There’s Nothing "Natural" About SeaWorld’s New Plan

Lori Marino on November 10, 2015

It didn’t take long for the major media to figure out that the latest announcement from SeaWorld was largely smoke and mirrors.

Yesterday, in the wake of mounting protests over its treatment of animals and hemorrhaging revenue from its downwardly spiraling public attendance, SeaWorld announced it would end the “theatrical killer whale experience” in San Diego by the end of 2016.

SeaWorld’s chief executive Joel Manby said:

“We are listening to our guests, evolving as a company, we are always changing. In 2017 we will launch an all-new orca experience focused on natural environment [of whales]. 2016 will be the last year of our theatrical killer whale experience in San Diego.”

This “natural environment”, called the Blue World Project, is basically a larger tank, motorized water currents, and live fish and kelp. Instead of their current offerings, SeaWorld promises a more educational form of entertainment.

Killer whales have three basic needs: space, social complexity and choice, and mental challenges. None of these are addressed
in SeaWorld’s new plan.

But none of the real issues have been addressed, and this new plan is essentially an attempt to create a distraction from the critical issues for which SeaWorld continues to draw criticism. Just for starters, SeaWorld will continue its “theatrical” orca shows at its other two U.S. facilities in Orlando and San Antonio. And the company intends to continue breeding orcas for entertainment at all three parks. From an orca’s point of view, nothing is basically going to change.

In order to thrive, killer whales have three basic needs: space, social complexity and choice, and mental challenges. None of these are being addressed in SeaWorld’s new plan:

Space: SeaWorld says its new tanks in the proposed Blue World expansion are going to be twice the size of their current tanks, claiming that “the enlarged environment will provide killer whales with even more dynamic opportunities. It will support the whales’ broad range of behaviors and provide choices that can challenge them both physically and mentally.”

But the new tanks are a minute fraction the size of even the smallest orca natural habitats. The new 10 million-gallon tank will be 50 feet deep and have a 1.5-acre surface area. Orcas naturally travel over 75 miles a day and dive to depths of over 300 feet. The new tanks would not even accommodate diving to a depth of two body lengths in whales, who can grow to 32 feet long. The new tanks may seem large from a human perspective, but from an orca perspective the change is negligible.

Social Complexity and Choice: SeaWorld’s plans continue the same model of forcing the whales into artificial social groups in which mothers and children are separated and individuals from different natural subpopulations and cultures are thrown together and forced to mate. Orcas are highly intelligent and socially complex animals who naturally live in cultural subgroups in which every individual has a role in the social network. Mothers and children are deeply bonded and stay together sometimes for life, and life is based on a long period of learning from each other. Whether hunting, playing, resting or traveling, orcas always travel in groups with other family members and friends. Their complex social structure, long-term relationships, and exquisite cultural traditions are comparable to those of humans and elephants.

Orcas are not interchangeable units and cannot be moved around and forced together in unnatural ways without severe consequences for their mental health.

Mental Challenges: SeaWorld claims its new tanks are going to be more “naturalistic”, providing the whales with more enrichment features which “maximizes the health and wellbeing of the animals,” like a fast running water current to simulate the dynamism of the natural environment.

But orca brains are among the largest of all living mammals, more than two and a half times the size one would expect for their body size, and more convoluted (i.e. more grey matter surface area) than even human brains. Their brains have highly elaborated structures that are thought to be involved in self-awareness, social cognition, and emotions. In other words, orcas are among the most psychologically and behaviorally complex animals on the planet.

Animals with brains like orcas are not enriched by unchanging, one-dimensional features of their environment that pose no new challenges. The new features of Blue World do not even come close to the complexity and mental challenges they enjoy in the wild.

SeaWorld cannot provide a “natural environment” for these whales while ignoring the facts about who orcas are.

To make a real change SeaWorld would need to do two things:

First, end the (mostly artificial) breeding and display of orcas for the benefit of entertainment and ticket sales.

And second, assume leadership in the growing movement towards sea pen sanctuaries for orcas and other marine mammals, where they can either be rehabilitated and returned to the ocean or, at very least, spend the rest of their lives in a setting that’s as close as possible to the open ocean.

Only then will SeaWorld be the welfare and conservation organization it only pretends to be now.

How Smart Are Dolphins? A TED-Ed Video

Lori Marino on September 1, 2015

Dr. Lori Marino has created a TED-Ed video, “Why Dolphins Are So Smart” as part of the series Lessons Worth Sharing.

Dr. Marino worked with the TED folks and a group of talented producers and artists from Zedem Media, Inc. to produce this animated lesson on dolphin intelligence (also available on TED’s YouTube channel).

There’s also a lesson plan with multiple-choice questions, a “Dig Deeper” section with lots of links to explore, and a discussion area that poses the question:

“A lot of scientific research shows that dolphins are not happy or healthy performing tricks in marine parks. How would you propose to solve this problem?”

(Go ahead and respond with your own view on what could and should be done.)

TED is well known for featuring cutting edge ideas from around the world and TED-Ed uses short, engaging videos to share those ideas. Take a moment to check out the video, and encourage other people to watch it, too, and to share their responses to the final question.

Why We Can’t Stand It when Other Animals Treat Us like Animals

Lori Marino on August 12, 2015

So, on the heels of Cecil the lion being killed by someone who thinks animal lives are inherently worthless (except as trophies), Yellowstone National Park is expected to kill the mother bear who attacked and partially consumed a hiker last week.

First, the Park should not be allowed to get away with the euphemism “euthanasia”. What they plan to do has nothing whatsoever to do with euthanasia. It is cold-blooded murder – the imposition of the death penalty on a member of another species for just being a member of that species.

Second, the Park is appealing to “protecting the public” as a justification for the killing. But the chances of being killed by a bear – even one who has killed before – are infinitesimal compared with other dangers in national parks, including just driving to the park! In the entire 142-year history of Yellowstone National Park, there have been a reported eight deaths (including this one), most likely (but not certainly) caused by grizzly bears. And between 1980 and 2011 there have been over 90 million visitors to the park and only 43 injured by bears. That gives you the odds of 2.1 million to one of being injured by a bear, let alone killed. This decision is like trying to prevent lightning strikes (statistically it is the same risk) by preventing people from going outside during storms. And there are no data that I am aware of to support the claim that once a bear “tastes human flesh” he/she will kill again. This is such a rare occurrence that there could not possible be any reliable data on the matter.

In a paper entitled Denial of Death and the Relationship between Humans and Other Animals, my co-author Michael Mountain and
I explain how our anxiety about being mortal drives us to separate ourselves from the other animals. Anything that reminds us that we, just like them, are going to die and disintegrate into the ground, is something we need to distance ourselves from. And nothing reminds us of our animal nature and mortality more than being preyed upon by another animal. (A further paper on this topic by some colleagues at the University of Arizona provides new data demonstrating that when people are reminded of their mortality they tend to be more in favor of abusing and exploiting other animals.)

The mother bear who killed the hiker who had gone off-trail into her territory was simply protecting her cubs. But from our human viewpoint she had the audacity to remind us that we are animals. And that’s a truth we cannot seem to come to terms with.

On Gifted Children

Lori Marino on July 22, 2015

We all know the stories of child prodigies, those precocious mathematicians and musicians who startle us with their maturity and their brilliance. Children like these are considered “gifted”. That is, they have a talent, at a very early age, that goes way beyond what most adults ever possess and they seem to be driven by their exceptional abilities. These children should be supported and cherished.

But there is another form of “giftedness” that is just as rare and, arguably, even more valuable in today’s world than intellectual or artistic bravado. That is the gift of compassion. This level of genius goes way beyond the “love of animals” that most children display. Instead, these young people are driven by an insight about our connectedness with the other animals that allows them to see things most others do not. And, like other gifted children, they are single-minded in the pursuit of their goals.

One such child is Joseph Moreno, an 11-year-old boy who lives in California and whom I met a few months ago when I was giving a talk in Los Angeles on elephant and orca captivity. Joe’s searching questions and sensitivity to the issues were remarkable, and when, after my presentation, he got up and spoke poignantly about the plight of these animals in circuses and zoos the whole audience was struck silent by the unusual degree of thoughtfulness he displayed and how he so freely and beautifully articulated his feelings. After the meeting, Joe continued to “work the room”, chatting up all of the scientists and advocates, getting autographs, and displaying a knowledge of animals far beyond his years. Yes, Joe is the whole package. Not only is he gifted in compassion but he is a young scholar-advocate who knows the power of information and education. See him in action here.

There are other young rock-star activists for animals out there who are clearly gifted in compassion. I was struck by the recent story of Bruno Barba, a 16-year-old high school student who had been caring for a pig named Lola as part of the Future Farmers of America program. But, at the end of the program, instead of bringing Lola to slaughter as the other children did, Bruno defied his school and his mentors, and brought Lola to Farm Sanctuary, where she will live out her life in safety.

Kids like Joe and Bruno are as rare as musical or mathematical geniuses. But there are plenty of other young people who display an understanding of other animals and an empathy for them that can either be encouraged by society or squashed under the status quo. They are the six-year-old who wants to be vegetarian because she doesn’t want to eat her friends, the animals, or the college biology major who refuses to dissect a rat, or the teenager who picks up earthworms from the sidewalk after a rain.

And just like other talents, no matter how brilliant or ordinary, the gift of compassion should be rewarded and nurtured. Parents with children who exhibit these abilities can be proud of their capacity for compassion. It’s something rarer and more precious than just about any other talent a child could have.

New Imaging Technique Reveals Dolphin Brain Pathways

Lori Marino on July 9, 2015

Figure shows the new pathways (in blue and yellow) connecting the midbrain of a dolphin to the temporal lobe.

Two dolphins who died more than a decade ago on a North Carolina beach are now the focus of an unprecedented finding in the scientific literature, giving scientists new information about how dolphin brains process sounds.

The new paper is co-authored by Kimmela Center Executive Director Lori Marino, who joined with colleagues at Emory University and at the University of Oxford to use a new imaging method, called Diffusion Tensor Imaging (DTI), to explore the connections between areas in the two dolphin brains. Each of the large brains had to be scanned for over 12 hours for the imaging data to be obtained.

Earlier studies of a different type, done with live dolphins in Russia, showed that the pathway from the inner ear to the cortex of the brain culminates at the apex of the brain next to the visual processing area. All of that made sense because dolphins are echolocators and integrate visual and acoustic information very quickly.

The unique arrangement of the dolphin brain was added to existing pathways already laid down in mammals.

But when Marino and her colleagues used DTI to examine connections in the postmortem dolphin brains they discovered something never before seen: yet another pathway from the ear to a different part of the brain, the temporal lobe, where the primary auditory cortex of most mammals is located.

This second connection shows that the unique arrangement of the dolphin brain was added to existing pathways already laid down in mammals.

“We found that there are probably multiple areas in the dolphin brain associated with auditory information, and the neural pathways look similar to those of a bat,” lead author Greg Berns says. “This is surprising because dolphins and bats are far apart on the evolutionary tree. They diverged tens of millions of years ago but their brains may have evolved similar mechanisms for using sound not just to hear, but to also create mental images.”

Now that this imaging technique has demonstrated it can reveal connectivity patterns in postmortem cetacean brains, a whole world of opportunity opens up for exploring dolphin and whale brains, and all non-invasively.

Pigs Are Smart – and Machiavellian

Lori Marino on June 11, 2015

Winston Churchill famously said: “A dog looks up to you; a cat looks down on you; only a pig treats you as an equal.”

But that, of course, is hardly how we treat them in return. Pigs are typically viewed as things to be born in cages and kept in cages until they’re ready to be processed into pork chops and sausages.

Two scientists have now concluded that pigs are indeed extraordinarily complex animals, and that they share many of the characteristics we admire in, for example, dogs, chimpanzees, dolphins and humans.

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