Proposed ban on whale captivity in Canada has scientists split on its potential benefits

The debate over whales in captivity is heating up following the introduction of a bill to ban the creatures in marine parks—and the Vancouver Aquarium’s ensuing opposition to the proposed legislation.

Liberal Sen. Wilfred Moore recently introduced an act that would prohibit captive breeding, imports, exports and live captures of all whales, dolphins and porpoises in Canada, while allowing for the rescue of these marine mammals, which fall into an order of animals called cetaceans, if injured.

Vancouver Aquarium CEO John Nightingale says that the law would hamper the organization’s research, conservation, and public- education efforts. Within the scientific community itself, meanwhile, opinion is sharply divided.

Nightingale says the aquarium is taking a firm stance against the proposed legislation for several reasons, among them the role the creatures play in enhancing public and scientific knowledge. He said that the aquarium, a not-for-profit organization, is home for the Marine Mammal Rescue Centre, the only one in the country, which rescues injured, sick and orphaned marine mammals every year and rehabilitates them for release back into their natural habitat. He says it does not capture cetaceans from the wild and hasn’t for nearly three decades.

“The aquarium is here and was put here 59 years ago by a board who thought that people needed to know more and understand more about the oceans,” Nightingale tells Yahoo Canada. “What we really need is millions and billions more people on Earth aware of and curious about and interested in what’s going on in the world’s oceans and aquatic habitats. The role of a visit to the aquarium is to light that little fire of curiosity and interest, and our studies that we conduct on visitors here say it’s working. People may come in the front door to see the fish or the beluga whales…but they leave talking about what’s going on in Canada’s Arctic.

“The cetaceans we have here can’t live in the wild for one reason or another: they have been rescued, they don’t have the life skills or have permanent injuries or were born in an aquarium,” he adds. “Our top concern is the care the animals get and their welfare. To say it’s inhumane or unethical can’t be backed up in science and in real knowledge.”

According to Nightingale, scientific study into marine animals needs to take place both in the wild and in captivity—and that research has never been more important given the threats of climate change, pollution and noise pollution, habitat degradation and destruction, and exploitation.

“We can tell our beluga whales apart here because we care for them every day,” he says. “The tagging system that was developed for wild belugas was developed and tested here in the aquarium...Scientists here have been able to study how the learning of communication between a mother and calf works. Just like humans, it’s a progression. Before sentences they say ‘mama, dada’. The first call is called a contact call. All that research could only be done here, because you can watch it develop, and that’s being applied in the field. The question is: As the ice melts, as tanker shipping traffic increases and underwater noise in Arctic increases will it impair the ability of this communication? The research needs to be both aquarium-based and in the wild.

“In Canada, of the population of beluga whales, most are heavily laden with heavy metals…and other toxins,” he adds. “It’s a time when we need much more research, not less. If the senate bill went through, you’d obliterate research.”

Two of its cetaceans have died this year: Hana, a dolphin who suffered a gastrointestinal disease, and Nanuq, a beluga who died after a broken jaw while on loan to Orlando SeaWorld.

The aquarium phased out captivity of orca whales in 2001, and has since reviewed its programs for beluga whales and dolphins. The aquarium is currently undergoing a $100 million expansion of its Arctic area, which will be almost twice the size of its current exhibit and include larger tanks for the belugas.

“We looked at the species we held, which we do all the time, and we looked at the care we provide them,” Nightingale said. “Belugas don’t need pools that are 1,000 metres across like a killer whale does. They need a habitat that’s broken up in different kinds of areas—some shallow, some deep, some space to swim around, space to hang out with other belugas together. We do that [analysis] with all of our animals, whether it’s a sea slug or a beluga.”

Andrew Trites, director of the University of British Columbia’s Marine Mammal Research Unit and the North Pacific Universities Marine Mammal Research Consortium, studies cetaceans in the wild and in captivity. He says both approaches are vital to understanding them.

“A lot of people have the impression that everything you need to know about a marine mammal you can learn from looking at it in the wild, and it’s simply not the case,” Trites says via Skype from Europe. “For example, if you want to know how much food a marine mammal eats, you can only do this by doing controlled feeding studies and measuring their metabolic rate. One of my grad students did this with a set of white-sided dolphins, and what they discovered was that they have very high energy requirements, and high metabolism, much higher than what anybody would have predicted. Why this is important is because we have in the Strait of Georgia a resident population of dolphins living there….We’re now seeing a return of humpback whales and a return of dolphins, and as people make decisions about how much fish we can catch and take, we now have a consideration for what the needs are for the animals that are living there. And the only way to learn that sort of thing is from an animal in captivity.”

Underwater noise is another key area of research, Trites says: “in the wild, you can’t give a hearing test to a dolphin or a whale, but you can in captivity,” he says. “There are a lot of basic things you can only learn in captivity, so they do contribute to scientific knowledge….In my case, most of the research has been on seals and sea lions and it has revealed so many things that nobody ever knew before and that has contributed to the conservation of their wild counterparts.”

By contrast, B.C. scientist Alexandra Morton, who has spent decades studying the ocean and who now focuses on the containment of salmon farming, says that her years of research have convinced her that cetaceans do not belong in captivity, period.

“Whether we’re talking orcas or we’re talking dolphins, these are very large-brained animals whose greatest concern in life is to remain with their families,” Morton says by phone from her home base on the northeastern tip of Vancouver Island. “I don’t say this lightly. I say that after years and years of observation.”

Morton was 18 when she started studying captive whales in Los Angeles. “What I saw was children who were trying to throw popcorn down their blowholes and ordering them to jump and calling them stupid when they didn’t jump, and what I saw was disrespect. If those children had been placed on a small rock and a pod of orcas had passed them, they would have experienced the magnificence and awe that these animals deserve and are.”

In L.A., Morton witnessed a killer whale named Corky give birth; she observed the mother and calf for several days and watched the baby die. “The mother was deeply attached to her baby, but she didn’t know how to nurse it,” Morton says, adding that Corky went on to have other babies but had the same problem breastfeeding. Staff at the oceanarium removed the babies to try to nurse them. “I was studying their sound production and trying to figure out what sounds went with what behaviors, and I realized I was studying insane creatures who could not perform a basic life function and did not know how to take care of their offspring and it was deeply tragic.

“Even though the baby had died, the female was carrying it around,” she adds. “Every time they took her babies away, she would lie on the bottom of the tank producing this one call over and over and over again. She would grab some air and go back down to bottom of the tank. She was mourning. I know as a scientist you’re not supposed to give human emotions to these creatures, but I’m telling you, you would have to be deaf, dumb, and blind not to see that animal was in deep emotional distress, and it was heart-breaking.”

Morton suggests that the Vancouver Aquarium phase out the captivity of all whales and dolphins while continuing to fulfill its mission of fostering public engagement and understanding.

“It probably comes down to money, and the aquarium perhaps is struggling to keep its doors open so they need the big entertainment factor,” she says. “I would call on Vancouverites and British Columbians to support the oceanarium in this decision by saying, ‘If you do not have whales in captivity, we’re going to love you. We’re going to make sure we bring our friends and our guests to see what you do have there,’ and stand behind them.

“On the other hand if they’re going to have whales in captivity, children don’t deserve to see that,” Morton says. “It is a mis-education. It is a mistake to show children you can take an animal away from its family and put it in a little tank. The unfortunate thing with whales and dolphins is their face has a smile on it, so we, as humans, look at it and think they’re smiling. Well, they’re not. They’re suffering and they’re dying and they really wish they were with their families.”