Marine park threatens to euthanize 30 whales if Canada does not provide funding (www.theguardian.com)
from Severus_Snape@lemmy.world to world@lemmy.world on 06 Oct 18:15
https://lemmy.world/post/36982536

#world

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wildbus8979@sh.itjust.works on 06 Oct 18:20 next collapse

🎶 Every one haaaaaates Marineland! 🎶

HikingVet@lemmy.ca on 06 Oct 18:21 next collapse

Why the fuck are there still whales there and why are the corpos allowed to threaten death if these whales. They wanted to sell them to china (where they most likely will be further abused), now if they can’t get money they’ll kill them?

C’mon Ottawa, force them to rehabilitate and release them, even if it kills the park.

vateso5074@lemmy.world on 06 Oct 19:39 next collapse

C’mon Ottawa, force them to rehabilitate and release them, even if it kills the park.

A lot of animals cannot be rehabilitated and released. If they were born and raised in captivity, they have effectively no chance of survival on their own. I don’t know what the situation is for these animals, but I’ve been to plenty of zoos and aquariums in the past that have rehabilitation programs and even they have a few “lifers” who will never leave.

stoly@lemmy.world on 06 Oct 19:53 next collapse

AFAIK there are rarely whales born in captivity and nearly all were stolen from their pods and thrown into a swimming pool.

corsicanguppy@lemmy.ca on 06 Oct 21:42 collapse

And when you feed bears you get bears that can’t survive on their own.

Same deal.

shalafi@lemmy.world on 06 Oct 20:09 next collapse

Only animal I know that even has a chance in the would is a domestic house cat. Some can’t learn to hunt, some can, you never know. And mostly how they survive is finding humans to care for them, so maybe that doesn’t really count.

TheAsianDonKnots@lemmy.zip on 06 Oct 20:11 collapse

Uhhhh, how about try? If the options are to euthanize them or give them a fighting chance in the wild, they should just release them near or around another pod. The hubris of man to think animals can’t survive without them. They aren’t domesticated. If they’re hungry and see a fish swim by they’d be like “where’s the hairless ape’s hand to feed me?”.

vateso5074@lemmy.world on 06 Oct 20:24 next collapse

I’m not a marine biologist, so I can’t speculate on what the best alternative is for these whales, but I would like to imagine there are more options than the binary of “kill them” or “throw them to the wolves sharks”.

Marineland is just parroting the euthanize option because they’re upset they couldn’t make a quick buck by selling them to China. It’s a hissy fit tactic to try to un-block the sale.

If the whales are not able to be released in to the wild, I’m sure there are plenty of other facilities out there that would be able to care for them. Marineland might need to pay them to take the animals in, but it should be their obligation to do so if they’re unable to support the quality of life they need themselves.

TheAsianDonKnots@lemmy.zip on 06 Oct 20:27 collapse

Hey, man! What do you have against sharks? They need food too. Euthanize them and OSHA and 9 other agencies will have a say in how the carcasses are disposed of “safely”.

I do agree with you though, I wish the options weren’t so binary.

dogslayeggs@lemmy.world on 06 Oct 21:01 collapse

It’s not the hubris of man. It’s scientific research over decades and decades that has shown many captive animals are unable to survive without humans. This isn’t just some hippy or business person making uninformed assumptions about how animals work. Animals who have never been taught how to hunt on their own, or how to communicate with others of their species, will slowly die of starvation. It happens all the time when animals are let loose in the wild with no skills.

If you don’t believe me, go watch Naked and Afraid. Nearly every episode is about how these adult humans who have a production team ensuring their safety can’t catch any food and get sick from bad water and mostly starve for the entire duration of the challenge. That’s what captive animals are like. They have grown up with nobody to teach them anything useful. The only people who do well on the show are those who have had years of training in how to survive in the wild.

finitebanjo@piefed.world on 06 Oct 20:13 next collapse

In the past, attempts to rehabilitate whales have taken decades and resulted in failure. The whales have simply become wholly dependent on humans to feed them and give them company.

TBH, though, most of them kept in captivity end in suicides as the reverberations from their small enclosures are like living in a room where the alarms blare 24/7 so the euthanization might actually be a gift to them.

So it comes down to putting them in the wild to die slowly or kill them outright. If I had to choose I guess I'd want them released, but I'm not really in either camp. I also really don't like the idea of continuing their suffering in captivity.

ripcord@lemmy.world on 07 Oct 00:02 collapse

You only read the headline didn’t you

deadbeef79000@lemmy.nz on 06 Oct 18:34 next collapse

“Look what you’re making me do”

Paragone@lemmy.world on 06 Oct 18:40 next collapse

Euthanize, BUT NOT RELEASE, right??

Narcissism / machiavellianism / sociopathy-psychopathy / nihilism / SADISM / and systemic-dishonesty

… dimensions-of-human-evil in their position, at least.

The ideological displacing-considered-reasoning dimension may be on-display, too…

( they’re running-out of dimensions-of-human-evil to exercise!

& the Western-psychology’s “dark triad” is only a small subset of these dimensions.

Obviously, the psychology-profession’ll never accept these dimensions as valid, because it wasn’t them who authorized, or noticed, them.

Profession-narcissism is a very real force in our world )


Perhaps the executives of that operation are identifying that humankind ought murder the innocent ( the whales ) while catering-to the psychopaths ( the executives )?

Are we obedient to that directive?

XOR do we intentionally-ditch the dishonest-framing & force right framing, & THEN decide?

_ /\ _

shalafi@lemmy.world on 06 Oct 20:08 collapse

They’ll slowly starve or face predation.

TheAsianDonKnots@lemmy.zip on 06 Oct 20:23 collapse

50/50 chance they survive in the wild. 100% chance they die by being euthanized. Even if they die in the wild, they will feed the eco system. Even domesticated animals will eat their deceased owners when they get hungry enough. The only animal I can think of that won’t eat when hungry is a lonely guinea pig.

frongt@lemmy.zip on 06 Oct 21:00 next collapse

50/50 chance they survive in the wild.

That’s very generous of you. I wouldn’t even give them that after the first year.

TheAsianDonKnots@lemmy.zip on 06 Oct 21:35 collapse

They live or they die. That’s all I meant by 50/50.

andros_rex@lemmy.world on 07 Oct 12:17 collapse

The only animal I can think of that won’t eat when hungry is a lonely guinea pig.

You’ve never talked to anyone who raises snakes, have you?

It’s kinda amazing how this thread has brought out a bunch of people who wouldn’t pass an intro high school biology class, but seem to think they’re a genius on animal welfare.

pentastarm@piefed.ca on 06 Oct 18:45 next collapse

Me reading headline: I fuckin bet it is Marineland.
Me reading the first paragraph of the article: I fucking knew it! Fucking marineland.

ieatpwns@lemmy.world on 06 Oct 18:49 next collapse

But if I say billionaires should pay more taxes or be euthanized I’m put on a list

DaddleDew@lemmy.world on 06 Oct 19:06 next collapse

They should release them. They might not survive but at least they’ll have a chance.

SGforce@lemmy.ca on 06 Oct 19:10 next collapse

It’s the equivalent of releasing toddlers into a swamp.

snooggums@piefed.world on 06 Oct 19:47 next collapse

Or even an adult who has never gone camping being dropped in the middle of Alaska, the Amazon, or the Ghobi desert. Odds of survival are low and they are gonna suffer from starvation, thirst, getting sick from eating/drinking from the wrong sources, or being prey to something they don't know how to avoid. Maybe all four!

shalafi@lemmy.world on 06 Oct 20:07 collapse

Hell, you could release such an adult where I live in NW Florida. Very forgiving ecosystem yet even I wouldn’t last a month.

DaddleDew@lemmy.world on 06 Oct 23:17 collapse

The alternative is the equivalent of shooting the toddlers in the back of the head.

Either way is horrible.

CuffsOffWilly@lemmy.ml on 06 Oct 20:22 next collapse

Not much different than euthanizatiom except for the cost of shipping them to a release site.

DaddleDew@lemmy.world on 06 Oct 23:20 collapse

Not necessarily. These animals can be acclimatized and eased into it in stages to give them a fighting chance. Even if the chance of success is slim, I still fully expect the assholes who decided to breed these animals in captivity to be financially liable to cover the cost of that.

Otherwise, whoever owns these animals should be legally bound to financially support them until they die of old age. If someone decides to breed sentient creatures in captivity they should know that they can’t just discard them like an old newspaper if that doesn’t turn out to be a good investment.

rozodru@piefed.social on 07 Oct 14:49 collapse

Release them where exactly? someone still has to pay to move them somewhere to be released. I mean you can’t just let them loose in Niagara Falls unless you want 30 Beluga Whales falling on top of the Maid of the Mist.

DaddleDew@lemmy.world on 07 Oct 18:26 collapse

It’s funny how they didn’t have any problem paying the huge expense of bringing them there but suddenly money is scarce when it is time to take care of them or brigning them back.

They should be legally required to pay to fix it. To me this is no different than an oil company having to pay to cleanup whenever they make a spill.

Lemmyoutofhere@lemmy.ca on 06 Oct 19:13 next collapse

It’s provincial jurisdiction. Blame Doug Ford.

9488fcea02a9@sh.itjust.works on 06 Oct 20:03 next collapse

Turn it into a spa, folks!

CuffsOffWilly@lemmy.ml on 06 Oct 20:21 collapse

Feds blocked their sale to a group In China. So it’s not entirely on the province.

QuadDamage@kbin.earth on 06 Oct 19:35 next collapse

Why not release them?

snooggums@piefed.world on 06 Oct 19:43 next collapse

If they were born and raised in captivity their odds of survival are pretty low. Like someone who always lived in a large city and never went camping being dropped off in Alaska odds of survival.

Rehabilitation only helps so much without the actual experience of growing up with other members of their species in the wild.

Edit: Of course the adults in the wild are the ones that survived until adulthood so I still lean towards attempts to rehabilitate and release, just noting it isn't as simple as releasing.

ms_lane@lemmy.world on 07 Oct 01:43 next collapse

Their odds of survival in the wild are higher than being euthanized by a billionaire in an animal hostage crisis.

QuadDamage@kbin.earth on 07 Oct 03:50 collapse

True

meco03211@lemmy.world on 06 Oct 19:55 next collapse

Captive animals don’t always do well being released in the wild.

Cybersteel@lemmy.world on 06 Oct 23:54 collapse

Why not let the rules of nature decide? Unlike human society, that lets the weak rule the strong, only the strong may survive in the wild. That is natural selection.

k0e3@lemmy.ca on 07 Oct 00:14 collapse

It’s not natural selection if we yanked them out of the natural order and kept them from acquiring the skills necessary to survive in the wild in the first place.

GreyEyedGhost@lemmy.ca on 07 Oct 00:31 collapse

If you consider people as part of the natural order, then it is in fact natural selection. This isn’t a commendation of our place in nature.

k0e3@lemmy.ca on 07 Oct 12:01 collapse

People always say this as some sort of “gotcha” statement, but what we do to them is clearly very different from their normal life cycle and something we have the will to stop doing or somehow make up for the damage unlike other natural events like volcanoes erupting or meteors striking.

GreyEyedGhost@lemmy.ca on 07 Oct 14:21 collapse

How different is it than ladybugs and aphids, except for we (think we) have the will to do better than our nature demands? Also, I think I made it pretty clear that I don’t think that stance does our species credit. But I would say the outcome is very natural, even if natural isn’t exactly desirable.

rozodru@piefed.social on 07 Oct 14:48 collapse

because it’ll still cost money to move them to like Newfoundland or whatever.

This is Marineland, in Niagara Falls, you can’t just “release them” unless you want 30 Beluga whales going over the falls.

Plus releasing them is just killing them. They’ll likely die in the wild.

CompactFlax@discuss.tchncs.de on 06 Oct 19:44 next collapse

The government should seize the property and the assets of the owners and shareholders and anyone related to the owners to pay for this. You don’t end up here by accident.

But they’ll just get their way and retire wealthy.

CuffsOffWilly@lemmy.ml on 06 Oct 20:19 collapse

Apparently it costs 2 million per month to keep the belugas alive. Not sure I would want the government to be covering that cost. The issue is more complex than the headline but at the end of the day the corporation did not manage their money and now are in urgent need however, they also wanted to sell the animals to a group in China and the Feds blocked the sale. These animals were born in captivity so it’s hard to say if they would survive if released. It’s not a great situation.

CompactFlax@discuss.tchncs.de on 06 Oct 20:39 collapse

They won’t survive in the wild and the China option is inhumane.

The best option currently is to put them down but it’s abhorrent that it’s even possible to be in this situation.

DreamAccountant@lemmy.world on 06 Oct 19:55 next collapse

That’s a great reason not to raise wild animals in captivity.

They’ll be held as hostages by corpo scum.

“Give me money, or I’ll kill 30 whales. Ahahahah! They’re mine, and I can do whatever I want! AHAHAAHAH! Hail HR! Hail HR!”

That’s not fiction. That’s the story.

corsicanguppy@lemmy.ca on 06 Oct 21:42 collapse

“we’re closing. We cannot afford to keep these whales with no staff and no land. We want to move them to another habitat which has agreed to keep these animals which cannot be released.”

“No because they could maybe be mistreated.”

“They WILL be neglected here and the people buying the land will need them gone. It’s euthanasia or transport. Or you adopt them.”

Barring a time machine to stop the park from opening in 1961, that’s the options.

Zaktor@sopuli.xyz on 06 Oct 21:58 collapse

The option is right there in the article:

Under provincial law, Ontario has the power to seize the whales to ensure their safety – recouping any costs incurred when the park is sold.

Pyr_Pressure@lemmy.ca on 06 Oct 22:55 collapse

How much do you wanna bet that any fines for killing the whales will be substantially cheaper than relocation, so the park will do that and just eat the fine rather than risk the province confiscate the whales and then charge them later?

SoftestSapphic@lemmy.world on 06 Oct 21:42 next collapse

Nothing will meaningfully improve until the rich fear for their lives

TrojanRoomCoffeePot@lemmy.world on 07 Oct 00:12 next collapse

*Nothing will meaningfully improve until the rich fear for their lives again

krooklochurm@lemmy.ca on 07 Oct 12:57 collapse

In their mind the park is practically over, everyone fucking hates them, their need to provide a veneer of giving a fuck about these animals is fucking gone, who cares?

[deleted] on 06 Oct 23:04 next collapse
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Bubbaonthebeach@lemmy.ca on 06 Oct 23:17 next collapse

Canada or Ontario should liberate the whales and take over the property for the necessary property and income to do so.

zbyte64@awful.systems on 06 Oct 23:29 next collapse

This Marine Park fellow sounds like one bad hombre.

CircaV@lemmy.ca on 07 Oct 00:10 collapse

Yeah and he’s also dead. Used to smuggle illegal Belugas to breed and imprison them at Marineland. He’s already in hell.

CanadaPlus@lemmy.sdf.org on 06 Oct 23:59 next collapse

Everyone is big mad about the whales. Meanwhile, there’s a whole lot of other animals that aren’t famous being fucked with, and humans, and a pretty compelling case that the costs of caring for damn belugas is actually pretty burdensome.

It’s not bad people care about show whales. It’s bad that it’s vastly disproportionate.

Fredthefishlord@lemmy.blahaj.zone on 07 Oct 05:02 collapse

It is proportionate — to their size

(In all seriousness, it’s a lot easier to make suitable living quarters for most other animals. If you can’t make suitable living quarters, it’s unethical, full stop. Yes I’m including factory farm meat in that)

CanadaPlus@lemmy.sdf.org on 07 Oct 14:54 collapse

I don’t actually disagree with that, which is why “don’t euthanise them but also don’t do anything with them” isn’t being accepted by the company as an answer. I only know MarineLand from the ads, but any habitat multiple whales can at least sort of live in will be no joke.

ShaggySnacks@lemmy.myserv.one on 07 Oct 00:03 next collapse

I’m pro Nuke the Whales.

angstylittlecatboy@reddthat.com on 07 Oct 00:25 next collapse

Marineland is still trying to continue existing?

BCBoy911@lemmy.ca on 07 Oct 15:34 collapse

I dont get why the government is blocking sending the whales to China tho. If the choice is the government bankrolling Marineland, the whales being killed or the whales being sent to China isn’t selling them to China the obviously best choice? Are they worried that the big bad Chinese will steal our Whale IP?