the-cetacean reblogged
the-cetacean reblogged
Any time I see someone worshipping Ingrid Visser I remember the time her organisation, under her advice, kept an orca calf on a mattress in a horse trailer overnight because they wanted to “rehabilitate” him/put him in a makeshift sea pen to treat like a pool toy until he died.
I remember when videos showed up of newly named Toa vocalising (usually a sign of stress) and her cooing and making nonsense noises at him. And the comments were like “she’s talking to him!!!”
Ingrid also insisted of making Toa interact with people despite him being a very sick baby orca who was slowly dying.
This was later confirmed by people who were there:
I remember when untrained volunteers were crowding this stressed sick orca calf, bragging about swimming with him and bonding with him and ignoring advice to stop habituating him.
They had young kids in with him that didn’t know better and were told by Ingrid to interact with him like this. They were also laughing about how he “snored.” (Cetaceans don’t snore - anything that sounds like snoring is respiratory distress).
(Funny how waterwork is only okay when they do it with the stressed and dying orca calf but not in SeaWorld.)
The pathetic attempt to rehabilitate this dying calf by treating him like a pet, putting him in a tub of freshwater that quickly became toxic with ammonia. Signing off feeds with belly rubs and formulas changed behind the backs of the actual experts from Wellington Zoo and the experts consulted overseas who actually have successfully rehabbed calves.
How Whale Rescue (Ingrid’s organisation) lied again and again about Toa’s health and chances to be rehabilitated and released. How they misrepresented information about habituation when rehabbing whales and how Ingrid wanted to “train” Toa, despite plans to release him. How they demonised SeaWorld and claimed they weren’t involved despite records showing that SeaWorld and Loro Parque vets had provided their formula recipes and calf rearing protocols.
None of this is true - Ingrid has never rehabilitated any whale from a marine park. All the information she was getting was from DOC and the advisory group team
I could go on but I hit my image limit.
Basically: Ingrid’s “expertise” misled the New Zealand public, bullying out the actual experts so she could play orca trainer with her new pet.
If you want whales to stay wild, let them stay wild. That’s fine. But recognize that it means no rehabilitation. If a neonatal calf strands with no proper facilities available for rehab and no pod in sight, then the most humane option is euthanasia. Full stop. Not… whatever this disaster was.
Wildlife biology is not wildlife rehab. No matter how esteemed a biologist you are, you are not a veterinarian and you are not a rehabber. Housing a cetacean out of the water, on its side… keeping him in freshwater… letting members of the general public love all over him… these things would never, ever happen at a true rehabilitation facility. But Dr. Visser insisted on presenting herself as the end-all be-all expert on cetacean rehab, even while the DOC was reaching out to actual marine mammal veterinarians (not random NZ vets with no cetacean experience) and being told no, stop, stop this now.
And don’t get me started on the hypocrisy of insisting that orcas must remain wild under any and all circumstances, and then cooing about how this wild baby loves belly rubs and kisses. And I don’t doubt that he did by the way, because cetaceans, especially calves, adapt incredibly quickly to people. It’s why calves under one year of age are automatically non-releasable. They will never return to the wild, and if that’s unacceptable to you, then euthanize the calf.
Oh, and the claim that “dozens” of marine park cetaceans have returned to successful, fully wild lives after “years” of human contact is a lie from the pit of hell. As is the statement that Dr. Visser has ever rehabilitated a captive cetacean.
For all America’s issues, I’m at least grateful we have formal marine stranding networks, with experienced rehab experts and specially trained veterinarians. And if New Zealand doesn’t want to follow suit, so be it. But never allow something like this to happen again.
the-cetacean reblogged
peduncling-away-deactivated2019
Anonymous asked:
Trick training isn't Enrichment it's circus skills and wild animals shouldn't be subjected to that
Lol hello animal rights activist with no clue about enrichment :)
Behavioral enrichment (closely related to environmental enrichment) is an animal husbandry principle that seeks to enhance the quality of captive animal care by identifying and providing the environmental stimuli necessary for optimal psychological and physiological well-being.[1] The goal of environmental enrichment is to improve or maintain an animal’s physical and psychological health by increasing the range or number of species-specific behaviors, increasing positive utilization of the captive environment, preventing or reducing the frequency of abnormal behaviors such as stereotypies, and increasing the individual’s ability to cope with the challenges of captivity.
Training is enrichment. High energy behaviours improve and maintain the whale’s physical well-being by keeping them fit and also gives them mental challenges in order to work out the behaviour they need to perform to get treats. Like look at this training session with Shouka. Huge rates of reinforcement (they even get a nice big fish jackpot) and really having to engage their body to get those extra high jumps.
Training also prevents animals from being inactive and engaging in stereotypic behaviours like logging, as we see in this video (although there’s still toys provided for the whales, which is good to see).
“Circus tricks” is a really lazy definition of behaviour imo. High energy behaviours like high jumping and flipping and splashing are good for physical activity for these animals, which are living in fairly under stimulating environments. They’re not going to be released into the wild since a lot of them are not suitable candidates and also have terrible immune systems due to lack of exposure.
So yeah I’d prefer to see these animals being physically and mentally engaged via “circus tricks” then to leave them to wallow in their pools with nothing to do simply because some people don’t agree with the concept.
All of this. Also, what a lot of people think of as ‘tricks’ often double for husbandry behaviors. (Not this example, though). A bear sticking it’s tongue out may also be the same cue as for an oral examination.
the-cetacean reblogged
There are many benefits of being a marine biologist. I'm not sure running into this is one of them.
That's the marine biologist don't be rude
ah, to be a rolling mass of loaches(?)...
Diversity win! These fish are shambling
official fish that make me vaguely uncomfortable to look at post
@identifying-fish-in-photos can we get confirmation on what sort of fish these are?
✨striped eel catfish✨
These venomous fish are the exclusive prey item of one species of sea snake, Hydrophis major, and some individuals eat *dozens of them* at a time (Shine et al. 2019). They can even track the chemical cues the fish use to maintain connection in these dense foraging balls (Udyawer et al. 2020).
Dolphins: Spy in the Pod (BBC)
Dolphins: Spy in the Pod (BBC)
Dolphins: Spy in the Pod (BBC)
Dolphins: Spy in the Pod (BBC)
Dolphins: Spy in the Pod (BBC)
Dolphins: Spy in the Pod (BBC)
Dolphins: Spy in the Pod (BBC)
Dolphins: Spy in the Pod (BBC)
Dolphins: Spy in the Pod (BBC)
the-cetacean reblogged
This rather heartbreaking clip shows an Orca dragging a baby Humpback Whale by the tail.
I know it’s not sad but the wild is a cruel and unforgiving place. So don’t please don’t hate on us.
This was filmed off the Baja California peninsula, Mexico by Whale Watch Cabo. These appear to be Eastern Tropical Pacific (ETP) orcas, which are known to feed on a variety of prey items, including large marine mammals. It’s very rare to capture underwater footage of predation, so this is really stunning.
I can’t quite get clear IDs on them, I’ll have to dig in to the ETP ID guide to see if there are any matches! The adult male looks most closely like E231, but I’ll have to double check.
Dolphins: Spy in the Pod (BBC)
Dolphins: Spy in the Pod (BBC)
Dolphins: Spy in the Pod (BBC)