YES: Visitors are taught marine conservation that can’t be duplicated in books.
By Marilee Menard
Watch the face of a child looking in wonder at dolphins, whales and other marine mammals in respected institutions like the Georgia Aquarium. It is a magical moment that plays out across the country, thousands of times daily. Experiencing the wonders of living dolphins, whales and other marine mammals is a proven approach to delivering conservation messages to millions of adults and children every year, inspiring them to care about protecting marine mammals in our oceans and conserving their natural habitats.
Aquariums provide visitors with a critical connection to nature that cannot be duplicated in a video, in a book or on the Internet. Connecting people to live animals, as the Georgia Aquarium has done for its nearly 14 million guests to date through its educational curriculum, respectful interactive displays and its new dolphin exhibit, is powerful and successful.
A few extremist groups are critical of zoological parks and aquariums that showcase the natural behaviors and talents of animals in shows and presentations. These groups are out of touch with the public’s love for our animals and support of our important education, conservation, and research missions.
A Harris Interactive poll commissioned by the Alliance of Marine Mammal Parks and Aquariums in 2005 found that the public is nearly unanimous in its acclaim for the educational impact of marine life parks, zoos and aquariums. In addition, 96 percent of respondents agree that our facilities provide people with valuable information about the importance of oceans, waters and the animals that live there.
We are grateful for the public’s extraordinary support for parks and aquariums and their appreciation for our education, research and conservation missions. With our guests’ ongoing support, marine parks and aquariums like the Georgia Aquarium reinvest millions of dollars to underwrite these important missions and, together, we continue our commitment to protect the animals in our seas.
The extremists question the quality of care the animals receive in parks and aquariums but they can provide no research to document their criticism. At the Georgia Aquarium, hundreds of skilled professionals are caring for the animals 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. Among the Georgia Aquarium’s staffers are numerous Ph.D.s, scientists, marine biologists and trainers with hundreds of years of combined experience. These animal care experts have dedicated their lives to these amazing animals, providing them highest-quality food, giving them the finest veterinary care and engaging them in enrichment programs that stimulate them physically and mentally.
Accredited marine parks and aquariums like the Georgia Aquarium make significant contributions to advancing research and knowledge of marine animals. Almost everything that is known about mammal species cared for in alliance facilities — health care, physiology, reproductive biology — has been learned through scientific studies in aquariums and marine life parks over the past 40 years. This knowledge, combined with that gathered from field studies like the Georgia Aquarium’s health and population studies of wild dolphins and other animals, directly benefits animals in the wild.
While critics spend significant time and resources on campaigns critical of aquariums and zoos, the Georgia Aquarium is offering exceptional educational programming and spending millions of dollars on research to learn about marine mammals in the wild. Who is making the real difference for the animals? To me, the answer is very clear.
Marilee Menard is executive director of the Alliance of Marine Mammal Parks and Aquariums, in Westminster, Colo., which includes the Georgia Aquarium.
NO: Intelligent creatures shouldn’t be caged like prisoners in tanks.
By Jennifer O’Connor
Ignoring last year’s fatal attack on a trainer at SeaWorld as a wake-up call to end marine mammal entertainment shows, the Georgia Aquarium is now forcing dolphins to perform tricks such as “dancing” fin-in-hand with trainers and posing on the edge of the tank to wave at audience members. It’s indicative of where the Georgia Aquarium’s priorities lie that it has spent $1.5 million to help stranded dolphins while spending $110 million to keep them in captivity and force them to perform in elaborate — and pricey — shows.
But dolphins don’t belong in cramped, barren tanks at the Georgia Aquarium anymore than orcas do at SeaWorld.
Last year, a neuroscientist at Emory University determined that dolphins are so intelligent that they should be given the same status as humans. Professor Lori Marino used MRI scans to map the brains of dolphin species and found that the cerebral cortex and the neocortex of bottlenose dolphins are so large that dolphins’ cognitive capacity is second only to humans. Thomas White, professor of ethics at Loyola Marymount University, agreed, saying, “The scientific research suggests that dolphins are ‘non-human persons’ who qualify for moral understanding as individuals.”
Marine scientists have found that dolphins give themselves names — distinctive whistles that they use to identify each other — and recognize individual names even when the sound is produced by an unfamiliar voice.
Just like us, dolphins have distinct personalities and can think about the future. They are cultural beings, watching and learning from one another, such as using sponges ripped from the ocean floor to aid in foraging. These self-aware animals recognize themselves and have been seen closely examining themselves in mirrors.
In the wild, dolphins swim together in family pods up to 100 miles a day. They navigate by bouncing sonar waves off objects to determine location and distance. In captivity, their ocean worlds are reduced to claustrophobic swimming pools. Most aquariums keep antacids on hand to treat the animals’ stress-related ulcers.
The vast majority of animals in aquariums and marine parks have been removed from their rightful ocean homes. The Georgia Aquarium netted more than 100,000 animals out of the sea to put on display.
Try to imagine living in the same cramped place for the rest of your life. Animals who are genetically designed to swim the vast oceans are no more able to adjust to lifelong captivity than we are. That’s why prison is considered society’s harshest punishment.
We are appalled to learn that Montezuma put albinos and hunchbacks on display for people’s amusement. Yet how is housing animals in tanks and having streams of people gawk, point and laugh at them any different? Just like us, animals of the seas want and deserve to live their lives as nature designed.
The next time you are thinking about taking your kids or grandchildren to the aquarium, please ask yourself this: Would you wish that kind of bleak existence on your loved ones? Is having a way to occupy the kids for a few hours reason enough to support the lifelong captivity of intelligent and social animals? Do you really want to teach your child that this is the right way to treat the animals they care about? Before you buy a ticket, please remember that the animals’ quality of life matters just as much to them as yours does to you.
Jennifer O’Connor is a staff writer with the PETA Foundation in Norfolk, Va.
