WDC Blog - From the Front Line

Reflecting on the tragedy I went back and looked at a story WDCS reported on in 2007. It was from a LA Times article.

The full piece is available via the link above, but the synopsis is 'a report in which state investigators concluded that it is 'just a matter of time' before a captive orca at Sea World’s Adventure park killed a trainer', has been withdrawn by the agency that issued it after two days of talks with Sea World officials.  In rescinding the report, state department staff claimed that they did not have the expertise required to investigate the matter fully and promised to review their own record of events.

The report, by the state Department of Industrial Relations' Division of Occupational Safety and Health was released following the attack on a
trainer by a killer whale at Sea World Adventure Park in San Diego last November.
 

During a show on Wednesday 29th November [2006] at Sea World’s San Diego theme park, a 30-year-old orca known as Kasatka, a 7,000-pound, 17-foot-long female, grabbed a trainer’s foot and pulled him underwater twice, before letting go so he could escape from the pool and be taken to hospital for treatment. The incident happened towards the end of the show during a routine which was supposed to include Kasatka and the trainer diving under water to emerge with the trainer jumping off her nose.  

The report also stated that the animals prove deadly to their human trainers by virtue of their size alone, and that as carnivores, are armed with teeth that could tear “flesh and bone”. It was recommended that Sea World staff be prepared to use lethal force to prevent the loss of human life by one of the captive orcas, a recommendation that has
been withdrawn following the repeal.'

So should someone now be asking why was the report withdrawn and who now should shoulder the responsibility for what someone once described as an incident that was going to happen but it was 'just a matter of time'?

You can see CNN investigation on this issue, including our HSUS colleague Dr. Naomi Rose

The original LA Times reporting the 2007 Health and Safety Report before meetings with Sea World led to its retraction

And some more thoughts on the whole issue from our colleague Sue Rocca 

I don't understand why the Sea World spokesperson I can see here in the UK on TV broadcasts appears to be saying that 'we have never experienced anything like this before'. I am sure that there has been numerous accidents and incidents, and Sea World should have been well aware of Tilikum's past history in which two people died. There have also been numerous near misses as Youtube would testify too.

There are a lot more details here

With such amazing but essentially wild social animals confined in small tanks that are completely unrelated to their natural environments away from family and social groups, no wonder these 'accidents' are always lurking as possibilities.

Time to let the orcas go free, -that's not just the best for the orcas, but its the best way to avoid any accidents, and definitely avoid such a tragedy like this from happening again.

Initial reports coming out of the USA suggest that the myth of Shamu has been shattered for one individual and their family when a trainer was killed by a captive orca.

The LA Times is reporting that a Sea World guest 'Victoria Biniak told Local 6 that the trainer was a veteran of SeaWorld and had just finished explaining to the audience what they would see during the performance.

At that point, Biniak said, the whale came up from the water and grabbed the woman.'

'Orange County Fire Rescue personnel arrived on scene within five minutes of receiving a 911 call for an unknown medical condition just prior to 2 p.m., a spokesman said. The woman was dead when rescue officials arrived.'

WDCS's thoughts go out to the family of the trainer concerned. However, we should also say that this is just part of the tragedy that is capivity. You can learn more about this event and the nightmare of cetacean captivity at the WDCS website

It strikes me that if the commercial whalers are welcoming the initiative from the IWC then I would suggest that something is really, really wrong with the ideas that are being discussed.

When they are talking about reviving their declining industry and hunting more species one must wonder what the heck our legislators are proposing?

"WDCS experts will be at the IWC Meeting this week to give whales a voice. You can get up-to-the minute news about these discussions from our expert in attendance by following WDCS on twitter at http://twitter.com/WHALES_org and http://twitter.com/alleyesonIWC"

On the day that many of our elected officials forgot what we mandated them to do, - end whaling - and seem to believe that their job is to reward the whalers with what they want - legal whaling,  scientists in the US have called for an end to the "inhumane" slaughter of dolphins in Japan. But  how can we save dolphins that swim in the waters of Japan if countries are not willing to stop them on the highs seas.

What are countries like Sweden doing trying to destabilize the EU's opposition to whaling with their unfettered support for Greenland's thirst for more whales? Their actions are precipitating an enfeebled EU that is unable to organize itself to oppose commercial whaling whilst Norway, Iceland and Japan simply kill more whales until the blackmail the conservation-led countries into giving in.

Its a sad day when the IWC proposes the killing of humpbacks, sei, sperm, minke, Bryde's and fin whales - All because the whalers want them!

Which countries will step forward and take up the mantle that Sweden and Denmark are stripping from the shoulders of the EU? Who will champion the whales now?

WDCS experts will be at the IWC Meeting this week to give whales a voice. You can get up-to-the minute news about these discussions from our expert in attendance by following WDCS on twitter http://twitter.com/WHALES_org and at http://twitter.com/alleyesonIWC"

In the first of an occasional series of expert commentaries WDCS is pleased to present a pertinent memoir on Norwegian whaling by Dr. Sidney Holt

The current whaling discourse appears to be focused on how to accommodate the self-authorized commercial whaling of Norway,Iceland and the so-called ‘scientific whaling’ of Japan. The not so public debate is centered on what may be conceded to Japan to end its continued use of Article VIII to circumvent the 1982 decision of the IWC for a moratorium on all commercial whaling and appears to include granting it, Norway and Iceland, sanctioned commercial whaling off their own coast in exchange for Japan withdrawing from whaling in the Antarctic.

Many of those officials who are charged by their governments to achieve a negotiated settlement may be acting under either good intentions or bad instructions, but either way neither is enough for them to truly understand the consequences of their current actions.

What is lacking is a historical perspective that very few IWC Commissioners could be expected to have due to their more recent appointments to serve as their national representatives. Some of those who do remember are the very individuals who would like to see such a history forgotten or at least fudged, as a clear understanding of what has happened before is a sure temper to inappropriate action today.

Dr. Sidney Holt is in a unique position to illuminate the darker history of the IWC. He has not only served as advisor to several IWC country delegations but has been a fundamental cornerstone of the IWC Scientific Committee for the last fifty years. His knowledge of the thinking of both the various conservation-led initiatives and of the pro-exploitation strategies that have been played out over the years is second to none.

He will hopefully forgive me for saying that he has also been around long enough so that very few ideas at the IWC are new to him. The current US Government endorsed strategy to deliver coastal whaling for Japan appears to be the same idea that has raised its muddled head in two previous incarnations, but this time it may be even more dangerous -because people have forgotten the lessons of why it failed twice before.
Dr Holt’s timely paper moves our attention from the focus on the intransigence of Japan to remind us of previous attempts to circumvent years of progressive conservation policy at the IWC and into the depths of strategy of various Norwegian delegations.

He traces the critically important years of the mid-1980s when Norway, facing the threat of the moratorium ending commercial whaling, systematically set out to undermine the recommendations o the Scientific Committee, and some of its own scientists, to create a new classification of whaling, and to create a myth that the moratorium decision was not based on science.


The history of trying to control that destructive human activity we call whaling has unfortunately been one mistake after another. Never has there been a truer example of Santayana’s warning that ‘those who forget history are doomed to repeat it’ and Dr Holt’s paper is a timely reminder of how the past can illuminate the machinations of our current elected politicians who would gamble with the lives of whales they have told us they were dedicated to protecting.

You can read Dr. Holt's full paper here and if you are a country that is contemplating voting for a resumption of commercial whaling in whatever guise, let history remind you of the mistake you will be making.

WDCS experts will be at the IWC Meeting this
week to give whales a voice. You can get up-to-the minute news about
these discussions from our expert in attendance by following WDCS on
twitter http://twitter.com/WHALES_org
and at
http://twitter.com/alleyesonIWC"

Just how many whales did swim in our oceans centuries ago? Fred Pearce writing in New Scientist of the 9th February reports that some scientists think it might be a lot more than we originally thought.

He reports that genetic techniques for analysing whale populations, alongside fresh historical analysis, suggest that whales may once have been the dominant species in the world's oceans. Pearce notes that Stephen Palumbi and Joe Roman of Stanford University's Hopkins Marine Station have argued, to a mostly hostile audience it must be said that whilst the IWC believed that before large-scale whaling began, the North Atlantic was home to about 20,000 humpback whales, Roman and Palumbi estimated the pre-exploitation population was more than twenty times as great, at 240,000. Globally, they suggested, there may have once been 1.5 million humpbacks, rather than the 100,000 estimated by the IWC.How many whales were lost in early whaling, let alone in the industrial whaling of the 20th century.

The Norwegian naval captain N. Juel (1892) described whale spearing as, ‘…highly destructive for the whale population but gives only a small and uncertain yield’. Indeed spear whaling, with a struck and lost rate greater than the 50% of the Old Basque whaling, was officially characterized as ‘the most wasteful of all hunting methods’ and in order to prevent its revival was banned under the Norwegian Whaling Act of 1896.

WDCS has some concerns about the procedure being used to propose a large Marine Protected Area (MPA) in the Chagos Archipelago, British Indian Ocean Territory. On paper it looks wonderful, but there are some problems that need to be addressed before it can become a successful, highly protected area that will contribute to global biodiversity and MPA targets. We hope the Overseas Territories Directorate is listening. Here is our letter to them:

Overseas Territories Directorate
Foreign and Commonwealth Office
King Charles Street
London SW1A 2AH


10 February 2010

RE: The creation of a large Marine Protected Area (MPA) in the Chagos Archipelago, British Indian Ocean Territory

Dear Sir or Madam,

Noting that the UK Government has invited comments from ‘anyone with an interest in the protection of the environment,’ we at the Whale and Dolphin Conservation Society (WDCS), based in the UK, US, Germany, Argentina and Australia, and the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) with several offices in the US and in China, would like to register our concerns regarding this proposal.

We do support the idea of a large highly protected MPA or marine reserve in this globally important tropical marine environment to protect the well documented biodiversity, including the outstanding coral reefs. We note also from cetacean work in the area the presence of important cetacean habitat including but not limited to sperm whales; bottlenose, striped, pantropical spotted, and Risso's dolphins; as well as pilot whales, killer whales and various beaked whales including Cuvier’s beaked whales. In many respects this is a prime area in the Indian Ocean, the conservation of which will help the UK meet international 2010 and 2012 targets for conservation of biodiversity and creation of MPA networks.

However, we are concerned about the unilateral FCO procedure in trying to implement this MPA without even parliamentary debate or approval. Participation in this exercise ultimately needs to be with both the Chagossians, who were expelled from their homes in the islands some 40 years ago, and with Mauritius who have some claims to part of the territory. MPAs created from the ‘top down only’ are much less likely to function effectively.

We note that the Mauritian Government has sent a formal note verbale (6 January 2010) protesting against the FCO 'marine park' consultation; and the representative of the leading Chagossian Association (Olivier Bancoult) has gone on record as opposing the project.

These issues need to be sorted out in order to create a responsible, effective MPA. In the long-run, or even over a short period of time, the involvement of a local community and neighbouring governments with interests in the area will make the proposed MPA much stronger and more likely to succeed, especially when it comes to the difficult matter of enforcement and monitoring in the future.

Our second main concern regarding this proposal has to do with the fact that Diego Garcia, the largest of the islands, and the surrounding waters of the US Naval base, are being left out of the proposal. The proximity of military activities, including potential activities involving low- and mid-frequency active sonar, is problematic to the creation of a highly protected area. Navy mid-frequency sonar has been well documented to have a fatal impact particularly on beaked whale species and to have a range of other adverse effects on marine mammals.[1] To our knowledge, none of these activities within the prospective MPA have undergone legally required permitting, consultation, and environmental analysis under U.S. law.

We therefore respectfully request that the island of Diego Garcia and the surrounding waters be included in this MPA. In addition, there should be requirements for EIAs to address the issue of ocean noise pollution – including the use of active sonar – as well as vessel speed and traffic, dumping of wastes, and other activities that might affect the integrity of the Chagos Archipelago MPA. The U.S. Navy should also prepare an Environmental Impact Statement pursuant to the U.S. National Environmental Policy Act and seek authorization to take marine mammals incidental to base activities from the U.S. National Marine Fisheries Service in the U.S. Department of Commerce.

For your information, we note that an article in the Journal of Environmental Law in January 2009, raised concerns that the US military is responsible for environmental damage both on and around Diego Garcia, including – but not limited to – ‘large-scale coral mining, the introduction of alien plant species, continuous transit of nuclear material and unreported major fuel spills.’

Sincerely,

Erich Hoyt, Senior Research Fellow and Programme Lead, Critical Habitat/MPAs
Whale and Dolphin Conservation Society – WDCS
Brookfield House, 38 St Paul Street, Chippenham, Wiltshire SN15 1LJ UK

Sarah Dolman, WDCS Head of Policy for Scotland
WDCS Noise Pollution Campaign Manager
Honorary Research Fellow, University of Aberdeen

Kate O’Connell, Research Analyst, WDCS International

Michael Jasny, Senior Policy Analyst
Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC)
1314 Second Street, Santa Monica, CA 90401 USA

Taryn G. Kiekow, Staff Attorney, NRDC

[1] See, e.g., International Whaling Commission, 2004 Report of the Scientific Committee, Annex K, § 6.4 (concluding that the association between sonar and beaked whale deaths ‘is very concerning and appears overwhelming.’); TM Cox et al, ‘Understanding the Impacts of Acoustic Sound on Beaked Whales’, Journal of Cetacean Research and Management 7 (2006) 177; ECM Parsons et al, ‘Navy Sonar and Cetaceans: Just How Much Does the Gun Need To Smoke Before We Act?’, Marine Pollution Bulletin 56 (2008) 1248.

The Scottish Marine Bill is now the law of the land, or better said, the 'law of the water', at least out to 12nm and maybe in future 200nm although that still needs to be worked out between Holyrood and Westminster. The bill, passed last week by the Scottish assembly in Edinburgh, includes new powers to select and manage Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) in Scotland’s seas, and to manage the various competing uses of the seas from fishing to marine renewables to wildlife tourism and the protection of biodiversity in what will hopefully be a coherent marine plan. After years of work on every aspect of this bill, there was a lot of hand-shaking going on and pats on the back but, as always, the proof of the value will come with the implementation. A special note of thanks must go to Scottish Environment Link, the umbrella body representing 34 environmental organizations in the UK including WDCS, that worked hard to give a voice to Scotland’s amazing marine wildlife. Now we need some proposals that will truly inspire the world — perhaps a Great Barrier Reef-scale marine park or MPA that gives wildlife the protection and place in our hearts that it deserves?!

Will dolphins be recognised as persons in the coming decade? The article ‘Are Whales and Dolphins the Great Apes of the Oceans?’ was posted to the WDCS website before Christmas. In January, the Times Online published an article noting that some scientists are asking whether dolphins should be recognised as non-human persons. Could this be the beginning of an enlightened age?

We live in an era of increasingly astounding discoveries related to the intelligence of dolphins, borne out through their behaviour and the underlying brain and sensory anatomy. We now know more about the complexities of the societies in which dolphins live; their use of tools; transmission of culture between generations; the very specific roles that individuals play within these societies; and even their sense of self.

At a time when questions are being raised about the nature and role of moral systems within non-human societies, and the likelihood of evolutionary continuity for such traits, it seems inevitable that a spot light will come to rest on our own treatment of other species. This will be particularly poignant for those species for which we can reliably demonstrate a certain level of intelligence and capacity for complex psychological suffering.

In February, scientists will be meeting in San Diego, California to present some of their discoveries about dolphin cognition and to discuss with well known philosopher Professor Thomas I. White whether it is time we recognise dolphins as non-human persons. There is little doubt that we now have ample evidence that dolphins are indeed complex, highly intelligent beings with individual characters, a sense of self and emotional sophistication. If researchers are correct in asserting that some dolphin species are even more intelligent that chimpanzees, isn’t it time we formally recognised dolphins as the non-human persons which they clearly are?

It seems inevitable that sense will ultimately reign on this issue and we will come to recognise that there are other intelligences on our planet that are as worthy of protection as our own. However, the timeframe for these revelations is hard to predict. First we must begin the process of breaking down our own human-centric prejudice and let the facts speak for themselves.