New information was recently released regarding the relationship between SeaWorld and the Coastkeeper. . 

In the beginning of this month (October) an interesting press release was brought forward by the San Diego Coastkeeper and SeaWorld. The release described the new relationship between the two organizations and their intent of “teaming up together to keep Mission Bay beautiful.” A “clean the bay day” has been scheduled for October 27th. SeaWorld has even offered to hand out passes to their theme park as prizes to those who volunteer. While I would like to applaud their new efforts, several issues have already been raised. 

The first concern I would like to mention is explained in this article that I wrote several months ago. As the most influential player regarding the ecology of the bay, SeaWorld has put this body of water on the top 10 list of California’s most polluted beaches. The theme park has also been fined dozens of times for not bringing forth certain records and for acting against the California Regional Water Control Board in violation of the clean water standards act. They have been cited several times for dumping high levels of coliform into Mission Bay causing disturbing signs to be posted that warn beachgoers of the harmful bacteria that resides in the water due to SeaWorld. In another example of SeaWorld’s carelessness towards wildlife and conservation, environmentalists have been on high alert due to the nightly firework display launched by SeaWorld over Mission Bay. The multi-billion dollar corporation has, so far, left the coastkeeper and environmentalists to clean up their mess. It’s questionable why SeaWorld has suddenly had a change of heart and is willing to help fix the problem they have created. 

*Outdated but valuable information. I found this article in my “drafts” folder and decided to publish it.*

“SeaWorld Parks & Entertainment has spent about $160,000 so far this cycle. Eighty percent of its money has gone to GOP candidates and causes.” 

If you are at all interested in SeaWorld’s financial state regarding the upcoming election I urge you to read the above article. 

SeaWorld has put more money towards the GOP than they have put towards conservation in the entire year of 2009. For more information on SeaWorld’s conservation fund please click here.  

Kohana has rejected her calf, again. Kohana is only ten years old and has already given birth to two babies. Her first, Adan, was a result of inbreeding between Kohana and her uncle, Keto. Adan was rejected by his mother shortly after birth. And Kohana’s new calf, Vicky, has been shown the same indifference. Kohana has demonstrated that she is too young to be a mother, yet she is bred against her will and forced to deliver more orcas for Loro Parque. Both mother and babies are suffering for selfish, unethical reasons. There is no justification for this. 

I apologize for my lack of posts recently. I am getting ready to start college next week and life has been quite chaotic! Just wanted to let everybody know that I haven’t disappeared. 

This is my fourth post in my series of instances in which SeaWorld has gone against conservation efforts. 

As I mentioned in my previous article, SeaWorld has reported their involvement with wild subsistence beluga hunts. The animals are killed similarly to the dolphins in Japan, the drives we are most familiar with. There is absolutely no moral reason to supporting such brutality. Beluga are a threatened species, many populations are critically endangered. And in most cases, endangerment is caused by beluga subsistence hunts. SeaWorld supports and works with these hunters in order to obtain sperm from dead beluga for their captive breeding program. But we have only scratched the surface of SeaWorld’s involvement in brutal cetacean slaughter. 

In the 1980’s SeaWorld “saved” several cetaceans from certain death. That is, they bought dolphins from drive fisheries. This might have seemed like a noble endeavor. Who couldn’t praise SeaWorld for saving cetaceans from certain death?But what people failed to realize was that in order to obtain these animals, the corporation had to pay somebody. The people that SeaWorld had to pay were the hunters themselves, who in turn took that money to continue their brutal practice. Marine parks like SeaWorld kept the hunters in business. The dolphins that SeaWorld “saved” were not worth the thousands that were slaughtered in response to the funding from the marine park. It was an endless cycle. One step forward, one thousand steps back. 

Of course, that was in the 1980’s, we would all like to believe that SeaWorld doesn’t support cetacean slaughter anymore. We would be wrong. SeaWorld is a very large part of the marine park industry. An industry so connected that you can barely differentiate between the corporations within. Nearly all marine parks have friendly  relationships with one another. We are consistently hearing about parks trading animals, buying each other’s animals, selling their animals, loaning animals. They even adopt training and breeding programs from other parks. It’s a very intertwined industry. 

So how far do you have to go to connect SeaWorld to the dolphin slaughter? Not very far at all. Sun Asia Ocean World (located in China) obtained 8 bottlenose dolphins directly from the Taiji slaughter in the year 2005. Their website claims they are “committed to maintaining a friendly relationships with many world-famous animal attractions including SeaWorld in the United States.” Can SeaWorld really have a “friendly relationship” with a park that directly supports funding the slaughter? Apparently so. But it goes much further than that. Ocean Adventure park in the Philippines has a website that states the following, “Ocean Adventure is home to several species of dolphins, all of whom are rescued animals. Some came from the drive fishery in Japan where they were literally hours away from being slaughtered.” As ironic as it is, Ocean Adventure Park, like SeaWorld, has a conservation program. The majority of the funds going to the Ocean Adventure park come from SeaWorld’s very own SeaWorld and Busch Garden’s conservation fund. How can SeaWorld give their guest’s donated money to a park that directly financially supports cetacean slaughter and who’s motives of conservation are questionable? These are just a couple of examples of the marine park industry’s connection.

It’s obvious that SeaWorld is aware of this issue, and yet they have no intention of stopping their ties with other marine parks anytime soon. SeaWorld has claimed that they stopped directly buying from the hunters because it, in so many words, “made the corporation look bad.” Not because it was wrong but because they were afraid that they might damage their valuable reputation. And since then, they have still maintained friendly relationships with marine parks that do directly support the slaughter. Whether SeaWorld is directly or indirectly supporting the drive fisheries is not what’s up for debate. Directly supporting the slaughter is just as bad as indirectly supporting the slaughter. 

SeaWorld’s silence about this disturbing practice is also something to be noted. As the biggest most influential corporation in the industry, they have not made a single move against cetacean slaughter. And as a corporation that claims to prioritize conserving wildlife, this goes against their supposed efforts. SeaWorld supporters, please consider this information.

This is my third post in my series of instances in which SeaWorld has went against conservation efforts. The subject is quite lengthy so I have decided to split it up into several posts containing one or two interesting situations. 

In this case I would like to highlight SeaWorld’s influence on cetacean slaughter, and the capture of wild animals for unethical reasons. 

In the year 2011 SeaWorld San Diego made an absolutely appalling decision. Despite the uproar from conservationists, the park captured (or in their own words “acquired”) ten emperor penguins from their home in Cape Washington, Antarctica. To make matters worse, the penguins were just babies and completely dependent of their mothers. Cath Wallace of the Antarctic and Southern Ocean Coalition said that “plucking” the baby birds from their natural habitat showed the difficulty of managing wildlife in Antarctica. “Antarctica is a reserve for science and nature, not a place for [taking] things from their homes.”  Bob Tait director of the conservation group Friends of the Earth agrees, “We strongly object to the removal of the penguins from their colony, and subjecting them to the ordeals of lengthy jet travel, and condemning them, for profit-driven reasons, to live out the rest of their lives separated from their real colony in an alien environment at SeaWorld, California.” David Koontz, communications director for SeaWorld, claimed that the birds were being “acquired” by the park for “valuable research” in an independent research facility. He also confirmed that the emperor penguins would be a part of the marine park’s Penguin Encounter exhibit. The first question raised was why SeaWorld had to acquire wild emperor penguins when they have a successful breeding program at their own park? When presented with this question Koontz answered, “most of SeaWorld’s penguins are too old to undergo anesthesia, which would be required as part of the research.” With a successful breeding program, I find it hard to believe that there were no young emperor penguins residing in their exhibit. I also have to inquire why the penguins could not be released after the research. Tait confirmed that the park had no intentions of releasing the penguins. 

The summer of this year (2012) SeaWorld applied for a permit. The permit was to capture (or again in SeaWorld’s own words, “obtain”), import, or export, 20 cetaceans or pinnepeds for “scientific research.” The permit explains, “For live animals, unlimited specimens would be collected for import or export from not more than 20 individual animals per species per year. Specimens may be taken at anytime of the year and in all areas worldwide where pinnipeds and cetaceans are found.” The document goes on to read, “Specimens from dead animals, located solely within the jurisdiction of the U.S.A. or Canada, would be collected under the following circumstances: Legal subsistence harvesting; killed incidentally to fishing or other operations; found dead at sea or beached; or that died of natural causes.” The specimens listed include “Several species of dolphin, pilot whales, beluga whales, killer whales, South American sea lions, Steller sea lions, and Hawaiian monk seals. Including but not limited to reproductive cells and organs, urine, feces, teeth, skin, saliva, ocular and nasal secretions, and whole blood taken from dead or captive individuals.” 

The permit SeaWorld applied for is quite shocking for a variety of reasons, but the main reason I’d like to focus on is the idea of acquiring beluga sperm for the park’s captive breeding program. As you can see in the permit, SeaWorld is allowed to obtain sperm under “legal subsistence harvesting.” Subsistence harvesting is the brutal, inhumane, slaughter of endangered beluga whale. In many ways it is similar to the Japanese drive fisheries. In another recently published document SeaWorld states, “Systematic banking of spermatozoa for long-term storage from 33 trained cetaceans has been accomplished by our group and collaborators (bottlenose dolphin: n = 21; Pacific white-sided dolphin: n = 4; killer whale: n = 6; beluga: n = 1) and from wild beluga (n = 4) in conjunction with native subsistence hunts.” On page two of this document SeaWorld shows deep concern for the dwindling wild beluga population. They blame subsistence hunts as the reason the animals are endangered. “…a subpopulation of beluga, whose habitat is the Cook Inlet in Alaska, has been classified as critically endangered in response to multifactorial impacts of habitat change and subsistence hunting.” Ironically SeaWorld has already confirmed in two separate documents that they are collaborating with subsistence hunters.  

For a corporation that “strives to conserve wildlife” I find it surprising that they can sleep at night. SeaWorld supporters I urge you to consider this information. 

In a seperate post I’d like to explain SeaWorld’s relationship with the Japanese drive fisheries and their responsibility in the endangerment of the southern resident orca population.