[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]by Evan Tang

Humans have a history of using animals for their own purposes, whether it’s for transportation, to carry supplies or as companions. This trend initially emerged around 13,000–10,000 B.C., when dogs were domesticated to help humans hunt. To domesticate dogs, humans either took in their distant ancestors, wolves, as cubs or allowed the more friendly adults to hang around camp and become part of their group. The arrangement provided benefits for both parties and allowed dogs to become an essential part of our society. Cats, domesticated in Egypt around 4,000 B.C., followed shortly thereafter.

Like the first domesticated dogs, early pet cats were raised from kittens and benefited from their arrangement with humans. In both cases we took advantage of the animal’s natural abilities; in the case of cats, it was their propensity to hunt rats, and in the case of dogs, it was their hunting and guarding abilities. We have continued this trend in modern times by taking animals from the wild and using them for our purposes, except there are two important distinctions today from the earlier situations with cats and dogs. The first distinction is that the relationship no longer offers any major advantages for the animals while it is still advantageous for humans. The second is that we force them to engage in unnatural behaviors that they would almost never do in the wild. The animal entertainment industry in particular is guilty of taking advantage of animals to serve their own agenda, as are aquariums, to a lesser extent.

SeaWorld and Ringling Brothers are two big-name entertainment businesses that are particularly notorious for their atrocious treatment of animals and for offering shows that force the animals to display unnatural behavior. SeaWorld is guilty of a plethora of unforgivable offenses including starving orcas in order to insure they were on their best behavior, separating young calves from their mothers and shortening orcas’ lifetimes through poor care and insufficient habitat. Some of these practices are extremely damaging, since orcas in the wild develop very tight social bonds with their family members. For instance, by removing calves from their mothers at such a young age, SeaWorld causes the mothers an incredible amount of anxiety, stress and pain. Orcas in captivity often develop depression and other neurotic diseases. Despite having enough money to properly care for the animals and develop habitats that meet the orcas’ needs, SeaWorld ignores those needs in order to maximize profits.

All of these factors combine to create a lifespan that is simply not on-par with the whales’ wild counterparts. This removes one of the major advantages of captivity, which if done properly should allow an animal to live longer than they would normally in the wild. Although orcas in captivity don’t have to deal with many of the hardships that their wild counterparts do, their quality of life is dramatically lower since they are confined to tiny, shallow pools that separate them from family members. One of the tell-tale signs of stress is the collapsed dorsal fin many captive whales have.

The argument that SeaWorld is helping with conservation efforts also rings hollow. SeaWorld catches some of their creatures from the wild, usually by taking injured whales and helping them back to full health, but never releasing them back into the wild. This means that they are actively removing whales from the wild population, and therefore making their numbers decrease instead of increase. Whales are also forced to regularly perform tasks that they would rarely do in the wild, such as beaching themselves and spinning in circles. In fact, they are so unnatural that they need trainers to teach them how to do it.

Ringling Brothers does the same thing, except with elephants. Many of their elephants suffer from extremely debilitating diseases that are caused by abuse and neglect, and as a result die far earlier than their wild counterparts, who have an average lifespan of 42 years. In addition to shorter lifespans, elephants suffer abuse from trainers and are often separated from their mothers at birth. There have been several incidents of elephants dying due to poor living conditions at the circus. This shows just how uncaring the circuses that employ these animals really are. Just like orcas, the situation is advantageous for the humans while the animals get nothing from the relationship. And just like orcas, circuses force elephants to perform tasks that seem foreign and strange, such as lifting a basket with a dog on it, balancing on a small platform or climbing on each other.

Aquariums also take advantage of the lack of regulation on fish species. Due to the difficulty of breeding fish in captivity, aquariums will often purchase fish that were harvested from the wild. These fish are often not endangered species, and are usually snatched from their homes in the wild. It can be very difficult to determine whether or not the fish are caught in a sustainable manner since there is no regulatory body for the aquarium fish trade. Part of the problem of establishing a regulatory body for the fish trade is simply the sheer volume of fish that are involved in the trade. Since it’s so difficult to determine if they are sustainably harvested, aquariums could be unwittingly contributing to a disaster by removing so many fish from the wild. The fish that come in to aquariums often go from the open ocean to a small confined space that is a far cry from their previous natural habitat. Fish in aquariums can display signs of distress just like elephants and orcas, such as “pacing,” circling, head bobbing and swinging, and interaction with transparent boundaries. These fish gain nothing from the relationship, just like orcas and elephants, and just like with orcas and elephants, humans are the ones who profit in the end. Although they are not forced to perform unnatural tasks, aquarium fish still should be given far more protection than they currently have.

Fish, elephants and orcas are subjected to many of the same unnecessary ordeals and abuses. But that can be changed through a combination of the power of public opinion, stricter animal welfare laws that apply to all animals kept in captivity, forcing aquariums to only keep fish that are endangered and cannot be released back into the wild and focusing on protecting environments the fish come from. The power of public opinion has already been a crucial factor in Ringling Brothers’ decision to remove elephants from its performances by 2018, although, ideally, they would be removed from their shows immediately. However, organizations will only make so many changes due to public pressure before they refuse to make any more, either because it will hurt their bottom line, or, in some cases, because the abusive practices are too deeply entrenched in the organization. At that point the law needs to force them to change their ways in order to ensure that the animals are properly taken care of and that there are no harmful impacts on wild populations. That could mean mandating the creation of a regulating organization for the fish trade to ensure that only endangered species are being caught or making sure fish have sufficient habitat and space in their enclosures. The reason that it makes more sense to only house endangered species in the aquarium is because there is no reason to take a non-endangered species out of native waters, since they are not the ones who need conservation.

But there are some organizations that cannot be allowed to continue to exist in their present form, because of the damage that they are doing to their animals and the demands that they make of them. They violate the tacit terms that humanity has had with animals since we first began domesticating them. They take advantage of animals because they have no voice and no way to avoid it. They exploit a self-serving relationship that does not offer any actual benefits for the animals. The only reasonable solution is to apply public pressure, through boycotts or political advocacy, and force SeaWorld and other organizations to change the way they operate.

[email protected][/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]