I personally think that although it'll make children watching the local news cry, we should help animals and immediately return them to the wild. If the only way to help them means taking them into captivity, we should not help.

It depends on the animal of course, and if they're social animals or prefer solitude. There are many birds, injured beyond rehabilitation, that seem to do fine in captivity (so long as it's a good centre with lots of space -- most places don't though which is sad. The Cincinnati Zoo is an example of a good centre for rehabilitation).

When it comes to dolphins and whales, I totally agree though. They're simply too big and they evolved to travel massive distances. If they can be treated and nursed for a few weeks and immediately released, I think that's the best thing.

Why should aquatic specialists decide if they'd survive in the wild? If they are healthy enough to at least be able to find others of their kind, is it not better to die free than live long in a cage?

From an instinctive and evolutionary standpoint, definitely the latter.

I am with "letting wild animals be wild". If an animal can be patched up and let back into the wild after a couple of week, great. I hate aquariums and zoos for this reason. Its the human equivalent of https://popularresistance.org/deep-racism-the-forgotten-hist...

I would rather prefer reserves. e.g Nairobi national park, serengeti, mara. Really large spaces where animals can remain wild but conservation programs can still take place.

Vancouver aquarium in its Vancouver's ridiculously priced real estate doesn't have enough space to host big intelligent animals.

Perhaps this is the preferred outcome, from the animal's perspective.

I mean if a human had the choice between dying and being caged in a 5x5 ft closet for a substantial amount of time, ...

http://awesomeocean.com/2014/07/05/blackfish-full-blacklies/

just spend a little time reading about lolita in the miami seaquarium, who has been alone there for decades. note that orcas are some of the most social and familial animals in the world. her tankmate essentially committed suicide by repeatedly ramming his head against the tank, eventually dying from a hemorrhage.

even if one believes what is stated on that site, i don't see how getting some facts (most of them being inconsequential) wrong negates the tragedy it is that we imprison one of the smartest species on the planet, a truly massive animal, and THE apex predator in the ocean.

you can freely search and find the many stories and horrors of our capture and imprisonment of orcas without watching blackfish.

Humans are also some of the most social and familial animals in the world. Nevertheless, some humans kill, dismember or do the most terrible things to other humans, having so serious mental issues that must be keep apart from society. This pattern can be found in all intelligent animal species. Most specimens are fine but a few can born being psychopaths or develop as one later. And a clever psycho is not something that you should take lightly. Life is unfair, and sometimes (and I'm not saying that is necessarily the Lolita's case) there is a good reason to have a big and mean animal isolated from its congeners.

The behavior you are describing also has little to nothing to do with psychopathy, which is far more prevalent outside of mental institutions and prisons than most people would like to admit.

Blackfish was very far from being truthful. Is manipulative and perversely designed to elicit an emotional and irrational response.

Mixing tillikum footage with old recordings of several people swimming on a pool that were filmed on different decades and places; and mounting both in an apparently continuous attack scene that never happened is just an example. One of many

> I think that all this criticism against Tilikum is hurting him more than anything.

Come on..

what marineland and seaworld do to their animals and what vancouver aquarium does as a rescue centre and research facility does is something totally different.

The vancouver aquarium is a noble facility with a noble goal. my visit there honestly instilled a deep respect for me in more than just sea life.

I implore you to stop deriding institutions that may very well be acting in wildlife's best interest.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vancouver_Aquarium#Animals_at_...

Breeding is a natural instinct and one of the few normal (and fulfilling) activities captive mammals can still participate in.

It may not be noble to force them to breed, sure. But is it a noble to deny them the right to breed if they are naturally inclined?

To be clear, I don't pretend to know the answer, I'm just pointing out that it's a much more complicated moral issue than you are letting on.

Taking children from abusive parents, and giving them to foster parents, is rescuing those children.

Taking pets from abusive owners, and giving them to the ASPCA, is rescuing those pets.

So taking now-unable-to-survive-in-the-wild wildlife from abusive caretakers or breeders, and giving them to wildlife preservation organizations, is...?

(Note that I don't believe in paying the breeders for their whales; that just incentivizes making more captive whales. They should be confiscated by law-enforcement, and then law-enforcement should place them with a rescue organization they have a partnership with.)

Really. This is the definition of rescuing them.

Some whales have very low populations. There could be less than 30 estimated vaquitas alive in reproductive age and is an species exclusive to USA and Mejico that only has one single baby each two years. Is imperative starting breeding it on captivity as soon as possible.

You can release the grandsons of a captive animal, but not a single specimen of a wild and free extinct species. When is gone is gone and there is not more baijis to be released. Too little, too late.

Unlike SeaWorld, it's a non-profit. All proceeds are directed back into rehabilitation and education programs.

1. how much un-needed overhead their expenses consist of, beyond the minimum costs required to run the facility;

2. the dollar-amount of donations that reach the relevant causes by having this type of facility operating, vs. the dollar-amount of donations that would be given to the same causes if this facility did not exist, or if it tried to operate on slimmer margins (by e.g. only being a marine-wildlife gift shop or somesuch.)

My own suspicion is that the answer to #1 is "not much", and the answer to #2 is "a far larger amount." (Under the argument: people don't bother to donate money to wildlife preservation if they're not being actively reminded of the existence of wildlife in need of preservation. That "15% of revenue" still likely ends up as a larger absolute dollar-figure than the total amount of donations to the same causes made by all other individuals or organizations in the area.)

Even if you don't agree with my suspicions, I think those two questions are the only good ones to be debating here.

http://www.businessdictionary.com/definition/proceeds.html

Nearly every non-profit in the world has expenses to cover first.

Is that what you're accusing the Vancouver Aquarium of doing?

https://www.charitydata.ca/charity/vancouver-aquarium-marine...

It looks pretty innocent as far as these things go. They do ~$40M in revenue / expenses every year, spend $1.2M on fundraising, and their management expenses are high but not unreasonable. The biggest red flag I see is a large ($15M) loan that's costing them upwards of a million/year in interest.

Compensation seems pretty typical too, there's a more detailed compensation schedule on the Canada Revenue Agency's website but the link doesn't work externally. In short, there's 1 staff member making between $250k-$300k, there are 3 between $200k-$250k, and 6 between $120k-$200k.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/02/05/pets-shelter-euthan...

But PETA appears to spend more effort putting them down than attempting to re-home them.

Maybe we should close down the animal shelters too and let all the animals "free". I'm sure they'll do fine in the wild.

Considering that the last report confirmed that the Belugas had been poisoned by a foreign substance, I wouldn't be so confident in that statement.

One interpretation of that could be they were intentionally poisoned.

These whales had been living in that pool for years and had even given birth without issue. Seems rather strange timing to all of a sudden have a mystery 'toxin' bring two of them down, particularly with the pool testing clean after their deaths.

The Vancouver Aquarium is a non-profit organization, and has much different goals and priorities than Seaworld.

Secondly, you are repeating this line that as a non-profit they are somehow more noble and different than Seaworld, for example. If that's the case, why do they loan animals to SeaWorld and other Aquariums for breeding?

"On breeding loan to SeaWorld, Shedd Aquarium & Georgia Aquarium are the following:

Allua, a female beluga is around 24 years of age. She was moved to SeaWorld San Diego on a breeding loan in 2005. Imaq, a male beluga who is around 21 years of age. He is on breeding loan to SeaWorld San Antonio. Grayson, a male beluga who is 8 years old living at the Shedd Aquarium. He was born at SeaWorld San Antonio in 2007, but belongs to the Vancouver Aquarium as he was born to Nanuq, who was owned by the aquarium and also fathered Qila. Until early 2016, Grayson was living at the Georgia Aquarium with his half-sister Qinu. Qinu, a female beluga born in 2010 who is 7 years of age living at the Georgia Aquarium. She was also born at SeaWorld San Antonio and lived with Grayson until he was moved to the Shedd Aquarium. As with Grayson, she was born to Nanuq and belongs to the Vancouver Aquarium."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vancouver_Aquarium#Animals_at_...