Should there be an international ban on zoos making their dolphins, sealions etc perform?

Short answer: Yes.

Longer answer: Yes, because it is neither educational nor in the animals best interest (it is NOT enriching nor (for the greater part) natural!!) nor strictly speaking legal.

Stupidly long answer/rant (on the plus side it offers explanation and links ;) ):

Apologies in advance it is going to be very long and focussed primarily on cetaceans as I know less about pinnipeds, there is however a very good report that looks at pinniped captivity as well:http://www.hsus.org/marine_mammals/what_are_the_is...

I'll try to make it more readable by giving sections titles, lol.

1.Captivity in general:

Speaking at least for the cetaceans what we should really have is an international ban on keeping cetaceans in captivity.

Why?

Because it is in some countries actually considered animal cruelty. And this is not a little group of nutcase activists saying it, this is actual countries that have made decisions to ban or severly limit the trade and keeping of cetaceans, on the grounds that it is not seen as ethically or environmentally viable.

As mentioned it has already been done in several countries (Chile and Costa Rica), others have banned new aquariums holding dolphins from opening (Netherlands) and others have introduced severe regulations to limit the trade and keeping of cetaceans (Cyprus, Hungary, India, Argentina, Malaysia, Brazil and the United Kingdom), in some of which (as the United Kingdom) it is near enough impossible to fullfil the conditions that would be required to open a delphinarium.

2.Is training enriching for the animals?

Anyhow, returning to the actual show, some points made by previous answerers were that it would be too expensive to build an adequate enclosure and that enrichment is stimulating, and I believe someone else said it's ok as long as they are well looked after and that they are more intelligent than us.

That training is enriching is a very popular argument, however sadly for SeaWorld and company, it doesn't hold scrutiny.

Quote from a recent paper examining the effects of training on elephants:

"Enrichment but not training significantly increased the elephants’ behavioural diversity.

Thus, based on these criteria, training of these elephants was not enriching and, therefore, SHOULD NOT BE ASSUMED TO BE IN OTHER INDIVIDUALS OR SPECIES. Training should not be implemented in isolation or at the expense of other forms of enrichment." (Cormick, 2003 : http://www.biaza.org.uk/resources/library/images/V...

Furthermore, although food deprivation is allegedly not used to train animals any more, looking at the number of shows each day and the amount of fish fed during these shows, it is reasonable to suggest they are getting fed quite a lot during the show and that food rather than enjoyment is the primary motivator.

So although far from being an adequate enrichment technique, it is the most commonly quoted one in places like SeaWorld and a previous poster even suggested it would replace the need for a more naturalistic environment.

Here's a novel thought, maybe if we cannot give an animal an appropriate enclosure, maybe we should not keep it in captivity. apart from that, how difficult would it be to introduce a more natural environment (algae, different substratum at the bottom, sand, pebbles etc) or acoustic enrichment which has been proven to be truly enriching (http://cms.ifm.liu.se/edu/biology/master_projects/... )

These are intelligent predators that need a challenging task to be kept entertained, how challenging is once you've learned a routine to repeat it over and over again for several months?!

3.Health and life expectancies

As for 'if they are looked after well' it's ok . Consider this, in the wild femle orcas (part of the dolphin family) will live upto 80-90 years, with an average life expectancy of 40-45 years, for males this is a bit lower at about 30. Now usually if animals are well looked after in captivity and because they are not exposed to things like pollution and predators they live longer, for example Asian short clawed otters will usually not live longer than 7 years in the wild however there is one individual that reached a proud age of 20 years in a zoo, more than doubling his lifespan.

We would expect the same thing in orcas, right? Well guess what, all the orcas that have died in the last 15 years at SeaWorld were under 25 years of age.

As for being more intelligent than us, I personally agree but wouldn't that mean they need MORE stimulation rather than monotonous routines day in and day out?

4.Are the performances natural?

Some people have said at least the dolphins jumping is natural. Yes they do jump in the wild but this usually occurs during play which takes up about 5% of their activity budget, not all day every day and I have yet to see them beach themselves and perform 'breakdance' on platforms, throw people through the air or touch tongues to kiss each other, most aerial acrobatics are also a lot less spectacular in the wild and tail-walking is very rarely observed and can actually be damaging to the dolphin's back. Sure a small population of orcas beach themselves in Patagonia however the orcas at Seaworld have no relation to these animals being for the greater part being descended from Nothern Residents of British Columbia and Iceland, so it is anything but natural behaviour for them.

I don't think I have to comment on sealions playing the piano...

Good zoos appreciate that this is neither good for the animals nor educational and will try to put the animal's need before the visitors which is how it should be. In fact not abiding to this, is not just bad practise it could even be considered illegal.

5.The legal side

If we have a look at the Marine Mammal Protection act, it says that marine mammals may only be kept for scientific research and educational purposes. It does not say, aquariums must at all times yield to the public's demand for brain-numbing entertainment at the cost of the animals.

Some quotes:

"The marine mammal part is transferred

for the purpose of scientific research,

maintenance in a properly

curated, professionally accredited scientific

collection, or education, provided

that, for transfers for educational

purposes, the recipient is a

museum, educational institution or

equivalent that will ensure that the

part is available to the public as part

of an educational program;"

http://www.nmfs.noaa.gov/pr/pdfs/laws/mmpa_regs_21...

So for this law to be abided SeaWorld for one thing would either have to be an educational institution or an accredited scientific collection.

5.1 Science and Research

There are a few problems with both. Although they may sponsor research, they themselves do very little and what they do is mainly to do with animal husbandry and keeping the animals alive, which is fair enough but not really a contribution to science as it gives us very little transferable data that can be used in the study of wild populations. Any study is affected by the confines of the unnatural environment they are held in, in fact, a few studies conducted both in the wild and captivity outright contradict each other.

5.2 Education

As for educational; being lied to about the life expectancy of an orca while it propels a person through the air in a glorified paddling pool is not very educational in my books.

In fact there is an entire review detailing the disparities between scientific facts and 'facts' provided by aquariums:

http://www.orcanetwork.org/nathist/biennial.pdf

Interestingly, SeaWorld was outraged the first time it was suggested it should become educational (some time in the 70s when they were also proposing to take 100 orcas from an already endangered and protected population);

"SeaWorld was created strictly for entertainment. We didn't try to wear this false facade of educational significance."-George Millay, "father" of SeaWorld, (taken from Captive orcas, Dying to entertain you).

In fact it has been said that the education you get out of a SeaWorld visit could be gained by reading a fairly good book aimed at 3rd Graders (Opinion of the author of Spectacular Nature: Corporate Culture and the Sea World Experience, see interview: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/whal...

What would be a lot more educational and a lot more enriching for the animals as well, would be encouraging their sonar use and demonstrate what they can do with it (recognising objects hidden from view from view or finding hidden objects in the tank for example). This would not only be truly educational but would also mimic natural behaviour closely.

Also you would think if places like SeaWorld were truly educational they would want to set examples by environmental policies. Well, guess what, Seaworld has violated water quality permits more than 8 times in one year and again in another by polluting Mission Bay: http://www.eurocbc.org/seaworld_alleged_polluter_m...

Furthermore they did not have permits for their fireworks and were forced to stop them in one case as residents complained about pollution as well...

So if it's neither educational nor scientific, it is technically illegal for them to have marine mammals and making them perform...

6. In Response to arguments made after my original post

6.1 (DRAGON...)

Just a short note on the post below me suggesting most animals could not be returned to the wild, because they are too domesticated, they are not domesticated, cats and dogs are domesticated, it takes hundreds of years to achieve that sort of state.

There is also an interesting paper in which a reasearcher showed in 1993 that not all captive orcas lose the ability to hunt live fish, by introducing live fish into a tank with 2 orcas, one who had spend 24 years in captivity, the other, 13, apparently the animals echolocated,caught and ate the fish within minutes. In addition to that I have recently found a study on (captive born) sealions that apparently did pursue live fish when introduced to the enclosure though they did not eat it but this could have to do with the fact that these were a different fish species to which they were usually fed, so they were not accustomed to this type of food. (http://www3.canisius.edu/~noonan/researchreports/L... )

Also although Keiko was quite poorly in health and a terrible candidate for release into the wild for different reasons as well, he did survive on his own for about 2 years before succumbing to pneumonia.

There is also a comprehensive release plan that details why and how Lolita could be released back into the wild (which also mentions at least one of the above studies):

http://www.orcanetwork.org/nathist/releasability/f...

Also a list of releases from captivity into the wild:

http://ourworld.compuserve.com/Homepages/jaap/Rele...

I am not suggesting every captive animal should be released back into the wild, some undoubtedly are unsuitable, but there is no reason whatsoever to continue to encourage the practise and continue breeding (if not for conservation ie. release purposes).

6.2(SC)

If you had bothered to read my reply you would have seen that training is NOT considered enrichment.

Enrichment can occur in a variety of ways (some of which I mentioned above), training not being one of them, object manipulation can be effective, ie. introducing novel objects on a frequent basis but can get repetitive on occasion.

Acoustic enrichment has also been proven to be effective (see paper quoted above).

interacting with them and focusing on THEIR needs not the irrational greed of the visitors for sensational and unnatural stunts, for example encouraging exploratory behaviour by hiding objects in the pool.

And yes a more naturalistic environment DOES make a difference as it encourages a wider variety of NATURAL behaviours. For example if they introduced pebble beds it would accomadate the natural rubbing behaviour seen in wild orca populations or sandy bottoms for dolphins to forage through to find fish rather than receiving it after jumping through a hoop. Food presentation makes a huge difference. Enrichment trials in big cats for example show that a naturalistic or challenging presentation of the food greatly increases levels of activity and variation in behaviours shown with a large increase in exploratory behaviour.

6.3 (Luxord) See the section of my answer titled "4.Are the performances natural?".... and "5.2 Education" for what could be seen as natural tricks.

A lot of the tricks that a dolphin and sea lion do in a show are actually behaviors that are also displayed in the wild. Some of these "tricks" are even used to assist in providing good health care for the animals and to make it easier for the vet to do awkward procedures like taking blood or checking out teeth for example. While tricks like having chimps smoke or drink tea should be banned, anything that is a behavior that the animal would do in the wild is ok by me. The only big difference is when an animal at Sea World does it, they get a fish or rub down from the trainer after doing a good job.

There is reason these things are banned, enrichment and performing are totally different things.

Dolphins are NOT MORE INTELLIGENT HUMANS, they do not like human contact (they make efforts to stay away) Thankfully dolphin performance is illegal in the UK - Why?

Because it has been proven to be cruel to even keep dolphin in captivity.

Seals and sea lions are a different animal, bug again, performance and enrichment are not the same thing.

So you want to make sure that they are more bored out of their minds than they already are? is this your goal? Using their minds is one of the few things they can do in captivity. Removing the training and interaction would be harmful to their mental well being. Just being in a 'more natural habitat' is not going to change the fact that they're in a cage and cannot leave. A high iq animal like a dolphin needs as much mental challenge and interaction as possible if they're to remain in captivity.

I don't agree with zoos at all why can't they leave the animals in the wild and if they need help set up rescue centres near their natural habitat. This means they may be able to return the animal into the wild after treatment. Imagine your a polar bear stuck in a zoo in London, wrong climate and you can't exactly go for a proper long walk. Instead your stuck in a glass box that you have seen every bit of everyday and have probably got extreme depression and have suicidal tentancies but how you kill yourself? Drown in your puddle of a pool jump off your small hill on to grass or just wait and die slowly. This is no life for any animal say No to zoos. (if you want to see wildlife up close go to where they are it will a better experience for all concerned.)

As long as there are pro-animal entertainment voters who vote with the wallets, the answer is 'No!' Dolphins jump all the time in the wild, and sea lions have jolly ole sing-song round the old grand piano every so often since Noah. You are in danger of creating a 'nanny' world where people who do things you don't like should be stopped.

Yes i agree totally. I personally would prefer to see animals in their own habitat free and wild. There is no difference as you say and it is a crying shame that intelligent sensitive mammals are kept in captivity for our entertainment.

sorry am on my soap box but it really upsets me.

we don`t have piano playing sealions at our zoo!!!!

they race each other, play ball and jump splash they seem to enjoy it!

they`re very intelligent animals and probably love the interaction with humans,i don`t thinks its cruel.

Hi. The 'Tricks' and shows that dolphins perform in zoos are enriching for the dolphins. They mimic 'normal'behaviour found in dolphins in the wild.

I guess that these activities, altough not natural to these animals, are helping to sharping their wits and fight the boredom. Building natural habitats for such animals would require tremendous costs and space -- they live in large packs, in ocean. any tank smaller than 100x100x10 meters is not natural for them.

They do not struggle for their life in the captivity and would suffer from boredom and deprivation without their training.

I think there should be an international ban on oxen pulling plows, because that isn't what they would do naturally.

That will show those stinking peasants!