• HikingVet@lemmy.ca
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    2 days ago

    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
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      2 days ago

      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
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        2 days ago

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

      • shalafi@lemmy.world
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        2 days ago

        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
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        2 days ago

        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?”.

        • dogslayeggs@lemmy.world
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          2 days ago

          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.

        • vateso5074@lemmy.world
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          2 days ago

          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
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            2 days ago

            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.

    • finitebanjo@piefed.world
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      2 days ago

      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.