28 NOV 2018: The blatant hypocrisy of some human beings and the wilful ignorance of others who follow along blindly, not bothering to investigate more closely, never ceases to amaze me. When Air Canada and WestJet jumped on the bandwagon and cut ties to SeaWorld in sync with a bill to ban whale and dolphin captivity and in the wake of concerns raised by animal rights advocates, most notable of whom is PETA – the self-styled People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals who ‘rescue’ thousands of animals each year only to euthanize the vast majority of them, you had to wonder. Did anyone take a closer look at both organizations?

PETA may do good work when it comes to many areas of animal cruelty – the use of animals for testing, the trapping of animals and other inhumane practices, but when it comes to household pets it’s a very different story.

PETA had organized a recent email campaign urging Air Canada to sever promotional ties with SeaWorld.

“Both lawmakers and corporations recognize that confining sea animals to tiny concrete cells and depriving them of the life that they were meant to have is abusive,” PETA executive vice-president Tracy Reiman said in a release.

Killing them however, seems to be just fine.

This is a fairly long column, but I ask you to stay with it – it’s so easy to point fingers – but there are always at least two sides…

Air Canada says its vacation wing stopped offering SeaWorld tickets calling the move a “commercial decision.”

WestJet dropped the tickets – previously available as part of vacation packages – last August.

“This was a decision our leadership team made entirely on its own and believes the decision is entirely in keeping with our caring culture,” spokeswoman Lauren Stewart said in an email.

Did their “caring culture” take a close look at both SeaWorld and PETA?

A good death?

On their website PETA justifies their actions to widely kill animals as follows, “The word “euthanasia” comes from two Greek words—”eu” meaning “good” and “thanatos” meaning “death.” Euthanasia is defined as a merciful release from life in order to end suffering.”

And what if the animal is not suffering?

In March 2017, the Center for Consumer Freedom (CCF) released an affidavit revealing information regarding a US $9 million lawsuit filed against PETA for stealing and killing a man’s dog in Virginia.

Wilbur Zarate sued PETA in 2015 after two employees stole his family Chihuahua, named Maya, from his porch and euthanized her within hours (violating Virginia law). PETA settled the suit for around $50,000 calling it an “unfortunate mistake.”

Heather Harper-Troje, who worked for PETA’s Community Animal Project, filed a horrifying affidavit alleging the PETA program had an obsession with death driven by PETA president and co-founder Ingrid Newkirk.

She says that while employed at PETA, “my primary responsibilities included gaining possession of as many cats and dogs and possible, almost all of which were euthanized.”

In the affidavit she claims her supervisor Ingrid Newkirk, who was in charge of the Community Animal Project, said that “an effort to adopt out an animal was a waste of PETA’s money and effort.”

Harper-Troje says she “was specifically told by my supervisors at PETA to tell people that we would find good homes for the dogs and cats, even though we knew the animals would be euthanized.”

And, “If we saw animals loose, even on someone’s property, we were to take them whenever we could. PETA would not hold them for five days. We would not obtain signed releases if an animal was stolen, but would euthanize the animals immediately.”

She also claims that, “We would routinely euthanize healthy puppies and kittens and other highly adoptable animals”

View the full affidavit here – it makes chilling reading: http://bit.ly/2o3ISha

The slaughter has continued since Harper-Troje left in 2000.

PETA reportedly advised Virginia state regulators that it killed 1,411 cats and dogs in 2016 at its headquarters—72% of the cats and dogs it took in. An analysis of PETA’s 2016 kill rate shows that it kills dogs at 16.3 times the rate of other private shelters in Virginia.

“PETA has defended its atrocious kill rates for years by saying it takes ‘unadoptable’ dogs that no other shelter will take. These explosive allegations from a PETA insider show that PETA’s lack of honesty is second only to its bizarre quest to kill pets,” said Will Coggin, research director at the Center for Consumer Freedom.

“PETA’s systemic slaughter of cats and dogs is an affront to animal lovers everywhere.”

Conservation not killing

Meanwhile, SeaWorld, which has three marine theme parks in Florida, Texas and California under the umbrella of SeaWorld Entertainment Inc., confirmed that “the business relationship has ended” with both airlines.

Okay let’s get the elephant (or the orca) out of the room. Yes, SeaWorld traditionally has featured entertainment featuring dolphins and killer whales.

Yes, they live in a smaller than ocean sized environment. SeaWorld have stopped their breeding plan, but these creatures cannot be released into the oceans. They cannot fend for themselves and would die. Unlike PETA, SeaWorld believes it is more humane to provide their charges with a safe and secure environment where they are fed, cared for and provided medical assistance as required, till the end of their lives.

Let us also acknowledge that SeaWorld, and other marine shows, aquariums, circuses, zoos and other venues exist and have provided entertainment accepted and enjoyed by millions of families for many, many years. Tastes and sensitivities change and while entertainment involving animals is still acceptable to many, to others it is not. These are personal choices.

I am not a vegan or a vegetarian, I wear leather, and eat fish, fowl and meat without a second’s thought. However, I love animals, hate hunting for sport and abhor cruelty to animals. I have on several occasions toured SeaWorld’s medical and rehabilitative facilities – and experienced firsthand the attention and consideration they provide to the creatures in their care. I admire the work they do.

In a recent conversation with a SeaWorld spokesperson I discussed SeaWorld’s efforts rescue and rehabilitation, research and conservation.

“We just surpassed 33,000 animal rescues over the course of about 40 plus years. That’s 33,000 rescues” He said, “That makes us one of the largest animal rescue organizations in the world. A lot of people aren’t familiar with the fact that we have these rescue facilities at each of our parks.”

Day or night, holidays, Christmas – it doesn’t matter – when they get a call saying an animal needs to be rescued, they can activate within 30 to 45 minutes.

“We have all these amazing rescue stories. Manatees, whale disentanglements, or sea turtles that need to be rescued – it could be cold stress, or entangled in nets – or whatever the cause.”

‘Ambassadors’ from Sea World or Busch Gardens go across the globe to be a part of conservation initiatives. SeaWorld supports programs like the Killer Whale Conservation Research Program through the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation which was initiated three or four years ago.

“At the time we were part of the founding members of Nifwif, (National Fish and Wildlife Foundation).
Working with them, we helped launch this program with what was the largest private commitment of its kind at the time – US $500,000 a year over the course of three to four years – and it is still going on.  The neat part is that it is specifically targeted to the southern resident population of killer whales, which is an endangered population.”

There are 74 members of that pod left in Northern California and up into Canada, that need help. This program specifically targets conservation efforts to save that population.

What about research?

“All of the research that takes place at our parks is invaluable in one way or another, and I’ll give you a great example.” He said.

“We’re involved with a toxin transfer study that a researcher through National Marine and Fisheries is engaged in. Toxins are obviously a really big issue for animals in the wild and they have become this area of research because it could be contributing to the lack of viable calves and viable offspring for the population of killer whales. Dr. Dawn Noren, working with NOAA, has engaged in this study for the last several years to understand how toxins are transported or how much toxins are transferred from mom to calf and what kind of impact they play, and she’s using our whales as a base line.

“There’s research happening in our parks every day that contributes to conserving animals in the wild. Without the ability to study these animals in a controlled setting, we lose some of our ability both to understand what’s happening to them in the wild, and our ability to protect them in the wild.

“It’s crucial that we have access to this, and that’s just one arm of the conservation puzzle. Our researchers and our teams have either authored or co-authored over 350 peer-reviewed, published scientific papers.”

I had to ask about the penguins. I love the penguins.

“Have you seen Wonder Twin, right, the big one with the wetsuit?” he asked. I had not.

Turns out, Wonder Twin is an Adelie penguin. Penguins molt and lose their feathers – it’s a naturally occurring thing. Sometimes however, both in geological settings and the wild, when they molt, the feathers don’t grow in quite the right way – or at all – so there are no feathers, or just a few and then they have a problem. Wonder Twin had a problem – her feathers weren’t growing back in.

“Well, you can’t put an Arctic penguin in an Arctic setting she would have frozen,” he said.

Instead, SeaWorld’s zoological and wardrobe team fashioned a wetsuit for her which kept her warm and provided some buoyancy. So, she was able to go back onto the habitat in her wetsuit, stay warm, be among the rest of the penguins until she molted again and her feathers grew back in.

Now, she looks like every other Adelie.

“These are the things that we’re able to do in a zoological setting when we have the resources and the expertise. We’re able to provide the care in very innovative ways sometimes that allows animals to survive and maintain this sense of normalcy being out among the animals that they’re used to being out among.”

The Manatee Formula

SeaWorld rescues a lot of abandoned or orphaned Manatee calves, at an age where they still would have been dependent on their mother for sustenance. You can’t feed it vegetation like you would a grown manatee. So, the SeaWorld team created a formula that mimics the milk that the calf would have got from his mother.

“When a calf comes in, depending on its age, it has to eat every three hours- around the clock. Middle of the night, first thing in the morning. We have staff on site 24 hours to bottle feed these calves every three hours until that calf is old enough to start eating vegetation. It gets fed once every three hours for as long as it needs it.”

“And then you release them, or you keep them?” we asked.

“First and foremost, the goal with every rescued animal is to return it back to the wild, plain and simple. That is always the goal, and if that animal is deemed non-releasable, it is deemed non-releasable not by SeaWorld, but by either an independent council or by a regulatory agency depending on the species.

“An example is Tionic, a rescued Beluga calf that came from Alaska down to SeaWorld San Antonio. NOAA, National Marines and Fisheries, deemed him non-releasable. Because he was so young, he’s now dependent on humans to survive. If you put him back out in the wild, he wouldn’t know what to do, he wouldn’t know how to survive or how to find food or how to find a pod. He just never learned.”

After NOAA National Fisheries deemed him non-releasable, they actually looked for a home for him. Even if SeaWorld is caring for the animal, it’s not guaranteed that SeaWorld would be deemed his home. So accredited facilities are contacted to see if they would meet the needs of the animal.

“Let’s say three facilities come back and say, “Yeah, we’re interested, we could do that. We could provide a home for this animal.”

That independent panel would then take into account existing populations. For Tionic, they would ask what the existing Beluga whale population of the facility looked like? What kind of population or family are you putting him into? What does your facility look like? What does your veterinary care look like? How many staff? All of these factors are taken into account and then the panel makes a determination on where he will be placed.

“In this case they made the determination that SeaWorld San Antonio was the best home for him right now. So, under a very strict permit, he’s now with the Beluga whale pod at SeaWorld San Antonio.”

“He’s doing great. I was out there a few weeks ago. He’s looking great. He’s now with the pod. He’s got a couple of other pod mates that he’s sort of latched onto, like, ‘here are my buddies’.

“But our goal with any of these rescued animals is to get them back out, to care for them, rehabilitate them, get them back out in the wild. In the case where they can’t be returned, we will either care for them or they’ll be cared for at another aquarium facility.

“If SeaWorld is rehabilitating an animal and US Fish and Wildlife or WWCC, World Wildlife Conservation Commission, say they need to find a permanent home for this particular animal and nobody’s able to provide the home, SeaWorld will care for that animal. No animal will ever get turned away, and no animal will ever die because it does not have a place to be rehabilitated.

“The cool thing about manatees is they can undergo treatment for years and still be okay to be returned to the wild – and that is always the goal. You rehabilitate a dolphin or a cetacean, they become dependent upon humans. Manatees, you can rehabilitate, but we go through painstaking measures to ensure that these animals do not become dependent upon humans. We feed them in a specific way, and care for them in a specific way that ensures they don’t become dependent upon human care.

“But again, the cool thing with manatees is they can do this (rehabilitation) for years. If you have a manatee calf that’s rescued, it may undergo two to three years of rehabilitation. Then when it’s large enough and able to survive on its own, we take it back out and return it to the wild.”

There are many different components and different areas and paths that SeaWorld continues to go down. They educate people about animals and the life that these animals face in the wild, and they endeavour to inspire people to take action and join them in conserving the animals and protecting them. And, through conservation effort, research effort, rescue and rehabilitation efforts, SeaWorld wants to make sure that it is leading the charge and out in the field to help animals.

“And I didn’t even talk about the conservation fund.” Says our enthusiastic spokesperson. “The SeaWorld and Busch Gardens Conservation Fund has been around 15 years. It has contributed US $16.5 million to conservation efforts on all seven continents across the globe. To everything from marine mammals, marine animals, dolphins, cetaceans, to tigers and elephants and giraffes.

“And also, it’s not brand new but certainly, we’re taking it to a new level – this marriage of attractions with conservation. Infinity Falls is a great example. In partnership with the Everglades Foundation there’s an educational aspect. It’s all about freshwater ecosystems. The neat part about Infinity Falls from a conservation standpoint is it’s the first time we sort of dove head first, pun intended, into freshwater ecosystems instead of the ocean. It’s complementing everything else we’re doing from an ocean perspective.

“Now guests who will come in and experience Infinity Falls or even just in that general area where that attraction is, can learn about what programs like the Everglades Foundation are doing to protect freshwater ecosystems in Florida. They can learn about conservation, and everything that they can do to have a positive impact on these freshwater ecosystems.”

Big difference

Compare that attitude of care, preservation and rehabilitation, to this about PETA from the Huffington Post in December 2017:

“According to inspection reports by the Virginia Department of Agriculture, the PETA facility “does not contain sufficient animal enclosures to routinely house the number of animals annually reported as taken into custody… The shelter is not accessible to the public, promoted, or engaged in efforts to facilitate the adoption of animals taken into custody.”

“Routine inspections often found “no animals to be housed in the facility” or, at best “few animals in custody,” despite thousands of them impounded by PETA annually. Since they take in thousands per year, where were they?

“90% [of the animals] were euthanized within the first 24 hours of custody,” according to the Virginia Department of Agriculture inspector. How can people adopt animals from PETA when they kill the animals they acquire within minutes without ever making them available for adoption? How can people adopt animals when they have no adoption hours, do no adoption promotion, and do not show animals for adoption, choosing to kill them without doing so? In fact, when asked by a reporter what efforts they make to find animals homes, PETA had no comment.

“A postcard written and signed by Ingrid Newkirk, PETA’s founder, admitting that PETA does not believe animals have a right to live, despite its public perception of PETA as an “animal rights” organization. The right to life is the most fundamental of all rights. It is fundamental because without it, no other “rights” are possible. How can animals be guaranteed the right to food, water, shelter and protection, when those things can be taken away by killing them?”

People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, indeed!

Personally, if I had to choose – there is no question that I’d sooner leave Charlie, my dog – or any other animal – in the care of SeaWorld rather than PETA.