Newsgroups: rec.pets,alt.activism,sci.environment,talk.environment
From: rchilder@us.oracle.com (Richard Childers)
Subject: Re: Beluga Whales Die at Shadd Aquarium in Chicago, Ill
Followup-To: sci.environment
Summary: greed raises its ugly head
Keywords: whales lilly sentient aquarium
Organization: Memes-R-Us
Date: Tue, 29 Sep 1992 22:20:24 GMT
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chris@mks.com (Chris Retterath) writes:


>I notice you're with physics at UofT -- what qualifications do you
>have in biology/marine biology/aquaria? 

What qualifications do _you_ have, Chris, that you can question his ?


>Running a large aquarium requires the capture of animals from the wild,
>just like a zoo. Have you actively sought to prevent this in the past,
>or are you just jumping on the latest 'i-luv-whales' bandwagon?

An unnecessary death is always to be regretted.


>>	Determination to stop this stupidity will pay off.

>Whose stupidity? The whales died by accident. Do you think anyone would
>take the trouble they did to kill them on purpose?

Clearly, someone stood to benefit. Obviously, it wasn't the whales.

Having worked at the California Academy of Sciences for a few years, and
having been taught SCUBA diving by one of their resident shark experts,
I can say with a fair amount of certainty that the bottom line was money.

Even at the California Academy of Sciences - Steinhart Aquarium, to be
precise - they go to great efforts to duplicate water chemistry. In fact,
they don't try to duplicate it, in most cases, they pipe it directly from
the Pacific Ocean ( _not_ the San Francisco Bay, please note ) under three
or so miles of intervening sand and Golden Gate Park. They recognize their
limitations.

I recall, when they first had their circular tank installed, they had an
odd problem with sharks dying. ( It's called the Shark Roundabout. ) It
turns out that the problem was an electromagnetic field leaking through the
wall, which resulted in many, many dead sharks before they fixed it. And
sharks are cold-blooded, fairly primitive creatures, hard to kill even when
they are out of the water and thrashing about.

Yes, the CAS has brought in some exotic species, and tried to keep them alive,
but almost always this was as a result of some sort of accident ... not, say,
as a result of a deliberated effort by some Great White Hunter. When they have
done otherwise, it may have resulted in big bucks at the front office, but
it also resulted in diminished respect amongst the local environmentalists.

And these people are serious experts ... undergrads from Woods Hole and the
like, not your average run-of-the-mill zoo keeper.

One has to ask if this was _necessary_ ... not to the zoo, but to the whales.
If they'd had a choice, I suspect their choice would be obvious.

If you feel it necessary to bash me as another whale-lover, have at it. But
before you do so, you should read John Lilly's books on dolphins and whales,
which address the size and complexity of their brains, among many other things
which - to the cognizant - mark them, if any species can be marked, as our
intellectual, even spiritual, peers.

-- richard

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