Whale & Dolphin Captivity Ban in Canada

Jurek7 said:
Then do you know how these animals look like: ringed seal, southern right whale dolphin and dall's porpoise without searching?
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But they have been never exhibited in aquaria, so don't exist in public knowledge. How many already knowledgeable people on Zoochat know all three?
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I must have hallucinated the ringed seals I saw back in February :p as must all the other people on Zoochat who have seen the species.
 
Just an alone individual (in a terrible enclosure) in a remote village of Western Russia and some rehabs in a difficult to reach point in Japan, is a functionally extinct in zoos species. I guess not many zoochatters have been so lucky as you was, Dave. Anyway seals aren't cetaceans and not affected by the ban...
 
Kakapo said:
Just an alone individual (in a terrible enclosure) in a remote village of Western Russia and some rehabs in a difficult to reach point in Japan, is a functionally extinct in zoos species. I guess not many zoochatters have been so lucky as you was, Dave. Anyway seals aren't cetaceans and not affected by the ban...
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Ringed seal are rather more commonplace than that..... or had you already forgotten your tantrum when Burgers sent their ones away just before you visited a few months ago? :p ;)
 
Kakapo said:
Just an alone individual (in a terrible enclosure) in a remote village of Western Russia and some rehabs in a difficult to reach point in Japan, is a functionally extinct in zoos species. I guess not many zoochatters have been so lucky as you was, Dave. Anyway seals aren't cetaceans and not affected by the ban...
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Plenty of places keep ringed seal. There's even some in the US.
 
This is terrible news for the future of zoos and aquariums in Canada, and perhaps in other nations (such as the US). Any politician who can vote to ban keeping whales and dolphins could easily be persuaded to ban keeping elephants, polar bears, rhinos, or any other animals in captivity. Any such politician (or nation) that makes such bans could easily end up banning zoos entirely! Sorry, but I just don't see how this is any business of the government.
 
A very worrying new and precedent for zoos and aquariums. And pretty hard to understand this ban have happened on a country where whale hunting is allowed and is not even part of the IWC.

Apart of that, many times I have wondered why Marineland Canada keep such a number of Beluga Whales. The last time I checked there were about 50 individuals. And they don´t seem to have any interest on sell them to other parks (or maybe they can´t, I guess if that was possible, US aquariums would have take some from there instead of try to export directly from Russia few years ago).
 
I've never been there, but it does seem it will be difficult for them to keep them from breeding, unless they strictly segregate by sex
 
Yes, but they made imports when they already had a pretty high number of animals. I just have checked, and the last one was in 2008, they imported eight whales from Russia, and already had a minimum of 18 animals. I don´t see the point to have so many unless you expect to get a benefit from them. Are expensive animals to take care of, and I don´t think it makes more people to visit the park. I don´t know, is weird for me.
 
lintworm said:
Exactly 0 cetacean species have been saved by ex situ conservation and each ex situ project until now has been quite a failure. Additionally the only cetacean with a sustainable captive population is also one of the most widespread ones in the wild.

Keeping cetaceans in captivity is expensive, a cost-benefit analysis will probably show it is a lot more beneficial to try to preserve cetaceans in their native habitat. That is necessary anyway, as captive breeding often does not solve the cause of why these animals have become so rare....
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Thank you - I couldn't have said it better myself
 
ANyhuis said:
This is terrible news for the future of zoos and aquariums in Canada, and perhaps in other nations (such as the US). Any politician who can vote to ban keeping whales and dolphins could easily be persuaded to ban keeping elephants, polar bears, rhinos, or any other animals in captivity. Any such politician (or nation) that makes such bans could easily end up banning zoos entirely! Sorry, but I just don't see how this is any business of the government.
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I couldn't have wrote it better myself. And it is exactly what is happen right now. The keeping/breeding of cetaceans is more or less banned/prohibited in most countries of the western hemisphere, so the animal rights activists (and their supporters) concentrate their efforts to ban elephants and polar bears (just check the medias, e.g. "The 10 worst elephant exhibits in the US"). Then apes and big cats will be next until zoos have lost all their flagship species and can be closed for good easily (no resistance, no problem).

This sounds probably like the "domino effect theory" of the 50s and 60s about the countries to be ruled by communists (Vietnam), but this time it is true. So zoo(chat) people which are against keeping cetaceans should be prepared that their beloved animal can be banned next...

Goura said:
Thank you - I couldn't have said it better myself
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@Goura and Lintworm: The comparison is not fair. The founder stock of bottlenosed dolphins and beluga whales are/were much bigger then the ones from other cetaceans like porpoises or river dolphins.
Also, it was/is (mostly) easier to get them.
Further on - from a conservation perspective - it is better to collect experiences with species that are not threatened then with species that are at the brink of extinction.
 
Goura said:
@Goura
Also, it was/is (mostly) easier to get them.
Further on - from a conservation perspective - it is better to collect experiences with species that are not threatened then with species that are at the brink of extinction.
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The point I would make is that the experience gained with common species should have been put into action at some point to help seriously threatened species - isn't that what ex situ conservation is all about? Except that any experience gained was utilised purely to train the animals for entertainment...and in a world where zoos are under attack, those of us who care about them need to consider a more responsible approach. I feel deeply the tragedy of species such as Lipotes vexillifer that could perhaps have had some chance if all the knowledge we had about captive Cetaceans could have been put to some use to prevent their demise.

Please understand that I accept the complexity of taking animals from the wild, especially when borders and politics play such an important part in the success of such programmes. My concern is - what have institutions done with all the experience they've been collecting over the years?
 
I think that "we" have experiences that could be put into action regarding ex-situ for threatened cetacean species. But as you mentioned at the end, the point is that authorities in mostly all cases do not allow to catch those (last remaining) specimens (for an ex-situ-programm).

I like to choose the example of the Californian Condor here. A few decades ago, some "conservation experts" thougt it would be better to led them "die out in dignity". Luckily, authorities decided to led zoos catch the last remaining Californian Condors and try to breed them (based on the knowledge these zoos had with keeping and breeding Andean Condors). And as we all know, it was a success.

And to your question: They were at least able to create a self-sustaining population for 1-2 species in captivity. Don't forget that in relation to most other mammal species, keeping cetaceans successfull in captivity is a relatively new issue (and of course because of their manner of life in an aquatic environment more difficult).
 
zoomaniac said:
I couldn't have wrote it better myself. And it is exactly what is happen right now. The keeping/breeding of cetaceans is more or less banned/prohibited in most countries of the western hemisphere, so the animal rights activists (and their supporters) concentrate their efforts to ban elephants and polar bears (just check the medias, e.g. "The 10 worst elephant exhibits in the US"). Then apes and big cats will be next until zoos have lost all their flagship species and can be closed for good easily (no resistance, no problem).

This sounds probably like the "domino effect theory" of the 50s and 60s about the countries to be ruled by communists (Vietnam), but this time it is true. So zoo(chat) people which are against keeping cetaceans should be prepared that their beloved animal can be banned next...
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Thanks, zoomaniac! This is why I've almost "preached" that we zoo-lovers should never, ever collaborate with the zoo-haters (PETA, IDA, Hancocks), as they want nothing to do with helping animals, only with closing down what we love, zoos. So when they come out with the next "10 Worst Elephant exhibits" list, ignore it! I don't even look at it. I've also never seen the movie, Blackfish, nor will I ever waste my time watching an anti-zoo propaganda movie. Ignore these idiots!
 
I was against this from the get-go because one of my immediate thoughts would be "how would this affect animals already in captivity, and those who have to be brought in from captivity as they couldn't be in the wild"?
 
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