[Closed] 'Blackfish' Backlash: Fan Pressure Leads Willie Nelson to Cancel SeaWorld Concert

Ringling is Making a Change. These 3 Other Companies Should, Too.
Lindsay Patton
Mar 16, 2015

When Ringling Bros. & Barnum & Bailey circus announced it would be phasing out elephants as part of circus entertainment, it was a huge win for these animals and animal activists. The nearly 100-plus-year-old circus company announced on March 5 that it would retire all of its elephants and send them to a sanctuary in Florida by 2018. Currently, the company has 13 touring elephants that spend 11 months out of the year on the road.

The news is monumental, as the company — as well as other companies that use animals as entertainment — has come under fire over the years for cruel training practices. Elephants not only have to spend their entire lives touring, but are also subjected to painful bull hooks and unnatural “tricks” that are all part of their training.

While Ringling Bros. retiring its elephants is a big win, there are still many companies out there that continue to use animals in cruel ways. We can only hope that this news will set an example for the following businesses.

Sea World

The past few years have seen nothing but bad press for Sea World, which has been in business since 1959. There had been a number of issues related to Sea World for years, but what set everything in motion was the death of trainer Dawn Brancheau in 2010 by Sea World Orlando orca, Tilikum. Three years after Brancheau’s death, the documentary Blackfish was released, where it was uncovered that there was much more going on within the Sea World organization. Brancheau wasn’t the first person Tilikum killed, either. The now-33-year-old orca previously killed two other people, in 1991 and 1999.

With all the bad press and blood on its hands, you would think Sea World would change its format and retire its animal performers. Instead, Sea World is in the process of building larger orca tanks. A Band-Aid for a bullet wound.

Take action: Tell Sea World: Free Tilikum from Captivity

Michael Kors

The designer has had quite the resurgence in the past few years. In 1993, Kors filed for bankruptcy, then waded back into the fashion industry in the early aughts. He worked his way up, using a stint on “Project Runway” to solidify his place in the industry. Now, it’s hard to leave your house without seeing a purse, coat, sunglasses and more emblazoned with his name. This success comes with a downside, however, with Kors using animal fur in many of his designs. He’s proven his success with his personal fortune reaching up to $1 billion, so we don’t think he’ll lose any followers if he ditches the fur.

Animal Racing

The Kentucky Derby draws in millions of viewers and is known for attendees’ elaborate hats. Racing horses for sport, however, isn’t as exciting for the animals. Like circus elephants, horses are put through cruel training procedures and pumped with performance-enhancing drugs. If the horses aren’t profitable for their owners, they are slaughtered.

The same thing happens in the dog racing industry, where not only the dogs are treated in cruel ways, but live bait is used in torturous training methods. In addition to killing these small animals, the dogs are kenneled nearly their entire racing careers. The only time they are let out is to race and train. Many times, they have to fight each other just to eat. Like horses, when the dogs are either no longer profitable or not profitable at all, they are oftentimes slaughtered.

The Other Ringling Animals

Sadly, elephants aren’t the only animals that are a part of Ringling Bros. circus act. The company uses tigers, lions, horses, zebras and llamas as part of the show. These animals are just as deserving as the elephants to retire and live a life without performing.

http://www.care2.com/greenliving/ringling-is-making-a-change-these-3-other-companies-should-too.html?onswipe_redirect=no&oswrr=4#comments

Free Tilikum From Sea World Captivity

5,918 SIGNATURES

BY:Joanna Rogers

TARGET: Sea World, LLC,United States Department of Agriculture-USDA, Animal and...
Update #3 September 20, 2014

I have added the link for the precedence of Pods hunting/ killing/ & sharing food for a 'handicapped' Orca [like Tilikum, with no teeth- Thanks to Sea World].

Update #2 July 24, 2014
I have updated my "Free Tilikum Into a Sea Pen" petition to exclude BlackStone L.P. As of the end of May 2014, they sold their majority shares in SEAS (Sea World, LLC). They are now investing (heavily in MERLIN-an anti-captivity Aquarium).

Update #1 April 28, 2014

*"Blackstone LP announced their intent to sell down from their [current] 22% position in SW. They now own more than a 3rd of attractions competitor Merlin Stock. Merlin owns SEALIFE Aquariums. SEALIFE Aquariums are ANTI-Captivity as well as being STRONGLY against Drive-Hunt Fisheries, esp. the Taiji Dolphin Drive.*"

Best Regards, Joanna L. Rogers (Author or Petition) *quoted from https://www.seaworldpledge.org/blog/blackstone-bails-on-seaworld-invests-in-competitor-merlin/

About This Petition
Killer whales are highly social; some populations are composed of matrilineal family groups which are the most stable of any animal species. Their sophisticated hunting techniques and vocal behaviors, which are often specific to a particular group and passed across generations, have been described as manifestations of culture.

In 1983, at two years old, Tilikum, was chased by boatmen (hired by Seaworld) near Iceland where he was kept in a cement holding tank for close to a year at Hafnarfjörður Marine Zoo, near Reykjavík, Iceland, as he awaited transfer to a marine park. Held captive against his will, all he could do was swim in small circles and float aimlessly at the surface of the water, seperated from his mother. Eventually, Tilly was transferred to the rundown Sealand of the Pacific in British Columbia, Canada, and forced to call his barren 100-foot-by-50-foot pool—just 35 feet deep—his sad new "home."

Food was withheld from him as a training technique, and he regularly endured painful attacks by two dominant female orcas, Haida and Nootka. He was forced to perform every hour on the hour, eight times a day, seven days a week. The constant stress and exhaustion gave him stomach ulcers.

When the park closed its doors at the end of each day, the three incompatible orcas were crammed into a tiny round metal-sided module for more than 14 hours until the park reopened the next morning.

Finally, Tilikum was brought to Sea World in Orlando, FL. Since his time in captivity, he has been involved in the deaths of three trainers. As a result, he is only brought out of his [prison of an enclosure] pen for the finale of the Sea World Show, to present the "Bow" to the audience.

Sea World keeps Tilikum in complete seclusion for pretty much two thirds of his life with virtually no stimulation. The one and only reason they will not release him back into the wild where he belongs, is money. They use his sperm to impregnate other female Orcas. He has sired 21 calves, with 11 still alive.

These amazing mammals are more intelligent than we humans can/ or will possibly be able to understand. Yet, we are forcing them to live out their [drastically shortend lifespan] in captivity for the purposes of 'entertainment'. That would be like somebody forcing me to spend my life in a small pool. In that respect, YES, I would get extremely frustrated and eventually go insane. The outcome is the same for these beautiful mammals like Tilikum.

Unfortunatly for Tilikum (thanks to Sea World's captivity for so many years) he doesn't have his front and side teeth left. One of the (things you do when) putting orcas in a facility is that you have to separate them with gates, and what they tend to do is threat-displays at each other to establish dominance. It's a matriarchal society. Tilikum (a male) is a sub-dominant animal in that society. He has a little bit less room to maneuver because of his massive size. He might be the largest animal in captivity. ... So, consequently, his teeth have broken off. And that's why you'll see the trainers every morning and evening using a water pick to flush out the impacted fish that gathers in the remnants of the teeth ... so it doesn't lead to something like an infection." (*2 quote from Jeffrey Ventre)

SeaWorld is said to have Tilikum insured for as much as $5 million, and Ventre said, "He's worth millions, and he represents the future of the breeding program for SeaWorld. He has impregnated - he's produced 13 calves, I believe. I think ten are still alive. I haven't been in the game for a long time. That's a guess, but those are the numbers that I think are accurate." (*3 quote from Ventre for CBS in 2010)

I urge you to please sign this petition and reshare it with your social outlets via Face Book, Twitter, Google+, etc. We need to raise public awareness that these Orcas should not be exploited for entertainment and profit, but instead should be released back into the wild (i.e. a sea pen for rehabilitation)- WHERE THEY BELONG.

http://www.thepetitionsite.com/223/608/067/free-tilikum-from-sea-world-captivity/?TAP=1319&cid=hl_petition_postinfo

Sincerely,

Joanna Lynn Rogers

Links and References: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tilikum_(orca)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blackfish

http://www.seaworldofhurt.com/tilikum-captivity.aspx

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blackstone_Group

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killer_whale

7 Disturbing Dolphin Facts SeaWorld Doesn’t Want You to Know

February 9, 2015

Dolphins in captivity are deprived of everything that is natural and important to them.

Here are seven reasons why dolphins don’t belong at SeaWorld:

1. Dolphins Are the ‘Einsteins’ of the Animal World

Dolphins are keenly intelligent and can solve complex problems. They have distinct personalities and a strong sense of self and can think about the future. SeaWorld uses this intelligence to train dolphins to perform cheap “tricks”.

2. Dolphins Need Their Freedom

SeaWorld, San Diego (300443) | Robert Linsdell | CC by 2.0
In nature, dolphins swim vast distances every day with their extended families, exploring new places and seeking out adventures and pursuits. Dolphins at SeaWorld are confined to tiny tanks and see the same concrete walls every day of their lives. Dolphins navigate by echolocation, but in pools, the reverberations from their own sonar bounce off the walls.

3. Captivity Kills

Sixty-two bottlenose dolphins have died at SeaWorld parks in just 10 years—and 16 of those were stillborn babies. SeaWorld never figured out what killed three dolphins at its now-defunct Ohio park over the course of 11 days in March 2000. SeaWorld’s senior veterinarian said,

“We know the animals died from an inability to hold down or take in enough nutrition to survive. We still don’t know what actually caused the illness. We wish we understood.”

4. Cheap Tricks Cause Injuries

In 2008, Sharky, a captive dolphin at SeaWorld’s Discovery Cove, was fatally injured while performing an aerial trick. He collided in mid-air with another dolphin and subsequently died. And in 2012 at SeaWorld’s San Antonio facility, two dolphins performing a jumping trick crashed, ejecting one from the tank onto the concrete walkway below. The dolphin was bleeding and helpless as guests looked on.

5. Touch Tanks Are Trouble

Interactive programs that allow the public to pet, kiss, or even “ride” dolphins invade the animals’ already diminished worlds and are dangerous for the animals and human participants. Dolphins in “petting pools” can become neurotic and anxious as a result of constant poking and prodding and can become sick from exposure to bacteria. The U.S. Department of Agriculture has cited SeaWorld for several instances in which members of the public, including children, were bitten and injured at the facility’s dolphin-petting pools.

6. Families Are Left in Tatters

Seaworld Dolphin Encounter #16 | Michael Gray | CC by SA 2.0
Dolphins communicate with each other through distinct whistles and body language. They live in pods and have their own family histories. The constraints of captivity deny dolphins their natural dynamics.

7. Captive Dolphins Are Stressed and Distressed

Captive dolphins demonstrate a variety of stress-driven behavior, including self-inflicted injuries, aggressiveness, and neurotic behavior. Dolphins are often dosed with antacids to treat stress-induced ulcers.

You can help the dolphins imprisoned at SeaWorld by never visiting the theme parks and by sharing with your friends and family information on why they shouldn’t visit them, either.

You can also urge SeaWorld to implement a firm and rapid plan to release all the captive marine animals to sanctuaries today.

Read more: http://www.seaworldofhurt.com/features/7-disturbing-dolphin-facts-seaworld/#ixzz3UepJSusB

The Cove: Sign the Petition to Help Save Japan's Dolphins

92% COMPLETE

Join 923,344 supporters. 1,000,000 needed!

The goal of Ric O’Barry’s Dolphin Project is to put an end to dolphin exploitation and slaughter once and for all. Dolphins are regularly captured, harassed, slaughtered and sold into captivity around the world – all in the name of profit. The Dolphin Project works not only to halt these slaughters in countries around the world, but also to rehabilitate captive dolphins, investigate and advocate for economic alternatives to dolphin slaughter exploitation, and to put a permanent end to dolphin captivity.

about the petition
In The Cove, a team of activists and filmmakers infiltrate a heavily-guarded cove in Taiji, Japan. In this remote village they witness and document activities deliberately being hidden from the public: More than 20,000 dolphins and porpoises are being slaughtered each year and their meat, containing toxic levels of mercury, is being sold as food in Japan, often times labeled as whale meat.

The majority of the world is not aware this is happening. The Taiji cove is blocked off from the public. Cameras are not allowed inside and the media does not cover the story. It's critical that we get the word out in Japan. Once the Japanese people know we believe they will demand change.

Stand with Ric O'Barry's Dolphin Project and send a letter to President Obama, Vice President Biden and Kenichiro Sasae, Ambassador of Japan to the United States urging them to address this issue.

To: President Obama, Vice President Biden and Kenichiro Sasae, Ambassador of Japan to the United States

I recently heard about the documentary film The Cove and was alarmed to find out that more than 20,000 dolphins and porpoises are brutally killed each year off the coast of Japan. In addition, Japanese consumers are being sold dolphin meat, containing dangerously high levels of mercury, often labeled as whale meat.

I ask that you urge the Japanese government to revoke permits that allow Japan's Fisheries Agency to continue this heinous, dangerous and illegal practice.

I also urge American leadership to ensure that the International Whaling Commission includes the proper management of dolphins and porpoises and a comprehensive plan to stop the slaughter of dolphins in Japan.

Your immediate action is needed.

Sincerely,
[Your Name Here]

Link to petition: https://takeaction.takepart.com/actions/cove-help-save-japans-dolphins?cmpid=action-eml-2015-03-17-cove

Demand May Be Sinking for Dolphins Hunted at The Cove

The numbers of dolphins captured or slaughtered in Taiji's annual drive drops to record low

March 17, 2015 By David Kirby

The dolphin hunt in Taiji, Japan is over for the season. Of bottlenose dolphins, the most coveted species among aquariums, 108 were driven into the cove compared with 551 last season, a staggering 80 percent drop.

28 bottlenose dolphins were killed, compared with 144 last season, while 41 were taken alive for sale to aquariums, and 39 were released.

Hunters slaughtered 751 dolphins of all species in the cove this season, a 10 percent drop from the 834 killed last season, according to a statement from Earth Island Institute based on data collected by Cetabase and Sea Shepherd’s Cove Guardians.

The total number of dolphins caught live, meanwhile, was cut in half with 80 dolphins taken, compared with 158 in 2013-2014. The number of dolphins released into the ocean nearly doubled, from 251 to 457.

Some opponents to the hunt, which was made famous by the Oscar-winning film The Cove, are not necessarily celebrating this year’s drop in numbers, because it may be an indicator that the species is in trouble. “Less dolphins are being found, and that is not necessarily a good thing,” said Melissa Sehgal, a campaign coordinator for Sea Shepherd’s Cove Guardians. “The species is being depleted.”

But there is also evidence to suggest that more dolphins are evading capture. Some dolphins may be avoiding the area, Sehgal said, while those dolphins that do travel off Taiji are struggling harder to avoid capture.

Why? Dolphins never forget.

“These dolphins probably were driven in previously and then released,” Sehgal said. “Dolphins are very intelligent with great memories. They know what is happening to them and we’re seeing them fight and fight for hours so that the fishermen lose the majority of the pod.”

There were 30 days during the six-month hunting season when the fleet caught no dolphins at all and returned to the cove empty-handed, Sehgal added.

Activists say the drop in both slaughtered and captured dolphins reflects a shrinking global market for dolphin meat and for live animals.

“This suggests [that] sales of dolphin meat are poor due to our campaign to educate the local public about the dangers of mercury in dolphin meat,” Earth Island Institute said in its statement. In 2004, the year the organization began its "Save Japan Dolphins" campaign, 1,600 dolphins were killed.

Sehgal also believes that “more global awareness” of the hunt and its consequences has blunted demand for the live dolphins.

Around 98 unsold dolphins are currently being held captive at all three Taiji facilities and harbor holding pens, she said, possibly suggesting a glut on the world market for live-captured dolphins.

“The fact they only caught half as many animals for the live trade this season versus last season suggests they are having fewer buyers,” Mark Palmer, associate director of Earth Island’s International Marine Mammal Project, said in an email.

But the captures and killings will continue until demand for live and dead dolphins is eradicated, he said. Earth Island Institute is planning new efforts to dry up the market, he said. “We have to keep the pressure on.”

even if you've already seen this... enjoy!

Published on Feb 13, 2014

How Whales Change Climate:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=M18HxXve3CM

Japan Finally Comes Clean—They Don’t Kill Whales for ‘Science’

Since 1986, Japan has masqueraded its whaling efforts as a scientific endeavor—but no more.

March 01, 2013 By David Kirby

The Japanese whaling fleet prowling the Southern Ocean Whale Sanctuary is heading north, out of the protected zone, following its least successful hunting season ever, the anti-whaling group Sea Shepherd Australia has announced.

At the same time, the National Times of Australia claims that Japan’s Fisheries Minister, “has come clean about what the barbaric annual whale chase in the Antarctic is all about,” adding, “It has nothing to do with science.”

The news comes on the heels of a U.S. Federal Appeals Court ruling this week declaring Sea Shepherd a “pirate” outfit and upholding a ban against the group harassing whaling vessels.

According to Sea Shepherd Australia, the Japanese ships Nisshin Maru, Yushin Maru, Yushin Maru No. 2 and, Shonan Maru No. 2, have crossed the 60-degree latitude line, placing them out of the Southern Ocean Whale Sanctuary. They are accompanied by the Sea Shepherd ships Steve Irwin and Bob Barker, the statement said. The Japanese fleet first arrived in the sanctuary on January 28.

“Is whaling over for the season? We are not positive but we are 80 percent sure that it may be over,” said the statement, signed by Paul Watson, the captain who recently resigned from Sea Shepherd to comply with the U.S. Appeals Court. The ships are still heading north, he said. It would take days to refuel and return to the sanctuary.

“This would leave about a week to kill whales and with the weather quickly deteriorating it would hardly be worth the effort,” Watson wrote. “All three Sea Shepherd ships will continue to follow the whaling fleet north to ensure that they do not return to kill whales.”

It would appear that this year’s hunt was a dismal, expensive failure for the whalers, according to Watson.

“Sea Shepherd can only confirm the death of two Minke whales,” he said. “Some whales could have been taken on the run westward; the Nisshin Maru and the Yushin Maru No. 2 had two days to whale unobstructed.” But the Yushin Maru and Yushin Maru No. 3 failed to kill any whales, Watson said.

“My conservative estimate of the number of whales killed this year is no more than 75. It could be much lower but certainly not higher. Last year I predicted the whalers would take 30 percent of their kill quota. The actual kill was 26 percent,” he claimed. This year’s anti-whaling campaign “will see the lowest take by the Japanese whaling fleet in the entire history of their Antarctic whale hunts.”

As the ships headed north, presumably back to Japan, an editorial in Australia’s National Times made the somewhat questionable claim that the Japanese have abandoned their argument that the whale hunt is needed for “scientific research,” admitting instead it is done purely for cultural and food-supply reasons.

The 1946 International Convention for the Regulation of Whaling allows governments to issue permits for citizens to “kill, take and treat whales for purposes of scientific research.” The Japanese have repeatedly insisted that science was the purpose of their hunt—much to the outrage and indignation of marine mammal activists.

But now, according to the National Times, Japan has “come clean” about the program. “It’s about killing whales for the sake of maintaining a cultural tradition, and harvesting the meat for consumption,” the editorial charged. “Nothing more.”

Japan’s Fisheries Minister, Yoshimasa Hayashi, told Agence France-Presse this week that the world is engaging in “a cultural attack, a kind of prejudice against Japanese culture,” the National Times reported, “and he sees no reason to end southern whaling soon.”

Hayashi noted that some Koreans eat dogs and some Australians eat kangaroos. “We don’t eat those animals, but we don’t stop them from doing that because we understand that’s their culture,” he told the French news agency. “Whaling has long been part of traditional Japanese culture, so I just would like to say ‘please understand this is our culture.’ ”

“With these words, Mr. Hayashi has abandoned once and for all the pretense that (the Japanese) are engaged in some kind of highly valued research project,” the editorial said. “Mr Hayashi needs to be called out on this. Clearly he would prefer to indulge in cultural relativities when it suits Japanese interests, rather than follow international conventions.”

But the Japanese have played the “understand our culture” card before, many observers note, without retreating from its claim of scientific research. Without that claim, its whaling permit would be invalid. Some activists thought the Australian editorial overreached its conclusions, even as they welcomed the searing criticism.

But the searing criticism was not just aimed at Japan.

“The motivation of those aboard the Sea Shepherd (sic), which intercepts the Japanese vessels to try to stop the killing of whales, might be admirable but their methods are not,” the editorial said. “The deliberate buffeting of ships on the high seas—by both sides—is extraordinarily dangerous and unlawful. We agree with a U.S. appeals court that on Monday equated the Sea Shepherd’s tactics to piracy.”

Sea Shepherd rejects all allegations of piracy.

“The campaign saw two confrontations to prevent the killing of whales and three confrontations to prevent the illegal fueling of the Nisshin Maru, Watson asserted. “During the campaign the Sea Shepherd crews did not throw any projectiles or deploy any propeller-fouling devices. The Japanese whalers threw concussion grenades and hit the Sea Shepherd crewmembers with water cannons. All three Sea Shepherd ships were damaged after being struck multiple times by the 8,000 ton Nisshin Maru.”

The Japanese paint a different story.

“Japanese whalers are angrily renewing demands for action to restrain Sea Shepherd activists after what was claimed to be sabotage of refuelling operations off the Australian Antarctic Territory,” the National Times reported in a separate article. “Following five hours of intense conflict, the factory ship Nisshin Maru abandoned its latest attempt to refuel from the tanker Sun Laurel on Monday night.”

During clashes the Bob Barker and Sam Simon suffered superstructure damage in collisions with two Japanese ships. “Sea Shepherd is sabotaging [the] refueling operation,” said Japan’s Institute of Cetacean Research, sponsor of the hunt, “which is essential for safe navigation of ships.” It called on countries where Sea Shepherd operates to, “restrain them and deal with their criminal actions in a strict and objective manner.”

It’s unlikely that the Japanese ships will not return next year, although the financial backers of this 19th-century-style venture must be having second thoughts: financially, politically and perhaps even ethically.

But one thing is certain, as autumn descends on the Southern Pacific Ocean, thousands of whales will live peacefully for the rest of the year, without the threat of an explosive harpoon plowing into their sleek, powerful bodies.

You don’t have to like Sea Shepherd to agree that is truly a welcomed development.

People are coming up with new ways to use drones practically every day.

March 20, 2015 By Mike Kessler

Dolphin Stampede Captured by Flying Drone

This original TakePart mini-doc shows the aquatic mammals in a way you have never seen.

Captain Dave Anderson has been running whale-watching tours out of Dana Point, California, for twenty years. Recently Captain Dave has been photographing whales and dolphins with a new technology: a remote-controlled, unmanned aerial vehicle. a.k.a. a drone. This new “toy" has allowed him to capture some incredible footage and even perform ariel rescue techniques in support of dolphins and whales.

See more of Captain Dave's videos here for some amazing footage.

https://m.youtube.com/#/user/CPDAWS

Last fall, he noticed something unusual about a pair of humpback whales: A mother and her calf were swimming side by side on their annual migration to mainland Mexico, and Anderson could see, for the first time, that the older whale was essentially steering and protecting her baby with an extended left pectoral flipper.

“I’ve seen them swim as pairs together many times,” Anderson explained to me on a sunny afternoon in January, aboard his 62-foot, 49-passenger catamaran, the Lily. “From this new angle, though, I could see that the mother’s right flipper was tucked in and out of use. It was like the extended left flipper’s only job was to hold the baby’s hand.” This was new information, and it would have been impossible to ascertain from the deck of his boat. “But with this technology I’m now able to see these animals in an entirely new way—without bothering them or getting too close.”

The technology that Anderson—he goes by Captain Dave—raved about was a drone. He owns a battery-operated, remote-controlled aerial vehicle called the DJI Phantom 2, which weighs just over two pounds and costs about $1,000. It’s among the most popular of the “hobbyist” drones being used today, and for good reason. The Phantom 2 comes with a built-in, high-resolution HD camera that swivels, tilts, and soaks up vibration, gathering rich, crisp imagery as the drone rotates and turns and zips across the lowest points of the sky.

Captain Dave’s drone footage of whales, and of the hitherto little-known phenomenon of the dolphin stampede, has entertained millions of eyeballs online. Gathered from a few dozen feet above the Pacific, it gives a new perspective on the movements and habits of some of the ocean’s most majestic creatures—humpbacks, gray whales, blue whales, sperm whales, orcas, bottle-nosed dolphins, and common dolphins, many of which have a greater presence in Southern California’s coastal waters than in any other place on Earth.

What’s even more exciting about drone technology than the voyeurism, Captain Dave said as he steered the Lily in search of showboating marine mammals, is its ability to assist in saving these animals’ lives. Each year, by most counts, as many as 300,000 cetaceans are killed after being caught in industrial fishing nets, which can stretch as wide as a mile and a half. Some watchdog groups say the worldwide kill rate for dolphins is as high as 1,000 per day. The mammals’ fins get tangled in the nets—not just those in use but abandoned, discarded, or sunken nets too—hindering their ability to swim and breach the surface to exhale and gather fresh oxygen. As a seaman who helps disentangle the victims of ghost fishing, as it’s known, Captain Dave, like his counterparts in other oceans, believes that drones can play a vital role in the safe rescue of these species.

“When an animal is entangled, you usually have only one chance to approach it,” he said. “On the second approach, they often get spooked and are prone to get stressed and swim away, which makes them harder to help.” With a drone, Captain Dave can take a stealthy first look and assess what needs to be done. That way, when he moves his team in with the boat, the whale will stay calm as they fasten ropes to the fishing nets and slowly drag the gear off the creature’s massive body, which can weigh 50 tons.

Captain Dave took me to the bridge of the Lily, where he slipped a fresh battery into his Phantom 2 as a gray whale breached about 100 yards away. He fired up the drone: Using a dual-joystick control pad, he brought it to an eye-level hover. Its four blades created a downwash of air that could be felt even on the open ocean, and the little craft buzzed like a swarm of angry cartoon bees. As Anderson sent the vehicle high above the water, the Lily’s passengers crowded onto the bow, shifting their gaze from the floating, 50-foot-long mammalian wonder that had appeared before them to the frenetic mechanical one above. “It’s changed the way I look at whales,” said Captain Dave. “I only wish its uses weren’t so restricted.”

What Captain Dave really meant is that he wishes he could fly his drone for commercial or official scientific research purposes, rather than for his own amusement or the 10 million hits on YouTube. That would enable him to gather footage to sell to media organizations, as a means of financing his rescue operations. It would also allow him to use his drone to observe sea life on behalf of nonprofit research groups or the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, for which he already provides other research services. But right now, Captain Dave—and countless wildlife conservationists, field biologists, and the like—can’t legally do either of those things.

Federal Aviation Administration standards state that apart from a few dozen researchers and for-profit companies with hard-won permits, the only people who can fly drones are hobbyists such as kids or model airplane geeks, for whom the “voluntary operating standards” were written in the first place. Recreational users, says the agency, “are strongly encouraged to follow safety guidelines,” which include flying only in the daytime, keeping their drones below 400 feet and within eyesight, and steering clear of crowds, stadiums, and airports.
Drones weighing more than 55 pounds are also a no-no.

Former SeaWorld Trainer Reveals Mistreatment of Killer Whales

John Hargrove’s new tell-all book characterizes the company as cultish and determined to put a happy face on orcas' suffering.

March 23, 2015 By David Kirby

SeaWorld’s reputation is about to sustain another blow with the publication on Tuesday of a scathing new book that alleges that the company is little more than a cultish, soulless, money-hungry corporation.

The author of Beneath the Surface, John Hargrove, writes from a position of authority: He was an orca trainer for 14 years at SeaWorld parks in California and Texas, and at Marineland in Antibes, France.

Hargrove—along with coauthor Howard Chua-Eoan—recounts in vivid detail the physical and emotional torment endured not only by captive killer whales but also some of the trainers who cared for the animals.

The narrative follows Hargrove through his career from starry-eyed young apprentice, to top-level orca trainer, to disillusioned critic who quit the company and became a prominent figure in the anti-SeaWorld documentary Blackfish.

Hargrove’s accounts are depressing: orca calves ripped from their mothers’ sides, food deprivation to ensure desired behaviors, broken teeth drilled hollow and hosed with water, whales that fight each other—sometimes to the death.

As a trainer, Hargrove, whose eyes were routinely burned by chlorinated water, was injured a number of times, leading to a painkiller addiction that was difficult to kick and permanent damage to his knees, neck, and back.

“SeaWorld has no soul,” Hargrove said in an interview. “They don’t give a damn about those animals; they’re a commodity worth lots of money, and they have to protect their investment.”

So why did he stay so long?

“I was a 100 percent loyalist,” he said. “I would’ve done anything for that company. For many years, I took what they said as gospel, and I stayed because I loved those whales and wanted a better life for them.”

“I truly feel like I was in a cult,” Hargrove added. “Everything that was said to us, and the fear combined with the guilt of leaving, keeps you longer than you would normally stay. And then the vicious attacks you come under when you do speak out, it’s all similar to a cult.”

SeaWorld did not respond to a request for comment.

Hargrove says he was indoctrinated into a corporate culture determined to present a happy face. Trainers were instructed to call the tanks “pools” and captivity “human care.” They told park visitors that 23 percent of wild orcas have collapsed dorsal fins, though the actual figure is about 1 percent, compared with 100 percent of captive adult males.

Hargrove was especially shaken by the deaths of two orca trainers: Alexis Martinez, who was killed by an orca in the Canary Islands in December 2009, and his friend Dawn Brancheau, who was killed two months later in Orlando.

Gradually, Hargrove realized he had to go.

“There came a time when I knew all was not right, and I started thinking: I can change the worst parts of these things,” he said. “But then I came to terms that, no matter at what level you are, how vocal you are, or how much pull you have, you can’t change it.”

Hargrove quit in August 2012.

SeaWorld threatened to sue him and to seek an injunction against his publisher, Palgrave MacMillan, but backed off, Hargrove said. Trainers send him hate mail, and one threatened him with a fistfight at the California Capitol building last April, when Hargrove testified in favor of a bill to ban orca captivity in that state.

But some trainers quietly support Hargrove.

“SeaWorld would love to control everyone’s mind, which again is very cultish, but several trainers secretly cheer me on,” he said. “They have to keep it secret. People are afraid to whisper my name because of the retribution.” Many trainers read his book, he added, and went to see Blackfish “in disguise.”

Hargrove, meanwhile, has a message for young people contemplating an orca-trainer cares.

“I understand why they want to do that—that was me,” he said. “But I would just say, ‘Please, look at the resources out there, at Death at SeaWorld, Blackfish, and my book, and understand the price these animals pay for being in captivity. If you really love them, you’re not going to want them to suffer.’ ”

This summer, Hargrove plans to visit Washington state to see wild orcas for the first time. Friends say it will thrill him, but the ex-trainer is not sure.

“I think I’m going to be heartbroken that I lived with these whales I loved and this was taken from them for greed and exploitation,” he said. “I think I’m going to be pretty torn up about that.”

How the World’s Top Zoo Association is Killing Dolphins

Alicia Graef
Mar 26, 201511:31

See link for video:

http://www.care2.com/causes/how-the-worlds-top-zoo-association-is-killing-dolphins.html?onswipe_redirect=no&oswrr=4#comments

This week animal advocates are challenging the World Association for Zoos and Aquariums (WAZA) in court over its ties with the brutal dolphin drives that are held annually in Taiji, Japan.

The drives, which garnered international attention following the release of the award-winning documentary The Cove, take place every year from September through March. While thousands of dolphins have been killed for their meat, hundreds more are taken for captivity. Many have continued to argue that if not for the money brought in by sales for display, the drives would have ended by now.

Conservation organizations have called on WAZA for years to take a stand against member facilities that support live capture – namely the Japanese Association of Zoos and Aquariums (JAZA), whose members continue to take dolphins – but pleas have fallen on deaf ears.

WAZA says it condemns the drives and it’s not involved in any way, but has yet to take any meaningful action to stop them. Last year it even admitted that “JAZA members still play a role in the live takes,” which was followed by a bizarre move that attempts to separate the slaughter from captures, as if that can somehow justify them.

The agreement reached allows for herding an unlimited number of dolphins using the same cruel and traumatic methods used during the drive hunts and giving JAZA first pick to take however many dolphins they want during the month of September. Other companies could then come in and pick from who was left, while the rest would be released.

After unsuccessfully attempting to negotiate with WAZA, this week Australia for Dolphins (AFD) filed a lawsuit in a Swiss court alleging WAZA is violating its Code of Ethics by allowing member zoos and aquariums to purchase dolphins taken during these drives. The organization hopes to get WAZA to uphold its official stance against the drives, or kick JAZA out.

According to AFD, JAZA facilities are home to more than 600 dolphins, while more half of JAZA’s 65 members acquire dolphins from the Taiji drive hunts.

“For Waza to present itself as an animal welfare and conservation organisation and on the other hand support a member involved in one of the cruelest practices in the world, to the extent of helping them get preferential purchasing positions, is deceptive and harmful to the efforts to put the hunts to an end,” Sarah Lucas, head of AFD, told the Guardian.

Her sentiments were backed up by Courtney Vail, the programs and campaigns manager at Whale and Dolphin Conservation, who also told the Guardan, “Waza’s approach is not only encouraging additional hunts, it’s actually endorsing this method as a legitimate way to capture dolphins. Waza is complicit in this.”

Unfortunately, even though WAZA is supposed to make people believe that it exists to support conservation and education, and to uphold and enforce high standards of care among its member facilities, the association is also separately being called out for overlooking other serious abuses that occur at these facilities around the world– none of which have been either condemned or removed for egregious treatment of animals in their care.

Hopefully AFD’s campaign and legal efforts will bring major attention to the trouble with WAZA and force it to uphold its own ethical stance, which could potentially bring an economic blow big enough to end dolphin drives for good.

For more info on efforts to get WAZA to take a stand against dolphin drives, visit Australia for Dolphins.
https://www.afd.org.au/

Also see this link:
http://blog.afd.org.au/uncategorized/australia-for-dolphins-launches-legal-action-against-the-worlds-peak-body-for-zoos-and-aquariums/

See beautiful wild dolphin pictures:

http://www.afd.org.au/images-and-videos/dazzling-dolphins/the-most-beautiful-dolphin-photographs

One Difference Between SeaWorld And Ringling Bros.
Please see this link:

http://www.peta.org/features/one-difference-between-seaworld-and-ringling-bros/?utm_campaign=032715%20PETA%20E-News&utm_source=PETA%20E-Mail&utm_medium=E-News

Watch: John Hargrove Takes Down SeaWorld on The Daily Show,
SeaWorld’s #AskSeaWorld Campaign Backfires Spectatularly

Written by PETA | March 27, 2015

John Hargrove, author of a firsthand account of what happens at SeaWorld, Beneath the Surface: Killer Whales, SeaWorld, and the Truth Beyond ‘Blackfish’, spoke to the Daily Show on Thursday night. Here’s what he had to say:

http://www.peta.org/blog/watch-john-hargrove-takes-down-seaworld-on-the-daily-show-seaworlds-askseaworld-campaign-backfires/

Five Years After the Oil Spill, Dead Dolphins and 25 Thousand Pound Tar Mat Found.

Read entire article:

http://blog.nwf.org/2015/03/five-years-after-the-oil-spill-dead-dolphins-and-25000-pound-tar-mat-found/?s_email_id=20150328_MEM_ENG_WLO_March_Edition|STAct

Viewer Discretion Advised:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=4OyncZJxWb8

Take Action - Tell BP to accept responsibility for its actions!
https://online.nwf.org/site/Advocacy?cmd=display&page=UserAction&id=2041&s_subsrc ="Web_Content_Action_Blog_25000lb-tarmat"

Will Seaworlds new ad campaign change the tide of public opinion?

http://www.care2.com/causes/will-seaworlds-new-ad-campaign-change-the-tide-of-public-opinion.html?onswipe_redirect=no&oswrr=4#comments

Fourth Baby Orca Born to the World’s Most Endangered Killer Whales

Another orca baby has been sighted among the killer whale pods of the Pacific Northwest. That raises to four the known number of offspring born to this endangered group of whales since December.

Naturalist Jeanne Hyde was out with a whale watching cruise on Monday when she spotted the new baby orca and snapped the first photos of it. Hyde was uncertain whether the little orca was J50, born earlier in the season, or a newborn, until she saw both their dorsal fins break the waves at once.

“It was so exciting, because this calf has the heavy-duty, deep fetal folds,” Hyde said. “I’d never seen one so fresh. That’s an indicator that it was born just within a couple days.”

Babies have been scarce among these killer whales for the past few years, said Michael Harris, executive director of the Pacific Whale Watch Association, which represents 29 operators in Washington State and British Columbia, Canada.

“It’s sometimes hard for people outside the Pacific Northwest to understand the value of our resident orcas to this place. They are—we call them our totem species,” Harris said. “We went almost three years without a successful birth in the population and the numbers dropped to 77. In terms of sustaining a population that’s been here for 12,000 years, since the receding of the ice sheets, that’s scary.”

Meet the Scientist Who Is Standing Up To SeaWorld to Save Orcas From Captivity

Dr. Ingrid Visser has dedicated her life to improving the welfare of killer whales.

April 07, 2015 By David Kirby

As activists turn up the heat against marine parks that keep killer whales in captivity, Ingrid Visser is helping fan the flames.

The marine biologist has dedicated her life to studying, rescuing, filming, and even swimming with killer whales. Her scientific work advances knowledge that helps killer whales in the wild, but Visser has also done battle with companies such as SeaWorld that keep the animals in tanks. Her efforts include founding New Zealand’s Orca Research Trust and helping to establish the World Cetacean Alliance and Dolphinaria Free Europe.

Visser established the world’s first photo-identification catalog of whale pods in New Zealand and Antarctic waters. She has worked on a couple of documentaries about the animals and assisted in several rescues of stranded whales. She's even written a children’s book about one of them.

“I’ve been interested in orca ever since I was a kid,” Visser said in an email. (She considers the Latin name for killer whales, “orca,” to be both singular and plural.) “I started researching them in 1992 and started my Ph.D. not long after that.”

As a child, Visser was told that the only place to work with orcas was the marine park chain SeaWorld. “But even as a youngster, I knew that SeaWorld wasn’t the answer,” she said. Today, her ongoing skirmishes against SeaWorld and other marine parks are well known among both activists and industry executives.

So it may be particularly galling to Visser that SeaWorld has used her research to bolster its claims that killer whales are healthy in captivity. She has urged SeaWorld to correct how it represents her work.

“Anyone can make a difference by spreading the word,” Visser said of cetaceans in captivity. “And the message is simple: Don’t buy a ticket.”

Visser has been involved in the fight to release Lolita, a killer whale captured in Washington state 45 years ago and sent to Miami Seaquarium, where she still resides. U.S. wildlife officials recently gave federal endangered species protections to Lolita as one of an endangered population of wild killer whales. But this legal status has no direct impact on her captivity or the conditions in which she’s being kept at Miami Seaquarium, which Visser terms horrifying.

“Fifty-six orca currently are held in 14 parks throughout the world. At least 160 have died in captivity or during captures,” she said. “Although these parks claim to be doing much for conservation, the little that they might do doesn’t justify or balance what they are doing to the orca and dolphins currently held.”

Visser has also worked to win the release of Morgan, a young female killer whale who was stranded in the Netherlands in 2010. SeaWorld now owns Morgan and keeps her at it its Loro Parque facility in the Canary Islands.

“Despite a court case to have her put into a sea sanctuary for rehabilitation, she was shipped to Loro Parque,” Visser said. “I have visited her there a number of times and documented the extreme abuse she has received, from bites to bullying and outright attacks. We are currently talking with lawyers to look into how we can legally assist her.”

Visser hopes to reunite Morgan with her family but would accept having her transferred to a sanctuary, “rather than the barren concrete tanks she is currently held in, where she has to perform tricks in order to get her food,” she said.

Dr. Naomi Rose, a marine mammal scientist at the Animal Welfare Institute, said Visser’s efforts had been key to raising awareness of this whale’s situation. “Morgan would have fallen between the bureaucratic, regulatory cracks—which are far too numerous and wide—if it weren’t for Ingrid,” Rose said in an email.

For all her activism, media appearances, and nonprofit work, Visser spends most of her time on and under the ocean. Her underwater videography is captivating.

Killer whales “spend less than 10 percent of their lives at the surface,” Visser said. “It makes sense to enter their world to be able to view them better and understand their behavior.” Visser said she is never fearful of being in the water with the whales but does “give them the full respect that they deserve as large apex predators, and I have a special permit to conduct this research.”

Visser’s lifelong dedication to the science and welfare of killer whales shows no signs of abating.

“Ingrid is one of those rare individuals who is literally consumed with her focused passion for orcas,” Courtney Vail, campaigns and program manager at Whale and Dolphin Conservation, said in an email. “She’s a wonderful ally in our collective fight to secure protections and a better future for orcas in the wild, and in captivity.”

See link for video:
http://www.takepart.com/article/2015/04/07/ingrid-visser-killer-whale-expert-activist-lolita-morgan-sea-world?cmpid=tpdaily-eml-2015-04-07

8 Smart Species Challenge How We Think of Animals
Piper Hoffman
Apr 7, 2015

Animals are smarter than we thought.

This matters not just because it’s cool and fascinating. It matters because people use lack of intelligence as the reason to treat humans and non-human animals differently. It’s okay to eat animals and experiment on them, the rationale goes, because they are just dumb animals.

Science is biting itself in the butt on this one by continually discovering that animals aren’t so different from us after all, which will make it harder to justify experimenting on them.

These are some of the smartest animals in no particular order:

1. Dolphins

When people can no longer point to a huge gap in intelligence between humans and other animals, it gets harder to justify torturing and using them.

2. Ravens

Ravens have incredible recall for their friends’ voices. After living together for three years, then being separated for three years (during which time their calls may have changed), the ravens responded with friendly calls to recordings of the voices of their old friends.

They also remembered which birds they liked and which they didn’t. Recordings of the voices of ravens they didn’t care for elicited different reactions in deeper voices. They had yet a third reaction for the calls of birds they did not know.

3. Grey Parrots

Grey parrots can reason as well as three-year-old humans, as Mindy Townsend has written on Care2. When presented with two canisters and shown that one was empty, then “given the chance to choose one or the other,” they reliably picked the other one. Scientists performed more complicated versions of this study with the same result. The birds were showing “abstract, inferential thinking” by figuring out that if one is empty, the other has food in it. Humans can’t do that before age three.

4. Squirrels

Yes, squirrels are smart. They “put on elaborate shows” in which they pretend they are hiding food “to thwart would-be thieves.” When squirrels saw human researchers stealing their peanuts, they faked hiding even more food. This deception involves planning and a concept of what is happening in others’ minds — the squirrels are thinking about what may happen in the future (theft of their food), and about what observers are seeing and deducing (that there will be food where the squirrel is digging).

So there to all the squirrel haters, and especially to the wing nuts who held the “Hazard County Squirrel Slam” last weekend in upstate New York, where they awarded prizes for shooting and killing squirrels.

5. Elephants

Of course elephants have to be on any list of smart animals. They have proved their intelligence time and again. But here is one you may not have heard: they can sniff out the scents “of up to 30 absent members of their family” and build a mental map of where they are. Can you keep track of where 30 of your relatives are at any given time?

6. Chimpanzees

The latest revelation: chimpanzees have better short-term memory than humans. Not just good short-term memory. Not even just as good as ours. Better. They have a stronger mental ability than humans do.

The study, reported in Huff Post Science, flashed the numbers 1 through 9 randomly on a screen. Chimpanzee Ayumu “was able to recall the exact sequence and location of each number.”

When researcher Tetsuro Matsuzawa showed a video of the experiment “to a room of scientists and journalists, murmurs of amazement were heard. ‘Don’t worry, nobody can do it,’ Matsuzawa said… ‘It’s impossible for you.’”

Chimp Ayumu has also learned the numbers 1 through 19 and what order they go in.

7. Pigs

Pigs can learn to use a joystick to move a cursor to a target and can distinguish among a child’s various scribblings. Their intelligence is akin to that of chimpanzees. Comparing them to humans doesn’t come out that well for us: “even piglets only a few hours old will leave the nest to relieve themselves.” How long were your kids in diapers?

angeldye/flickr

8. Crows

According to National Geographic, research now suggests that crows “share with humans several hallmarks of higher intelligence, including tool use and sophisticated social behavior.” Crows play tricks on each other, and different families have their own dialects. A nature writer describing one experiment on the birds writes that they are “in a class with us as toolmakers,” better even than chimps.

There is more going on behind animals’ eyes than we have given them credit for. Having learned more about their mental and social intelligence, it is time to reevaluate how we treat them.

The Internet Giant That Is Selling Toxic Whale and Dolphin Meat in Japan

An environmental group says that mercury-contaminated marine mammal products are for sale on Yahoo Japan.

April 08, 2015 By David Kirby

Whale and dolphin meats being sold for human consumption on Yahoo Japan have potentially dangerous levels of poisonous mercury, a report released on Wednesday charged.

Of 13 whale and dolphin products purchased online, all contained mercury levels that exceeded the Japanese government’s recommendation of 0.4 parts per million or fewer, according to the group Environmental Investigation Agency, which commissioned the testing. EIA described Yahoo Japan as “the country’s largest online marketplace for whale and dolphin meat.”

The company is a joint venture between Yahoo and Softbank.

Yahoo's American representatives did not respond to requests for comment.

A sample of dried pilot whale meat purchased from Yahoo Japan contained 19 ppm of mercury—47.5 times over the government safety limit. A pilot whale rib cut contained slightly less at 18 ppm, while pilot whale spare ribs contained 13 ppm, and roasted whale contained 10 ppm. Baird's beaked whale jerky and stew tested at 3.7 ppm and 7.2 ppm, respectively.

Some of the store-bought cetacean meat products also had excessive mercury levels, according to the report. Dolphin meat contained 11 ppm of mercury, dolphin stomach meat contained 2.8 ppm, and whale intestines contained 10 ppm. These products were labeled as originating from Taiji, Japan, the location of controversial annual dolphin hunts.

“This is yet another reason why whales and dolphins should not be considered as food,” EIA Oceans Campaign head Clare Perry said in an email. “Their existence is threatened by a myriad of human caused problems, including chemical pollution to such an extent that it actually makes them toxic.”

Perry said that Yahoo Japan has not responded to her group’s requests for a dialogue and that “Yahoo US has been unable or unwilling to exert sufficient pressure on Yahoo Japan to take any action.”

It’s unclear whether mercury levels in whale and dolphin meat have increased over time, Perry said. “We are still comparing these data to our previous studies, but it’s hard to say with a fairly limited data set. There are studies showing rising mercury levels in some fish species and Baird’s beaked whales have higher than average levels over the 10-plus years we’ve been testing.”

Overexposure to mercury in food can harm neurological development in fetuses, infants, and young children, leading to problems with learning and memory, among other issues. Among adults, mercury poisoning from food increases health risks, including hypertension and coronary artery disease.

Canned albacore tuna sold in the United States contains an average of 0.32 ppm of mercury, while canned light tuna has 0.12 ppm, according to the Environmental Defense Fund.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and Food and Drug Administration jointly recommend that young children should eat only one to three ounces per week of albacore tuna. Women who are or might become pregnant, or are breast-feeding, should eat no more than six ounces of albacore tuna per week and avoid entirely four fish known to have high levels of mercury: Gulf of Mexico tilefish, shark, swordfish, and king mackerel.

Animal rights activists have long contended that alerting Japan’s consumers to the dangers of mercury contamination in whale and dolphin meat would stifle demand, eventually driving the industry out of business. So far, that hasn’t happened.

Some activists believe the Japanese government is blocking the message.

“Consumers in Japan are not told the truth about the serious health risks linked to consumption,” said Ric O’Barry, head of the Dolphin Project and star of The Cove, a documentary on the Taiji drives.

O’Barry, in collaboration with the Japanese group Elsa Nature Conservancy, has tested dolphin and whale meat since 2003 and found all of it containing dangerously high levels of mercury as well as polychlorinated biphenyls, or PCBs—human-made compounds that can cause cancer and other health problems.

“The annual dolphin slaughter is not only an issue of animal rights,” O’Barry said. “It’s also one of human rights."

If the Japanese government isn’t informing the public, consumer and parenting groups should step in to fill the gap, according to Perry. Meanwhile, more pressure should be put on purveyors of the toxic products, she said.

“We look to the major retailers like Yahoo Japan to set an example and ban the sale of contaminated whale, dolphin, and porpoise products,” Perry said. “Many retailers already have. Japan’s leading retailers, such as Aeon, Ito-Yokado, and Seiyu, do not sell these products.”

A bit of a different post here but the message remains the same.
Check the link for the video:

http://www.care2.com/causes/kidnapped-baby-elephant-reunited-with-mother-after-years-apart.html?onswipe_redirect=no&oswrr=4#comments

Kidnapped Baby Elephant Reunited With Mother After Years Apart

Alicia Graef
Apr 9, 2015

After being torn from her mother’s side for a life of slavery in Thailand, a young elephant named MeBai has finally been freed and reunited with her mother after more than three years apart.

Little MeBai was taken from her mother when she was just three-years-old to go through the “training crush.” National Geographic describes this brutal practice as a centuries-old ritual intended to domesticate young elephants through pain and fear, where they’re subjected to beatings and deprived of sleep, water and food to break their spirits and make them more submissive to their owners.

According to the Elephant Nature Park (ENP), when MeBai’s training was done, her owner hired her out to a tourist camp to be used in a mahout training program and used to give tourists rides. Sadly, she stopped eating and became too thin to work. Thanks to the efforts of the ENP and its founder, Lek Chailert, her owner decided to let her go to the organization’s Pamper A Pachyderm program, which takes in elephants from trekking programs for rehabilitation.

Soon after taking her in and helping her overcome her fear of humans, her caretakers discovered MeBai’s mother Mae Yui was at a nearby tourist camp and they then convinced Mae Yui’s owner to allow her baby to visit.

Workers and volunteers embarked on a four day journey escorting MeBai by foot to bring the two back together. Despite the years they spent apart, it’s clear that neither one forgot the other. In an update, Chailert said the two were shocked and stood quiet for half an hour before they began to touch and talk non-stop to each other.

Needless to say, everyone involved is thrilled with the outcome for these two elephants. ENP wrote:

Imagine her many nights filled with panic and fear, a child alone, injured and confused, for three and half years she stood in the rain and the sun without her mother, for three and a half years she entertained the human need for subservience.

Now she enjoys the companionship of her mother – she feels like the little baby again. She feels safe when she sleeps, because her mother stands over her. She sleeps deeply and snores loud in the jungle. Some times she wakes up and tries to drink milk from her mother’s breast. It is such a beautiful moment.

More amazingly, Mae Yui’s owner also agreed to retire her and the two will now be able to spend the rest of their days together enjoying a bond that should never have been broken. They will be rehabilitated together at the Karen Elephant Experience, a project supported by ENP, with the ultimate goal of releasing them back into the wild.

Hopefully this heartwarming reunion will help remind us that elephants, and other animals used in tourism and entertainment, aren’t gimmicks to be used for profit, but intelligent, emotional beings who belong in the wild. For more info and updates on MeBai and Mae Yui, check out the Elephant Nature Park.

You're Invited: Join Us in D.C. to Deliver 1 Million Petition Signatures to the White House

Thanks to your continuous support and focus on saving dolphins in Taiji’s cove, Ric O’Barry’s Dolphin Project petition has collected more than 1 million signatures. Now we’re taking your signatures to our Nation's Capital!

On Friday, April 17, Ric O’Barry's Dolphin Project and TakePart will host an evening under the stars in Washington, D.C.

The event will feature guest speakers, including activist and dolphin advocate Ric O’Barry, and a state-of-the-art video projection—displayed on a high-tech, eco-friendly Tesla—representing the over 1 million people who signed the petition in support of the dolphins shown in the Academy Award–winning documentary The Cove.

Want to attend? R.S.V.P. on Facebook and join us.

Can't make it to the event? Watch a livestream by following TakePart on Periscope and Twitter using #DolphinsInDC.

Together we can demand an end to the violence in Taiji!

Here's the petition:
https://takeaction.takepart.com/actions/cove-help-save-japans-dolphins?cmpid=action-eml-2015-04-10-coveevent

Hulu Needs to Drop SeaWorld Ads Immediately
Chris Sosa
Apr 10, 2015

SeaWorld is at it again. Rather than ceasing to exploit marine mammals for profit, they’re running an ad campaign to convince the public that they’re actually committed to the well-being of orcas.

Care2 member Christina Nicholls, along with her teenage daughter Claudia, isn’t having any of this nonsense. She’s calling on Hulu to stop running SeaWorld advertisements with a petition that’s already garnered over 70,000 signatures.

Nicholls recently became a vegan and now volunteers her time and voice to help marine animals. She hopes to move from Boston, Mass., to the West Coast to become more involved in her efforts.

“It’s been my dream since childhood to see the world become a better place before I leave it, and I’m finally beginning to see all the ways I can help do just that,” Nicholls told Care2. “My family cares passionately about these amazing animals, and even our five-year-old is concerned about keeping whales in captivity.”

The family’s Care2 petition targets Hulu CEO Mike Hopkins, along with the companies that own Hulu: NBCUniversal Television Group, Fox Broadcasting Company, Disney–ABC Television Group.

The petition asks Hopkins to acknowledge the values of its users and drop SeaWorld as an advertising partner. So far, more than 70,000 people have joined Nicholls in calling on Hulu to do the right thing.

SeaWorld’s latest campaign comes amid a change in management as Joel Manby has taken the reins as chief executive from departing CEO Jim Atchison. The company revealed in December that it would be cutting jobs and costs amid continuous public tumult following the release of the popular documentary “Blackfish,” which aired on CNN and highlighted many of the issues around keeping orcas in captivity.

Nicholls explained the importance of this petition: “It seems like SeaWorld is hoping the negative public attention will just go away if they ride it out and take orcas out of their advertisements… The petition is an important tool to remind SeaWorld that people haven’t forgotten, and that we still care about the whales suffering such inhumane treatment.”

Consumers need to let SeaWorld know that they won’t fall for this public image makeover. Last year, attendance fell by over 4 percent and resulted in a 6 percent revenue decline. We need to keep the pressure on SeaWorld to do the right thing by refusing to attend their parks.

The Product Used to Clean Up the Deepwater Horizon Spill Could be Choking Wildlife Out

A new study finds that oil dispersants can cause damage to human lungs and the gills of fish and other marine life.

April 06, 2015 By Taylor Hill

An oil dispersant that was supposed to contain the Deepwater Horizon spill is leaving its own trail of environmental tears behind.

Corexit 9500—the dispersant most heavily used by BP to disperse oil in the Gulf of Mexico during the 2010 spill—may have caused lung damage in people involved in the cleanup process and gill damage to marine life.

The findings were published in the journal PLOS One on Friday, and this is just the latest scientific evidence that the 1.84 million gallons of cleanup products BP used to try to dissolve 210 million gallons of crude oil could still be wreaking havoc on the Gulf and its wildlife.

Corexit 9500 was sprayed aerially across a 305-square-mile area, leaving cleanup crews in the region susceptible to inhaling the product. The marine life got a taste shortly after as it ended up dispersed in the water column.

Researchers at the University of Alabama at Birmingham found that Corexit 9500 breaks down a certain type of cell tissue found in the walls of human lungs and the gills of zebrafish and blue crabs. The dying cells cause swelling and fluid development that block air passages in both lungs and gills.

More than 48,000 workers were potentially exposed to Corexit inhalation, said study author Veena Antony, a professor in the division of pulmonary, allergy, and critical care medicine at UAB. A number of workers ended up in emergency rooms along the Gulf Coast complaining of respiratory issues and asthma-like conditions.

“Cough, shortness of breath, and sputum production were among symptoms expressed by workers,” Antony said in a statement.

BP spokesperson Jason Ryan told The Times-Picayune that cleanup crews were never exposed to airborne concentrations of Corexit “that would be expected to result in any significant adverse health effects,” pointing to samples taken by BP and federal agencies during the cleanup.

TakePart wrote about BP’s intensive use of dispersants during the 2010 cleanup, including a more toxic version of the product called Corexit 9527. That dispersant was found to cause liver, kidney, lung, nervous system, and blood disorders in cleanup crew members following the 1989 Exxon Valdez spill in Alaska.

Dolphins Are Still Dying Five Years After the Deepwater Horizon Disaster

Conservationists have questioned the use of either dispersant, noting that both were tested to be only marginally effective at dispersing Louisiana crude oil, and that alternative products some 10 to 20 times less toxic were available for use.

BP has also claimed in its own study that marine life in the Gulf of Mexico is on the rebound.

That was followed by the National Wildlife Federation’s March 30 report that concluded that least 20 species—including bottlenose dolphins, whales, and sea turtles—that call the Gulf and its 16,000 miles of coastline home were still suffering five years after the oil spill.

Experts reject Japan's new whaling plan

International Whaling Committee say proposal to resume hunt in Southern Ocean offers no scientific evidence that it is necessary

A handout image supplied by Sea Shepherd Australia in January 2013 shows three minke whales on the deck of the Japanese Ship Nisshin Maru. Photograph: Tim Watters/EPA

Justin McCurry in Tokyo
Tuesday 14 April 2015

Japan’s hopes of resuming its whale hunts in the Southern Ocean have suffered a setback after International Whaling Committee experts said its latest plan offered no scientific justification for the slaughter.

The IWC panel said Japan’s revised programme, known as Newrep-A, did not contain enough information for experts to determine whether Japan needed to kill whales to fulfil two key objectives: calculating the size of populations necessary for a return to sustainable commercial hunting, and gaining a better understanding of the Antarctic marine ecosystem.

“With the information presented in the proposal, the panel was not able to determine whether lethal sampling is necessary to achieve the two major objectives,” the IWC experts’ report said. “Therefore the current proposal does not demonstrate the need for lethal sampling to achieve those objectives.”

Japanese officials have been working on a revised whaling programme since last year when the international court of justice in The Hague ordered an immediate halt to its Antarctic hunts after concluding that they were not, as Japan had claimed, being conducted for scientific research.

The UN court’s ruling was in response to a landmark legal challenge to the Southern Ocean hunts by Australia, which claimed Japan was using science as a cover for commercial whaling.

Under the moratorium on commercial whaling Japan is allowed to sell meat from the “scientific” hunts on the open market, although consumption has fallen dramatically since the postwar years when it was a rare source of protein.

Tokyo hoped that its revised plan, involving the killing of fewer whales, would pave the way for the resumption of the Antarctic hunts, possibly by the end of this year.

Its whaling fleet recently returned from the Southern Ocean, although it had not planned to kill any whales, in accordance with the ICJ ruling.

“The ICJ ruling ensured that for the first season in more than a century whales in the southern hemisphere were not hunted for commercial purposes,” said Patrick Ramage, global whale programme director for the International Fund for Animal Welfare.

“It is disappointing … that Japan’s fisheries bureaucrats would defy the world’s highest court and try to restart illegal whaling in the Southern Ocean.”

In its reworked plan Japan proposed an annual cull of up to 333 minke whales over the next 12 years, down from more than 900 a year previously. The total cull over that period would reach 3,996 whales, compared with the 13,000 whales it has killed since the IWC ban on commercial whaling came into effect in 1987.

Japan has long claimed that it needs to conduct “lethal research” to better understand whale populations’ migratory, feeding and reproduction habits with a view to a return to commercial whaling. It argues that many whale species, including minke, are not endangered.

Japanese officials said they would provide more information before the IWC’s scientific committee meets in San Diego next month. “I believe that we’ll move forward with the aim of resuming whaling around the end of the year,” the country’s commissioner to the IWC, Joji Morishita, told reporters, although he did not rule out changes to the proposal.

Morishita said Japan took the panel’s report seriously but added: “They haven’t unilaterally said that it’s no good; neither have they come out on the other side with ‘Go ahead, do whatever research you want to do.’”

Environmental campaigners welcomed the IWC panel’s decision. “[The findings] reiterate and underline the concern of the international community: you don’t need to kill whales in order to study them,” said Claire Bass, UK director of the Humane Society International.

“It has long been clear that Japan’s large-scale whaling operations are driven by politicians, not scientists, and serve no useful conservation or scientific need. This latest report from the IWC review panel essentially sends Japan back to the drawing board as it has failed to make a case for the need to kill whales in the name of science.”

SeaWorld lawsuit alleges Orcas are drugged and confined in 'chemical tubs'

Lawsuit is second in three weeks to attack marine park for abusive treatment of killer whales and demands reimbursement for all visitors in the last four years.

The federal class action lawsuit also says SeaWorld’s performing killer whales have been deprived of food, forced to breed and are confined in chlorine baths.

Joanna Walters
Friday 10 April 2015

A new class action lawsuit has been filed against SeaWorld in Florida accusing the marine park of keeping its performing killer whales drugged and suffering from sunburn in tanks that are the equivalent of “chemical bathtubs”, leading to early death for the intelligent mammals.

South Carolina grandmother Joyce Kuhl is suing the SeaWorld center in Orlando for her money back following her visit in 2013 – and for ticket money also to be reimbursed to millions of other visitors – via a federal class action lawsuit that could cost the park billions of dollars, according to the Orlando Sentinel.

It is the second time SeaWorld has been sued in less than three weeks, after a similar class action lawsuit was filed in California last month alleging the company is misleading the public by claiming its captive killer whales, or orcas, are happy and thriving

The California lawsuit targets all three SeaWorld locations, in San Diego, California; San Antonio, Texas and Orlando, Florida, while Kuhl’s action focuses solely on the Florida park.

The lawsuits are the latest blow for SeaWorld, which has been under a hail of criticism from the public, some shareholders, regulators and animal welfare groups since one of its star trainers was killed by a male orca in 2010 and subsequent allegations of chronic mistreatment of whales in the 2013 documentary Blackfish – which the company denies.

Kuhl filed suit in federal court in Orlando on Thursday accusing the company of spinning an illusion about the “magic” of man and whale living and playing in harmony in the marine park, which “masks the ugly truth about the unhealthy and despairing lives of these whales”.

Kuhl, a previous resident of Gainesville, Florida, now living in Aiken, South Carolina, visited SeaWorld in Orlando in December 2013 and paid $97 for her ticket.

But in the lawsuit filed on Thursday by Gainesville-based attorney Paul Rothstein, she accuses SeaWorld of making millions of dollars in profit via “false, misleading and deceptive business practices”.

Kuhl declined to comment to the Guardian and referred inquiries to Rothstein.

Rothstein told the Guardian that Kuhl is not an animal rights activist but “an ordinary animal lover” who found out information after visiting the aquatic park that was “inconsistent” with the company’s marketing.

“She would not have purchased her ticket had she known then what she subsequently found out,” he said.

Kuhl’s lawsuit lays out a catalogue of allegations of mistreatment of killer whales at the park in Orlando.

She is suing for reimbursement for all the visitors to SeaWorld Florida over the last four years, the statute of limitations to bring a lawsuit under state law.

If successful, that would amount to at least $2bn. Prices are charged across a range, but a typical ticket costs around $100 a head. SeaWorld Florida receives just over 5 million visitors a year, according to the lawsuit.

“SeaWorld has long known this but accepts that abnormal (even desperate) orca behavior ... is the price paid for this form of human entertainment and company profit,” the court documents say.

SeaWorld said in a statement about the previous lawsuit in California that the company is among the world’s most respected zoological institutions.

It adds that is “regularly inspected by the US government and two professional zoological associations. The Association of Zoos and Aquariums recently granted SeaWorld accreditation from its independent accreditation commission. There is no higher priority for SeaWorld than the health and wellbeing of its animals”, the statement said.

On Friday, SeaWorld said it “is committed in every respect to the health and well-being of the animals in our care” and said the lawsuit “appears to be an attempt by animal right extremists to use the courts to advance an anti-zoo agenda.

“The suit is baseless, filled with inaccuracies, and SeaWorld intends to defend itself against these inaccurate claims.”

Kuhl’s lawsuit points out that in the wild, orcas typically live between 30 and 50 years and can often live into their 80s and beyond. In SeaWorld most orcas die in their teens or 20s, she alleges.

And the lawsuit points out that staff at SeaWorld administer antacid drugs to the orcas to alleviate stomach ulcers, antibiotics and contraceptives.

“Perhaps most telling, captive orcas are also subject to drugging by SeaWorld personnel with antipsychotic and psychoactive drugs, including benzodiazepines such as Diazepam (generic Valium), which are given to calm the captive orcas which react against their conditions of confinement,” the lawsuit states.