Activist Brings Attention to the Cruelty of Dolphinariums (Captive Dolphin Activities)

I’m glad someone is finally speaking out about this. Seems many individuals are fooled by resorts and the like selling dolphinariums or captive dolphin activities as eco. Though this is in regard to Turkey, it applies to any entity in any part of the world fooling people and profiting off of this obvious cruelty.

As stated below, “[p]eople get into the water to be as free as dolphins, but, ironically, dolphins have no freedom anymore. They live captive lives in the pools where they are imprisoned…”

Article:

Activists urge boycott of Turkish dolphinariums

http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/n.php?n=stop-going-to-aqua-entertainment-parks-save-the-lives-of-dolphins-2010-08-01

Sunday, August 1, 2010

İPEK EMEKSİZ

ISTANBUL - Hürriyet Daily News

Documentary producer Savaş Karataş holds posters urging people to boycott dolphinariums in Turkey.

A filmmaker who plans to swim the Dardanelles to raise awareness about the plight of captive dolphins joined a group of animal-rights activists Sunday in urging people not to visit the country’s dolphinariums.

“People get into the water to be as free as dolphins, but, ironically, dolphins have no freedom anymore. They live captive lives in the pools where they are imprisoned,” documentary producer Savaş Karataş told the Hürriyet Daily News & Economic Review on Sunday.

In a statement issued underwater along Istanbul’s Suadiye district coastline, the head of the Animal Rights Federation, or HAYTAP, objected to the use of dolphins for both entertainment and rehabilitative purposes, calling the latter unscientific as well as cruel.

“Treatment at dolphin aquatic parks, promoted as a way to give hope to families having children with disabilities, has no scientific basis,” said HAYTAP speaker Ege Sakin, adding that the ministries of health and environment should intervene to keep families from being deceived by such scams.

“The chlorinated water [in dolphinariums] burns the eyes of the dolphins and their sensitive skin is scratched by the nails of children using the animals as jet-skis,” Karataş said. “Since they are trapped within a too-small pool, they often hit the walls and close off their sonar systems from sending signals. As a result, they cannot communicate. They are deaf and numb.”

According to Karataş, the idea of opening dolphinariums in Turkey is an imitation of similar aqua-parks abroad, but Turkish authorities have mismanaged the capture and handling of dolphins. In European countries, he said, only dolphins that are defined as “orphans” – after being washed up onshore and separated from their families – can be used in such entertainment parks and must be treated first for any medical concerns.

“[In Turkey,] the Agriculture Ministry gave permission to capture 30 dolphins so it would not lose foreign currency by purchasing [orphan dolphins] from abroad,” Karataş said. “Around 24 dolphins were captured and one of them died during the operation.”

Animal rights have not been developed as a concept in Turkey and a law protecting them needs to be passed, Karataş said, explaining how he has initiated a “swim-in” protest, taking to the waters in the name of the captive dolphins that cannot in order to raise awareness about their treatment in the country’s approximately one dozen aquatic parks.

“I tried to show the tragedy of dolphins via my documentary. Now, I want to attract notice through swimming and make people question why they are participating in such entertainment shows where dolphins are unhappy,” Karataş said.

He already swam June 29 between Kaş, a tourist town in Turkey’s Antalya province and Kastelorizo, a small Greek island located 7.1 kilometers away in the southeastern Mediterranean; and July 18 in Istanbul’s Bosphorus for a distance of 6.5 kilometers. Another 6.5 kilometers await him in the Dardanelles off the coast of Çanakkale as he attempts to reach 20 kilometers in total.

Karataş previously shot the documentary “Saving Flipper” with the support of world-famous dolphin activist Richard O’Barry, who provided visual materials.

“We explained the journey of dolphins used as circus animals, brought from Japan to Turkey,” Karataş said. “Even if dolphins look like they are smiling during their performances, actually they are shedding tears.”

Noting that dolphins in aquatic parks are no different from the bears that were used to be forced to dance to live music on city streets, Karataş said: “Dolphins are in agony because [handlers] try to discipline them through hunger. Normally, they don’t eat dead fish, but they become accustomed to doing so since they have their performances at every meal time. Just for the sake of dead fish, they bounce balls and jump through hoops. How can we think that they are happy?”

Activists with HAYTAP are working with those in Greenpeace and the World Wildlife Fund to try and make dolphins’ voices heard. A sit-down strike is planned for Aug. 15 to demand the passing of an animal-rights law.

“If we cannot receive a result, we will go to Ankara on Oct. 4 and continue our action,” said Şule Baylan, the İzmir representative for the Protecting Nature and Animals Association, or DOHAYKO.

The Obvious Cruelty of Keeping Chimpanzees in Captivity: Will it Ever End?

I’ll let this opening quote from the story below state it all: “Nobody should own a chimpanzee. Not in America. Not even in Africa, home of all chimpanzees not born in captivity.”

Overall, a great article that points out the obvious.

Article:

Chimps R Us: How Much Longer Are We Going to Keep Our Cousins as Pets?

http://www.alternet.org/story/131900/chimps_r_us%3A_how_much_longer_are_we_going_to_keep_our_cousins_as_pets/


By G. Pascal Zachary, AlterNet. Posted March 17, 2009.

A life of captivity is too cruel for chimpanzees and dangerous for their owners. We should give them the freedoms we grant ourselves.
Nobody should own a chimpanzee. Not in America. Not even in Africa, home of all chimpanzees not born in captivity.

The gruesome attack by an adult chimpanzee on its Connecticut owner last month provided a vivid reminder of why Congress should impose a complete ban on keeping chimps as pets. .

Twenty states still permit this dubious instance of animal loving. Last month, the House has passed a bill ending this option. Now the Senate must do the same. The debate in Congress centers on practical reasons against keeping chimpanzees. They are simply too dangerous to live alongside humans; and caring for them properly, in a private home, is virtually impossible.

The utilitarian case against pet ownership obscures a wider moral lesson about relations between chimpanzees and their human kin. They are too much like us not to be included in our what intellectual historian David Hollinger calls "the circle of we.".

A close genetic relative to humans, chimpanzees are intelligent, sensitive, solve problems and form coherent social relationships. They plan, they improvise, they endure. For those who closely study or assist chimpanzees, either in the wild or in African sanctuaries, come to believe, as I do, that chimpanzees are as glorious as humans -- and deserve to exist on some roughly equal plane as us.

"Chimpanzees deserve to be treated with the same dignity as a human being," says Sheri Speede, an Oregon veterinarian who runs a large chimp sanctuary in the West African country of Cameroon. "They are entitled to the same quality of life as we are."

If Speede is correct, should not chimpanzees be as free as humans? Should the nation debate -- with the same energy shown in the national conversation over the practice of keeping chimpanzees as pets -- ending the incarceration of the 269 chimpanzees now captive in 35 American zoos?

I perhaps have no standing to ask this question. I am not an expert in chimpanzees, nor have I been a militant defender of their rights and entitlements. At least not for very long.

My first close encounter with a chimpanzee came eight years ago. On a whim, I visited the zoo in Accra, Ghana. I saw an African woman inside a small enclosure, playing with an orphaned 1-year-old chimpanzee named Jimmy. Hunters had killed his mother.

The woman, named Chizo, was his surrogate mother. She joined Jimmy in his cage -- under the supervision of a primate expert from Europe -- bringing him some measure of natural development, since unrelated chimpanzees would not likely befriend him.

Baby chimpanzees are smarter than humans at the same age, research has shown (and orphaned chimps, given human care can be even smarter; one study, published in February, found that such chimps recorded higher scores on IQ tests than many human infants). As I returned to the zoo in successive days in order to strike up a friendship with Chizo, I came to agree with the scientific consensus, marveling at Jimmy's intelligence.

He quickly concluded, for instance, that I was a rival for Chizo's attention. And with an eerie insight, the afternoon that I first asked her on a date, Jimmy mounted a vigorous effort to prevent her from departing his cage, blocking the escape door over and over, even threatening to break out with her.

He kept me waiting on the other side of the bars. Time and again, I thought he'd planned this whole stalemate, simply to upset me. (Indeed, researchers in Sweden this month published a study documenting the "contingency plans" made by one adult chimp in a Swedish zoo.)

Chizo worked closely with Jimmy more than a year. Their partnership was ended by Chizo's decision move with me to the U.S. Before we left Ghana, we both felt sorrow over leaving Jimmy behind.

An effort by a global network of chimpanzees activists failed to secure Jimmy's release to a sanctuary, where he could live in a natural environment, while still under the protection of humans. After we settled in the U.S., another serious attempt was made to gain Jimmy's release, but again the government of Ghana refused.

The recent controversy over pet chimpanzees made me think about the hundreds of chimps in zoos in America and around the world -- and of Jimmy, too. He remains in a zoo in Ghana, although he's been joined by another orphan, a younger female, also rescued and brought to the zoo after the slaughter by hunters of her parents.

In September, Chizo and I visited Jimmy and his new friend. Jimmy instantly recognized Chizo from a distance of more than 100 feet. Jimmy, now 7 years old, is too big and strong to permit Chizo to join him in his cage. Yet they played anyway, hugging and dancing separated by steel bars. Jimmy showed off, jumping from a high perch onto a trampoline and doing endless somersaults.

He remembered me, too, though with less affection. Shrewdly drawing close to him by extending one hand in friendship, I approached the bars, looked in the eyes -- and then watched in astonishment as he three a hand full of waste at me. I ducked, adroitly, causing him to miss.

For a few hours, we played a game of cat and mouse. He drew me closer through acts of kindness, and then turned against me. Sometimes, he tossed waste at me with an unnerving accuracy, other times he spat in my direction.

Those days visiting Jimmy in the Kumasi zoo convinced me that, while he could not understand why Chizo and I had vanished from his life, he had felt long and hard our absence -- and now celebrated our return.

Before I departed, I asked the zoo director might he ever release Jimmy? I offered, as others have before, to arrange his transfer to sanctuary -- a kind of "gated community" where chimps experience something akin to living in the wild, yet are protected from hunters, each other and truly wild chimps who might attack them with lethal force.

I've visited Speede's sanctuary in Cameroon and seen up close the excellent care the chimps receive -- and their happy communion with each other and the forest. There are two other chimpanzee sanctuaries in this West African country, and together they are searching for land where a select group of their chimps can be released into a freer environment.

Releasing chimps, grown accustomed to the comforts of a sanctuary, is fraught; their survival skills diminished, these chimps can fall prey to other animals, hunters or even disease.

Speede, for instance, gives chimps medical care, and her sanctuary has special fencing, even at the canopy of the forest, to keep wild chimps from mounting attacks.

Lovers of chimpanzees worry of course that these human relatives are doomed to extinction as the lush forests they inhabit get cut down by loggers, bisected by roads and infiltrated by hunters. Trade in so-called bush meat, while illegal and constrained, continues. Demand comes from wealthier city dwellers, some of whom live in Europe or America.

Speede believes that sanctuaries -- and "release" programs of the sort she's preparing -- may be the only means of preventing the ultimate destruction of chimpanzees and their extraordinary ways of being.

If she's right, should Americans consider supporting such sanctuaries rather than the zoos where we now visit chimpanzees? In the case of Jimmy, I'm certain he would prefer to live in one of the two dozen sanctuaries around Africa. His cage in Ghana is small and has a cold concrete floor. The zoo director's desire for Jimmy to impregnate a female at the zoo strikes me as unwise. Given the longevity of chimps, Jimmy could easily live 30 or more years in his cage -- outliving me, easily, yet serving as a source of amusement and education for visitors to the Kumasi Zoo.

"He's our top attraction," the zoo director told me, when he once more rejected the idea of letting Jimmy go.

To free the 269 chimpanzees in American zoos is perhaps less urgent, because these zoos long ago switched to larger, more flexible enclosures that produce an illusion of open space. I do not doubt that the 269 chimpanzees residing in these advanced enclosures are unaware of their captivity.

The question is how long can we, the jailers, allow that to continue?

Recent Event at San Francisco Zoo Regarding Siberian Tiger Attack Once Again Proves Unnatural State of Zoos and Animals in Captivity

As stated below, it is possible that the teens were taunting the captive tiger. Life in captivity and this taunting could easily cause an already-stressed tiger to act.

A tragedy for all sides.

Article:

Cops: Tiger attack victim helped friend By JORDAN ROBERTSON and MARCUS WOHLSEN, Associated Press Writers

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20071228/
ap_on_re_us/tiger_escapes

SAN FRANCISCO - The last minutes of a 17-year-old boy's life were spent trying to save his friend from the tiger that was mauling him at the San Francisco Zoo, only to have the animal turn on him, police and family members said.

Carlos Sousa Jr. and his friend's brother desperately tried to distract the 350-pound Siberian tiger, but the big cat instead came after Sousa.

"He didn't run. He tried to help his friend, and it was him who ended up getting it the worst," the teen's father, Carlos Sousa Sr., said Thursday after meeting with police.

The heroic portrait of Sousa and a timeline of the dramatic Christmas Day attack emerged as officials revealed that the tiger's escape from its enclosure may have been aided by walls that were well below the height recommended by the accrediting agency for the nation's zoos.

San Francisco Zoo Director Manuel A. Mollinedo acknowledged that the wall around the animal's pen was just 12 1/2 feet high, after previously saying it was 18 feet. According to the Association of Zoos & Aquariums, the walls around a tiger exhibit should be at least 16.4 feet high.

Mollinedo said it was becoming increasingly clear the tiger leaped or climbed out, perhaps by grabbing onto a ledge. Investigators have ruled out the theory the tiger escaped through a door behind the exhibit at the zoo, which remained closed Friday.

"She had to have jumped," he said. "How she was able to jump that high is amazing to me."

Mollinedo said safety inspectors had examined the wall, built in 1940, and never raised any red flags about its size.

"When the AZA came out and inspected our zoo three years ago, they never noted that as a deficiency," he said. "Obviously now that something's happened, we're going to be revisiting the actual height."

The 4-year-old tiger, a female named Tatiana, went on a rampage near closing time Tuesday, killing Sousa and severely injuring the two others before police shot it to death.

Brothers Paul Dhaliwal, 19, and Kulbir Dhaliwal, 23, were at San Francisco General Hospital with severe bite and claw wounds. Their names were provided by hospital and law enforcement sources who spoke on condition of anonymity because the family had not yet given permission to release their names.

After interviewing the brothers, police said Kulbir Dhaliwal was the animal's first victim.

As the tiger clawed and bit him, Sousa and the younger brother yelled in hopes of scaring it off him, police said. The cat then went for Sousa, slashing his neck as the brothers ran to a zoo cafe for help.

After killing the teenager, the tiger followed a trail of blood left by Kulbir Dhaliwal about 300 yards to the cafe, where it mauled both men, police said.

Four officers who had already discovered Sousa's body then arrived and found the cat sitting next to one of the bloodied brothers, police Chief Heather Fong said. The victim yelled, "Help me! Help me!" and the animal resumed its attack, Fong said.

The officers used their patrol car lights to distract the tiger, and it turned and began approaching them, leading all four to open fire, she said.

Police are still investigating how Tatiana was able to leave the enclosure.

At least one expert said the wall was low enough for the tiger to leap to the top.

Zoo officials said a "moat" separating the habitat from the public viewing area that measured 33 feet across contained no water, and has never had any. They did not address whether that affected the tiger's ability to get out.

"I think it could be feasible for a cat that has been taunted or angered," Jack Hanna, former director of the Columbus Zoo, said Thursday. "I don't think it would ever just do it to do it."

Police have not addressed whether the victims had teased the tiger.

On Thursday, Fong denied earlier reports that police were looking into the possibility that the victims had dangled a leg or other body part over the edge of the moat, after a shoe and blood was found inside the enclosure. No shoe was found inside, but a shoeprint was found on the railing of the fence surrounding the enclosure, and police are checking it against the shoes of the three victims, she said.

AZA spokesman Steven Feldman said the minimum recommended height of 16.4 feet is just a guideline and that a zoo could still be deemed safe even if its wall were lower.

Accreditation standards require "that the barriers be adequate to keep the animals and people apart from each other," Feldman said. "Obviously something happened to cause that not to be the case in this incident."

Many other U.S. zoos have significantly higher walls around their tigers.

Mollinedo said surveillance cameras and new fencing will be installed around the exhibit.

Another Event Puts Question to Zoos: In Norway, Bears Escape from Zoo and are Killed

Two points here:

One, the unnatural nature of putting bears behind bars.

Two, the idocy of defaulting to killing when any issue arises.

Article:

Animal Rights Association Questions Bear killings

http://www.norwaypost.no/cgi-bin/norwaypost/imaker?id=101976

The Animal Rights Association, NOAH, might report the zoo that has shot and killed three bears in three weeks to the police.The 11-year-old female bear and her two cubs escaped from the zoo in Grong last Monday. Today they were found – and killed.

The police officer in Grong, Herolv Nordaunet, said that the only right thing to do was to shoot the bears, and that they followed all safety guidelines and precautions.

Spokesperson Siri Martinsen from NOAH said that they are very upset that the bears could escape so easily. Not long ago, two young wolves also escaped and were shot and killed shortly after.

“These animal ethics are not acceptable,” Martinsen said.
Manager of the zoo, Randi Dille, said that she will look closer into what went on after the animals escaped.

Six Flags Discovery Kingdom Kills Another Animal: Death of Giraffe Leads to In Defense Of Animals Has Filing Complaint With USDA

What in the world is Six Flags doing keeping live animals at an amusement park? How in the world does the USDA allow this?

Article:

VALLEJO: ANIMAL RIGHTS GROUP FILES COMPLAINT AGAINST SIX FLAGS
09/07/07 10:40 PDT

VALLEJO (BCN)

http://cbs5.com/localwire/localfsnews/bcn/2007/09/07/n/
HeadlineNews/COMPLAINT-FILED/resources_bcn_html

In Defense of Animals has filed a complaint with the U.S. Department of Agriculture asking them to investigate the death of a giraffe at Six Flags Discovery Kingdom on Wednesday.

Makonnen the 2-year-old giraffe died when a one-alarm fire broke out in the giraffe barn at the amusement park, according to Six Flags. IDA is asking the USDA to investigate whether the animal's death was caused by lack of proper facility maintenance. An electrical outlet in the barn malfunctioned and started the fire.

The USDA approves exhibitors' licenses for people or venues that are going to be exhibiting wild or exotic animals, said Les Schilbert, a consultant for IDA, so they will conduct an investigation to see if the license should be revoked.

According to the IDA the federal Animal Welfare Act requires exhibitors to maintain housing facilities in good repair so that animals are protected from injury. In the filed complaint IDA also cited concerns about the lack of overnight monitoring of park animals.

The fire broke out just after 2 a.m. Wednesday night, according to a park spokeswoman. Two giraffes in an outside corral were led away from the flames, but Makonnen was inside the giraffe barn and perished.

Louisiana State University Buys Another Live Tiger as Mascot: Ridiculous Move Exposes Lack of Concern in General for Endangered Animals

Absolutely ridiculous that a university is allowed to have a rare, live animal. How could they possibly care for such an animal?

Those tempted to be fooled by the foolish words of the LSU chancellor below, think again.


Article:

Animal rights groups: LSU tiger must go

http://www.postchronicle.com/news/strange/
article_212102553.shtml

Published: 8, 2007 at 8:49 PM

BATON ROUGE, La., 8 (UPI) -- Louisiana State University’s decision to acquire another live tiger mascot has outraged some animal rights activists.

Mike VI, a 2-year-old male from an animal rescue organization in Indiana, is a Bengal-Siberian mix. The university’s previous mascot died in May of kidney failure.

The mascot’s housing is luxurious compared to many zoos, with air-conditioning, a wading pool and a waterfall. Mike’s medical care comes from the LSU School of Veterinary Medicine.

“He probably gets better medical treatment than most of us,” LSU Chancellor Sean O’Keefe told The New York Times. “He’s one charmed cat.”

But the university is coping with a growing sensitivity to animal treatment. Louisiana recently banned cockfighting, joining the other 49 states, and some in the state legislature say LSU should give up its tiger.

People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals agrees.

“As grandiose as Mike’s expensive habitat may look, it is inadequate for a tiger,” Lisa Wathne, a PETA captive exotic animal specialist, told the Times. “The whole idea of carting this animal to a sporting event with screaming people is stressful to any wild animal.”

Killing of Zookeeper and Subsequent Killing of Jaguar Shows Stupidity of Keeping Animals Captive (Zoos)

What a tragedy all around. A woman dies and then they kill the Jaguar who simply was acting out of instinct. I’ll let the following quotes sum it up, but really this proves once again just how unnatural zoos and keeping animals captive is. Just plain stupidity that is completely obvious to the thinking person.

Here are a couple quotes that sum this issue up:

"That is how a jaguar kills its prey, and that animal has been programmed to do that for thousands of years," she said.

"Regardless of the handling, the hand-rearing, the years of captivity, that animal is still a jaguar," she said. "Any predator is a predator and it will always have that instinct. They are looking for opportunities to be themselves."

"These animals should not be in zoos because of the possibility of these things happening, and for the welfare of the animals," Bekoff said. "What's to be gained by having an animal like that in the zoo?"


Article:

Jaguar Attack Renews Predator Debate

Some question whether big predators should be captive

http://www.myfoxcolorado.com/myfox/pages/News/
Detail?contentId=2517996&version=2&locale=EN-
US&layoutCode=TSTY&pageId=3.2.1

DENVER --

A jaguar's lethal attack on a keeper at the Denver Zoo has renewed the debate over whether big predators should be kept in captivity in the first place.

Ashlee Pfaff, 28, died Saturday after she was mauled by a 140-pound jaguar named Jorge. The jaguar was shot and killed when it approached workers trying to save Pfaff.

Marc Bekoff, a retired University of Colorado biology professor and author of "The Emotional Lives of Animals," called Pfaff's death a tragedy.

"These animals should not be in zoos because of the possibility of these things happening, and for the welfare of the animals," Bekoff said. "What's to be gained by having an animal like that in the zoo?"

Others argue that allowing humans to see such animals up close makes it easier to raise money and public support to preserve the animals and their habitats in the wild.

"Money that's raised by zoos goes a great distance to preserve their habitats. We can do so much with education," said Jack Grisham, vice president of animal collections at the St. Louis Zoo.

Denver Zoo officials said Tuesday they were cooperating with investigations by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration, the Association of Zoos and Aquariums and Denver police.

An autopsy found Pfaff died of a broken neck and had extensive internal injuries. Police spokesman Sonny Jackson said toxicology tests from the autopsy will likely take several days.

Pfaff was attacked in a service hallway adjacent to the jaguar's enclosure. Zoo officials said the door to the enclosure was open.

"We don't know if she was going in, and we never will," zoo spokeswoman Ana Bowie said. "Why that door was open and what she was doing, we do not know."

Zoo policy requires doors to be closed when keepers are in adjacent areas and forbids keepers to be in an enclosure when an animal is present. Zoo officials said Pfaff had experience working with big cats and knew the routines.

The animal had no history of abnormal behavior, and a necropsy showed it was in good health.

Bekoff said even experts exercising extreme caution can make mistakes that put them in danger when dealing with predators.

He cited himself as an example: Despite extensive experience studying wolves, he once took a step toward a male gray wolf's food inside an enclosure. The wolf backed him against the fence, stared and growled before eventually backing off.

"I was foolish to do what I did and I know wolves well," he said. "I almost got nailed by a wolf being stupid."

Mara Rodriguez, an instructor at the Exotic Animal Training and Management Program at Moorpark College in California, said Pfaff's neck injuries sounded like the result of a classic jaguar hunting behavior.

"That is how a jaguar kills its prey, and that animal has been programmed to do that for thousands of years," she said.

"Regardless of the handling, the hand-rearing, the years of captivity, that animal is still a jaguar," she said. "Any predator is a predator and it will always have that instinct. They are looking for opportunities to be themselves."

Steve Feldman, spokesman for the Association of Zoos and Aquariums, said fatal animal attacks in zoos are "fairly rare." He said it was still too early to know exactly what happened in Denver.

The association, which accredits the Denver Zoo and more than 200 other institutions, requires its members to train its workers and follow safety procedures.

Zoo officials say they continually train employees and evaluate safety procedures and conduct "red alert" animal escape drills at least four times a year.

The zoo has 16 staffers trained in the use of firearms in case of an escape. Four of those employees responded to the attack on Pfaff.

Before Saturday, the most recent fatal attack at the Denver Zoo was a bear attack that killed a zookeeper back in the 1920s.