The following paper originally appeared in a newsgroup -- marmam -- devoted to issues relating to whales and dolphins. It is reprinted here in its entirety. Author Paul Forestell, Ph.D. is Director of Research with the Maui-based Pacific Whale Foundation. Forestell has nearly 20 years' experience researching whales and dolphins in Hawaii, Australia and Japan.

If Forestell's paper whets your appetite you can dive into the marmam waters and catch up with this important debate.

Presumably, it is being circulated to a wide variety of sources. I thought Marmam might be a good place to post it, to find out if there is anyone out there in the Sea World organization who can speak to any incident which may have happened to the orca "Kotar". Have "50% of the adult Sea World orcas" died since 1987? Have there been two deaths in San Antonio since December? Does Sea World only have two breeding males available?

The received fax reads:

"From: The Corky Project; Kelly Keagy-Bullock 601 Lido Ct., San Diego, CA PH/FX 619-488-5783

Investigation into Orca's Death at Sea World Demanded.

The Free Corky Project calls for an immediate investigation into the sudden death of yet another Sea World orca. Kotar, an adult male held at Sea World in San Antonio, Texas, died on April 1, 1995.

Since 1987 over 50% of the adult Sea World orcas have died.

Kelly Keagy-Bullock, spokesperson for the Free Corky Project, comments, "This is a deplorable record. Both Sea World and Annheuser-Busch, owners of Sea World, must be held accountable. The public needs to know why so many animals have died. Sea World is clearly lacking in their care and handling of these magnificent animals. It is such a waste!"

Kotar's death is the second tragedy at the San Antonio park in less than 4 months. Last December 28th and orca died after just one month of life. Less than one year ago, Nootka, a young adult female, died in Orlando Florida, two weeks after delivering a baby that also did not survive.

Kotar's death leaves Sea World's orca breeding program in disarray. Sea World now has just two adult males to service the many reproductive females in their four parks. Again, Ms. Bullock states, "Surely it is obvious that orcas are not suited for the stresses of captivity. Despite what Sea World will try to claim, these orcas are not old animals when they die. Most were less than 20 years of age. Captivity kills. For years we have called for the release of Corky. We are very anxious. Before she becomes another casualty of captivity and suffers the same fate as Kotar, we want Corky out from her concrete jail and back into the real sea world."

This press release is notable for its language, which seems to be selected more in the interests of inflaming emotions than provoking rational discussion, but I believe it raises a number of timely questions.

Although Pacific Whale Foundation has publicly voiced its support for the development of programs to fully explore re-introduction of captive orca (including Corky, an orca captured off Vancouver Island in 1969, and currently on display in San Diego), we have generally been of the impression that Sea World probably has the best husbandry program in the world. It seems to me the issue is not so much how well the orca are cared for, but more a question as to the appropriateness of keeping orca in unnatural settings for their entire life-time, for the stated purpose of educating the public about the "natural" history of these "unnaturally" maintained subjects.

While one has to acknowledge the many problems attendant upon release of animals that have been maintained in captivity for long periods of time, there also seems to be a need to address the "quality of life" issue of keeping an orca in what amounts to a bucket of water, when compared with the area a free-ranging orca would cover in its life-time. Of course there are no simple answers, and this should not lead to a solely emotional polarization of those in favor of display facilities versus those opposed to display facilities.

This matter has taken on greater prominence in the wake of "Free Willy", Ken Balcomb's "Free Lolita" campaign, the proposed move of Keiko from one tank in Mexico to another tank in Oregon, the media attention that will likely emerge with the release of "Free Willy II", the recent posting that indicated Richard Donner has bashed Sea World for its captive orca programs; and the more recent posting about new legislation being proposed in California to keep marine mammals from being captured for display.

A few points for consideration:

1. "Display" and "captivity" need not be synonymous concepts - but they currently seem to be for most facilities dealing with cetaceans.

2. There are many more whales and dolphins "abused" by humans in the ocean (by our destructive fishing practices, rampant poisoning of the oceans through pollution, infringement of natural habitat and social needs through certain forms of human/cetacean interaction) than are impacted by captivity in display facilities. I don't believe that a life at Sea World is the worst thing that can happen to an orca. I just think we can do a hell of a lot better if we put our collective minds to it.

3. There is value in searching for a more creative set of alternatives than current captive display facilities in bringing humans and cetaceans together . It is not simply a matter of banning the capture of cetaceans from the wild. It seems no better a situation to compel a captive-born orca to spend its entire life bereft of much of its complex social and behavioral opportunities than it is to subject a wild-captured orca to such a fate. Why is there such a profound reluctance on Sea World's part to even consider the exploration of display capabilities that might break down the barriers between "wild" and "captivity"? I am not necessarily advocating the end of "display" opportunities, but rather wish to promote working toward the development of the next generation of interactive opportunities - ones that are based more and more on the provision of choice for both participants in any human/cetacean interaction, and that allow "display" cetaceans exposure to a far richer array of their naturally occurring patterns.

4. Ms. Bullock makes the claim that "Captivity kills". Freedom does too, eventually; I understood that "nobody gets out alive"!

There has been discussion on Marmam about differences in longevity between wild and captive populations, and we've seen there may not yet be any clear answer (unless you are one of the authors of the described papers). I would prefer that we deal with the question of whether we are acting ethically in our treatment of whales and dolphins in captivity, given what we are learning about their social, cognitive, and behavioral complexity. This isn't simply a question of whether they are fed properly and given the best health care possible. We know they've got minds, folks, by whatever criteria we can establish that humans have minds. What is the evidence that we are working to expand the nature of captivity and display to meet our expanding understanding of who these creatures are?

5. One cannot generalize across the many different species of marine mammals in considering their reactions to captivity. At the same time, it seems inappropriate to stray far from the realization that they are complex, thinking mammals (as we are), and in the absence of "solid data", our own perceptions may not provide such a bad best guess as to how they respond to the elements of captivity. I'm not advocating anthropomorphizing; I just think we need to use the best data we have when we make decisions about the treatment of other animals.

6. I hesitated posting this to Marmam , and am uncertain this is the best venue for an exploration of how to deal with "displaying" cetaceans for public education/amusement. The reason I decided to do so is that many participants in Marmam are also members of the Society for Marine Mammalogy, which may be developing a kind of schizophrenic undercurrent of attitudes about present-day captivity programs. It may be of interest for many of you to know that the formation of the Society was first conceived as a mechanism to lobby for and protect the interests of scientists working with captive marine mammals.

In December of 1977, during the Second Conference on the Biology of Marine Mammals held in San Diego, I sat in Forrest Wood's hotel room and listened as he, Ken Norris, Bill Evans, George Harry, Ron Schusterman, John Lilly, and Lou Herman discussed the formation of a professional organization for marine mammal scientists. I was Lou Herman's graduate student at the time. Earlier that year Lou's two dolphins had been stolen by disgruntled lab assistants after they had been fired by Lou. The dolphins, which had been caught many years before in the Gulf of Mexico (in separate incidents) were taken from their tanks at the lab, put in a VW van on makeshift stretchers, driven 40 miles up the Oahu shoreline, and released in waters that were totally foreign to them. There can be little doubt the dolphins did not survive the ordeal.

The thieves claimed they were protecting the interests of the dolphins, and then lied about the nature of the research we were doing and the condition of Lou's lab, in order to win sympathy from a number of environmental groups. The two men were charged with grand larceny, and there was a big trial. Eventually, both were found guilty. During the first trial, Ken Norris and Bill Evans came to Honolulu to testify in support of the work that Lou had been doing.

The purpose of the meeting in Forrest Wood's room was to discuss how to deal with the rising threat of "animal liberation" groups attacking scientists working with whales and dolphins in captivity. It was pointed out there was, at that time, no way for marine mammal scientists to represent their interests, and it was time to create a professional organization for marine mammal scientists. That organization eventually became the Society for Marine Mammalogy. The idea was made public at the '79 conference in Seattle, and became a fact at the '81 conference in San Francisco.

While the society's constitution does not quite capture the spirit of that meeting in Forrest Wood's hotel room in San Diego in December of 1977, I have never forgotten the importance that was placed on the idea of developing a group to protect marine mammal scientists from anti-captivity sentiment. I do not suggest that was the sole purpose envisioned, but it was a major one at the time.

Throughout the history of the Society for Marine Mammalogy, our biennial meetings have frequently been hosted or sponsored in one fashion or another by oceanaria, including the New England Aquarium, Vancouver Aquarium, Sea World of Florida, Miami Seaquarium, and the Shedd Aquarium. I believe the sole exceptions were the Pacific Grove meeting in 1989, and the Galveston meeting in 1993. In 1995 we will be hosted by Sea World in Orlando.

Maybe Marmam is the place where the concept of display can be developed to its next stage, with the encouragement and participation of those inside the industry, as well as those from outside.

I will end this with apologies for such a long posting, and the following quote from the recent book "The Hawaiian Spinner Dolphin" by Ken Norris, Bernd Wursig, Randy Wells, and Melanie Wursig (I don't think this quote is out of context, or misrepresents the spirit of the chapter in which it appears, and I do not intend to represent the authors' feelings about display facilities, because I don't know what those feelings are. I'm just trying to open a little window on the minds of whales and dolphins):

"Alone they are bereft of defense, and when alone they exhibit their own form of "co-operation" with those who might destroy them. In the case of the dolphin, it surrenders to us, a thing we mistake for gentleness. But it seems to be better described as the reaction of a mammal without its protective superorganism, with nothing left to react to in its own defense. Having surrendered vital aspects of its survival equation when taken from the group, it is much less than a complete animal."

Aloha,

Paul Forestell

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