for some reason I think of tigers as hot climate animals, but... no, Siberian, and the Highland Wildlife Park sort of seems to specialise in colder animals. They had recently acquired an elderly polar bear who'd been at Edinburgh Zoo, but in her old age had started to struggle with the overwhelming heat of Edinburgh, so had been moved to the Highlands because it's really quite cold there.

But they also had the tiger, and I had a long chat with the keeper, and one of the things about this tiger was that she was unlikely to survive in the wild. She'd had some health issues, and one of the consequences was that she needed to eat every day, where apparently wild tigers would usually eat every two or three days, and she'd be at risk of starving... especially since she had three cubs to rear.

She was a perfect candidate for captivity, therefore, because she was healthier there, and protected from threats like poachers. (And raising cubs! Which were adorable yet, clearly, also incredibly annoying sometimes. She was trying to eat, the cubs kept trying to get at her food, she had to roar at them as they tried all sorts of tricks, it was hilarious and cute and also kind of terrifying because a tiger's roar at close proximity sends RUN MONKEY RUN signals that hit straight to the hindbrain.)

However, had the argument for keeping her in captivity been: "Well, these days they live just about as long as they do in the wild!" that would not have been a good argument.

I should note: I'm not actually a huge fan of killer whales. They're only misnamed in the "whale" part, not the "killer" part, and they're sort of terrifying in some ways. That doesn't, however, mean that I approve of their imprisonment, torture, or early death.

I'm also not a particularly vociferous animal-rights advocate. I have no problem with people keeping domesticated animals as pets and I eat meat. But I am against animal cruelty, and that applies to animals that aren't cute. I don't find most fish cute, either, but I consider catch-and-release recreational fishing to be one of the most horrendous activities undertaken by humans for "sport", too.
Top of Page Powered by Dreamwidth Studios