Category: Let's talk
... should these animals even be in captivity in the first place?
It's already worldwide news that a killerwhale called Tilikum attacked and killed an experienced trainer at seaworld in Florida yesterday.
While this is obviously desparately sad for her and for her family and friends, not to mention that it must have been deeply traumatic for the hundreds of spectators who witnessed the incident, the reality is that this was a wild animal whose instinct it is to kill prey smaller than itself.
And this begs the question, is it fair to be keeping these animals in captivity for our entertainment?
Should we be surprised when they turn on those who have made them prisoners in the first place?
Killer whales live in the ocean, and swim thousands of miles every year. So who are we to confine them to tanks that are, to them, little bigger than a bath tub?
I kind of agree with this. Let them be free. Also in this case she knew the risk her job required. One person said she was massaging him, so two close. These are something like 7 thousand pounds of muscled fish, so even in play he's tough. It is sad for her and family, but it will happen.
While I do like going to places like the zoo and Seaworld, I do think its not really fair to the animals and obviously dangerous to people, so the animals should be set free.
I also think this is wrong. The only way I condone things like this is if it's for the protection of an indangered species, and even then, I think they should be able to live in as natural habitat as possible and not made tourist attractions. It's alot easier with land animals than with ones whose home is in the ocean, but still, I'm sure something can be done to make their lives easier.
I think it's a difficult one though wrt making animals tourist attractions.
Ultimately, the fact that a species is endangered does generally mean that the chances of ever seeing that species in the wild are slim. Therefore, by putting these captive bred animals on display to the public you are A, educating them about the plight of the animal (there's nothing like a real live animal to awaken peoples' interests) and B, stand a greater chance of the public donating money in order that the work to preserve these endangered species can continue in order that these animals not be endangered in the future.
Reading up on the orkas though it seems that they were captured purely for entertainment purposes, and there can surely be little justification for that.
Okay, but what about wild life habitats? Those are quite different from zoos and I don't see any problems with people visiting them.
of course we shouldn't be keeping them and making them do tricks, it's just degrading and cruel, and we are the only ones to blame when they turn on us.
As for the killer whale offing the trainer,i'm torn about this. teaching them to do tricks is important because it gives them purpose. To thrive, even animals need one of those.
Unfortunately, I have seen the killer whale show at the sea world in orlando and it is appalling to me. The poor things live in a small tank. They have to put up with listening to us yell and scream. The trainers and those who narrate the shows are so bright and purky. All the poor thing was probably wanting was for the lady to "shut up for heavens sake!!!" The show lasts for like 20 minutes and by the end the humans were starting to get on my nerves, and I could get up and leave. Orcas are predators. Expecting them to be otherwise is like asking a can of peas to turn in to a package of frozen corn.
Dolphins don't bother me nearly as much. they are smaller, very intelligent, and have a desire to please. For centuries mariners and them have had a relationship of mutual respect. Most of the commercial fishermen that I know feel badly if they get in the nets.
Are you aware that you can always tell a captive orca? they lose the use of the dorsal fin. it is lopped over like a dog's ear if you know what I'm trying to say.
I think we need to have orcas in captivity. the greedy japanese, who are the most responsible along with russia for raping the paciffic, will kill them otherwise. Without something bigger, stronger, and meaner then us, the world would be a tragic and less vibrant planet. . However, i think they need to be housed in a less stressful more natural venue.
actually, I think you're completely wrong there. animals like that aren't humans, they might be inelligent, but they are not human. yes they have a purpose, but that's their own thing and teaching them tricks just tries to make them harness that intelligence, and I think that somewhere deep down, they know that.
they'd rather be free swimming around with other whales, not performing for us.
what would be best for everyone is if we learnt to take a little more care of this planet and if humans would get over their need to see animals perform mindless tricks and stick to whale watching.
And if you really want to see them go to them in the whild. I don't even think this fish was "attacking" her. He just probably wanted to play. I mean she's not a fish, so if she got snatched on surprise, dragged under lots of water at what 40 miles an hour and isn't ready she drowns. Now does this whale know all that? No he just wants to play. She was massaging him one report said, so maybe it felt good. I don't know, but this one was known to do this, so she was awear of it, so she was taking a gamble. She lost.
I thought whales were mamels...
The trainer. hahaha. It was a lady. They keep calling the wale him, so yes mamall.
Why is it cruel to hunt whales for food and other bi products but humane and beautiful to keep them caged for life for the entertainment of the Dysney going public?
Whales are no different than other speecies, their population is growing out of control with the endangerment regulations and ban against hunting, so fortunately some nations are giving up on the propaganda prone Whaling Comission and resuming their hunting.
But fortunately these nations to not capture the poor animals and keep them in small tanks for the rest of their lives.
I suppose this particular critter could be sentensed to life in prinson .. no wait, it already is .. or death .. which would honestly make a lot of sense, you could invite guests to a funeral whale meat themed feast and send the poor creature off with some sour kraut and pepper.
swiss and wildebrew, i think they need to be preserved but not at sea world. I guess I did a poor job of expressing myself. They are killer whales called orcas. Killer whales kill things. If the trainer was dumb enough to make him mad or whatever, then she deserves what she got. Yes, whales are marine mammals. They breathe air but can stay underneath the water a lot longer then that perky puppy could. I remember reading an article aboutt shamu, spelling, who was the model for the main character in free willie. The author said he was psychotic and dificult to work with. Oh duh. Let's see how well he'd do in a foreign country in a tiny space with people making him do stuff in a language he couldn't understand. Sorry if I am giving animals human traits. I'ma girl. so I'm allowed to.
Actually they claim the whale was trying to play with her, but it doesn't really change anything. You're talking about a twnety-two foot long, massively heavy animal which could easily kill you without even meaning to.
I'm a girl too, and I'm not doing stupid things like giving animals human traits...
Animals are just that, animals and they do not reason and think like we do, they think and reason differently, that's why they're lower on the foodchain than we are!
you said in your first post that you thought whales should be taught tricks because it gives them reason to thrive or some crap, but they are animals, they already have that. feed, mate and swim around with other whales in the ocean. that's all the reason they ever need. We humans should make an effort not to push these beautiful animals into extinction, like we have so many other species, but as for teaching them tricks for some sort of human reason? no. we should leave them well alone on that score.
b, it's just like eating horse in my opinion. Some countries do it and some countries don't. in most countries it'd be shocking for the majority to hunt and kill whales. For the most part, the majority of whale types are endangered.
wow this is shocking how something like this can happen.
i really think though wales shouldn't be kept for tricks.
i can't remember who said it now, but someone said that all it wanted to do was break free and tell her to leave him alone.
i tend to agree with that
swiss miss, go get some of your cocoa and calm down.
for the record you sophisticated intelectual scientific types can tell me all day and rearrange your words all night that animals don't have feelings. They are a bunch of conditioned responses genetically tied together. blah blah blah. Pish Posh Mackintosh. II'm just a semi brain dead 52 year old woman who will go to my grave believing that intelligent mammals like whales, dolphins, gorillas, apes, cats and dogs have feelings. Although these are different than ours, they are sentient beings who should, within the parameters of their worlds, be treated with kindness, dignity, and respect. When my dog saw the needle that was going to put her out of her misery, and she leaned over licked me and put her paw in my hand, she knew the score and said thanks. When my daughters guide dog ssmiles and waggs after the harness is put on, she's happy. So go back to your colorless world of conditioning and responding and drink a hot winter beverage.
Since I must have expressed myself poorlyand I want you to understand what I intended to say is that the philosophy of Sea world appears to be that whales should be taught tricks to have a reason for existing. Of course, it is implied that the animals should be grateful for the trainers' kindness and hard work. As my dear deceased mom used to say "if we look long enough, we can always find a reason for bad behavior," which is what marine parks do. As we all know it's all about the dough ray me. You can put a lace table cloth over a pig pen and call it a dining table, but it still stinks and there are still animals in it. I say way to go killah. You need better.
I love steaks, chicken, and lamb. If I were from somewhere that eats it, I'd enjoy a whale fillet, or however it is prepared and served. Goat is great as are ox tails and venison. God put me at the top of the food chain and I thank him every day. It's far different to sanely and humanely kill fish fowl and beasts for food then togreediliy mine wild resources for other reasons. There has to be a golden mean between the sierra club and green peace and mindless destruction. I don't know what it is but that's not my job. I pray that someone with common sense, a fast vanishing trait, figures it out before it is too late.
"teaching them to do tricks is important because it gives them purpose.". In reality though there is no purpose to keeping an orka captive other than for the financial benefit it will bring to its keeper. That being said, if animals like orkas must be kept in captivity, then they do need to be given some kind of stimulation, since they are inteligent animals. The trainers at seaworld will tell you that the whales aren't actually trained to do tricks as such, but that the training they are given is based on the natural behaviors that these animals exhibit in the wild.
And while inteligent animals do have emotions, it is IMO important that we do not attribute human emotions to animals. They are not humans. They do not think and feel as we do, any more than we think and feel as they do.
"Whales are no different than other speecies, their population is growing out of control with the endangerment regulations and ban against hunting, so fortunately
some nations are giving up on the propaganda prone Whaling Comission and resuming their hunting." That is completely wrong. Whales are recovering from the point of near extinction they were driven to as a result of the whaling trade, but they are nowhere near growing out of control. Also, a killer whale is not a whale, but an orka, and a completely different species. Orkas have never, as far as I'm aware, been hunted for food.
"someone said that all it wanted to do was break free and tell her to leave him alone.". Again though that is attributing a human response to an animal. The more logical explanation is that the orka was following an instinctive behavior. In the wild Orkas hunt seals off the ice flows. They jump out of the water and grab the seals off the ice. they then drag them down into the water until they drown. That's pretty much what happened here.
A trainer in a black and white wetsuit sitting on a platform just above a pool could easily resemble a seal on an ice flow. Obviously the whale doesn't make that logical connection, but it's entirely plausible that something clicked in its head and that an until now forgotten instinct kicked in and he reacted.
being treated with kindness doesn't include being kept in an environment smaller than you're used to.
Being treated with dignity doesn't include being taught to do tricks for the clapping things that come and gorp at you all day making loud noises.
Being treated with respect does not include being forced to live in a situation that your species traditionally does not live in.
These animals are used to living in an ocean, and because of their size, they need that. How can seaworld be expected to recreate that?
These animals are used to going around in groups with one another, how can seaworld recreate that?
The answer is that they can't. I approve of programs that actually help endangered species come back from the brink of extinction. breeding programs that provide the animal with an attempt at a natural habitat to live in and other animals to interact with.
but a killer whale's natural environment is so difficult to imitate that it's damn near impossible. not to mention that their natural habitat doesn't include a heep of humans coming to watch them do tricks. and these sorts of things are doing little to help the killer whale battle their population problem. all it's doing is providing entertainment and a small amount of education and a lot of money for the owners of seaworld.
I think hunt free zones need to be established in oceans around the world where a particular speecies, or group of speecies can thrive and multiply.
Whale watching from boats is becoming increasingly popular, it is not particularly disruptive to the animals themselves (at least compared to being goggled at at Dysney World, it's not even if the whales get to ride the water slides or anything) and preservation is very important.
In Iceland's whale hunting case, although I don't want to steer the discussions in a completely different direction, the hunting is done based on research. Iceland was the first country in the world to introduce whale hunting quotas in the 1930s and we have tremendous amount of respect for those animals, but at the end of the day they are animals and they can provide us with food, and so we hunt them, just like we hunt for fish or raise kettle for our needs.
And I do not think we can sit here and state that animals have no feelings. We can't really know how another person feels, let alone how an animal perceives the world. I think it could be claimed that humans are just following complex instincts and do not really have feelings, the way people sometimes treat each other seems to lend support to that notion.
But then I don't really care, I, like Turricane, am happy to be top of the food chain and I actually both like whale and horse meat, although the horse has to be young else the meat becomes awfully tough.
In the case of any type of whale or dolphin or what not it seems people think they should not be hunted because they are big and pretty and Free Willy was a good movie. I can't accept that reasoning for a speecies of animals and then we go on and kill our cows and chickens, because no one hthought to make poor Willy a chicken rather than a dolphin, or whatever he was.
Keiko, the creature who played Willy was flown back to Icelandic waters, where he was initially caught, at expense of 3 or 4 million dollars and let go, only to swim around the Westman Islands for a bit and masturbate with rubber tires (became quite a tourist attraction in its own right) and then swim off and die near the west coast of Norway because he had lost his natural hunting instincts in captivity.
yes agree loui.
It's also worth bearing in mind that the vast majority of the orkas in captivity today were captured from the wild. Even though they have now been successfully bred in captivity, the adult orkas were all taken from their parents when they were just two or three year old calves. So they have lived that life of swimming in the ocean among their kind.
There is an orka living in captivity at the moment called Corky, who still uses the songs of her pod from the wild.
How can anyone justify that?
it's certainly true that Keiko never really fully returned to the wild, although I'm not sure that how much the project cost is really relevant as he certainly made millions for various organizations during his time in captivity.
But he did not die of starvation - he died of pneumonia, and there is documentation of the fact that he did in fact fend for himself during the time of his release.
Having said all of that, there surely have to be issues with setting a loan animal free into an environment where it would otherwise be expected to be a part of a complex social structure.
Perhaps if such a release were ever to be attempted again, it could be argued that more success might be gained by releasing a group of animals, thus ensuring that a social group already existed, and therefore reducing the need for integration into an already wild pod?
I have mixed feelings about captivity. On one hand, I personally don't approve of the fact that whales and other animals are being put on display for humans like some live concert. Are they doing tricks because they want to please us, or are they doing tricks because the result is usually a tasty fish?
On the other hand, the people who run such exhibits make sure the environment is clean, and as idealistic as possible. Of course, it will never be perfect, and I'm sure the animals would prefer the freedom of the ocean, but with motor boats, other animals, and all the toxic waste that people are so thoughtlessly dumping into the ocean these days, is the ocean any better than the small, but clean and relatively danger free tank?
I think it depends on the motivation for keeping the animal in a smaller, yet potentially cleaner environment.
The orkas were captured purely for the purposes of entertainment. And many other orkas were killed during these captures, in particular females who tried to get to their calves to prevent them from being captured.
If the motive is purely money, then there can surely be no justification for removal of these animals from their natural habitats into bath tub-sized pools.
wildebrew, you have put it the best. i agree that we need to have hunt free zones in the ocean. of course, how would they be inforced? what if all the countries of the world did not agree with you and I?
Swiss Miss, I also agree with what you said bravo bravo!!!! I am not in favor of captivity unless it as closely replicates the life the animal is used to. Orcaas and other marine mammals travel thousands of miles every year. They have seasonal and cyclical ways of living.
Sugar Baby, I didn't know that orcas were not food animals. Thanks for educating me.
Unlike you, I still say that animals have feelings and like you, I still think Sea World is wrong.
I forget who said it, but as for letting them return to their natural habitat, t this point, it may not be pheasable or practical. I know that with some of the big cats this has been done successfully as with some of the apes. Perhaps more study needs to go in to this direction.
yes they have feelings but they do not have feelings in the same way as we do.
Your dog was not saying goodbye - dogs just don't have that level of understanding. It probably had had enough of its life (as if it was being put to sleep then obviously it must have been suffering or at the point of suffering). But because we forge such close relationships with our animals we want to believe that they think and feel in the same way we do. They don't. That's not to say that animals do not have emotions - they do. But those emotions are not on the same level as those of a human being.
Her dog could have been saying goodbye in her own way. True they may not think and feel in exactly the same way we do but I do believe they feel the same emotions that we do.
Agreed with the last post. I don't think you could say that about all animals, but certainly the more intelligent ones have complex feelings and emotions. Even many of the others have their own special ways of expressing things. I don't have problems with eating meat, fish, etc. but I do believe in humane treatment, which is why I buy organic and free range. I like the idea of hunting zones. Very clever. I was unaware that Keiko was actually released. I once saw something where they said it was impossible for him to ever live in the wild. The idea of letting groups of animals go free so that they don't have to find wild ones to bond with is a good one, only I wonder if they'd know that they're supposed to stay together etc. That is, if they were in separate tanks, cages etc. I guess it depends on how long they were captive. Orangatan Island is an excellent show that shows what happens when captive animals are left in the wild. Slowly, the human interaction is minimized until they're on their own.
the fact of the matter is is that a whale isn't a person, and it doesn't understand the small tank that is totally unlike the ocean and the absence of fellow whales anymore than it understands what's happening to its natural habitat.
everything that it's used to is turned on it's head. in short, it's not allowed to be a whale anymore.
we're taking these creatures from the wild and teaching them not to be themselves anymore. and it's not even for a good reason. we don't have the ability or the space to mimic their natural environment. it's not to breed them and release them, it's just for entertainment.
actually, this is something that sets us apart from animals. we're the only species that will deliberately catch animals from the wild and teach them tricks for entertainment and reprogram them to be something totally different.
it's different with a cat or a dog, this has happened for hundreds of centuries and because of that domestication we've got all kinds of breeds of animals that we didn't have before.
but the age of the theme park entertainment has called for the training of bigger and more interesting animals. and people wonder why a tiger will go mad in front of an audience and kill the trainer?
We've used cruel measurements to ensure the bear will dance or the lion will jump. and we wonder why they turn on us?
is it really much different to teach a whale to rely on humans for dead uninteresting food, to take it from the wild where it's used to being a whale and teaching it to be something totally different?
I don't think so.
yes, they have feelings, but tehy are not the same. they are big mamels and they are used to being whales. it's the trainers and so on who try to teach them to be what they aren't, and we suddenly expect them to develop traits they don't have?
I wonder how peoploe who have been in jauil, for instance, for 20 or 25 years fare after their release into society. I wouldn't be surprised they had a difficult time, but that's just a thought.
With dogs and cats we've bread them specifically for certain traits or environments so they are not the wild animals they used to be. I doubt you could easily domesticate a wolf, for instance.
I think the cost of transporting an animal in special tansk on an airplane halfway round the world is waste of money. Of course this could be disputed and others may feel differently. And may be it is a slightly less waste of money than raising CEO bonuses at failed banks by tensof millions of dollars.
With protected ocean zones, I think a certain nation can do this within its teritorial waters and it hs been done successfuly for various creatures (II can look up examples if you wish). Of course the fact that these animals swim thousands of miles will make it very difficult to do so for them.
I just want protection discussions to be conducted based on scientific evidence, not blown up by politics and propaganda groups who think whales look cute. The Sea Shepherds sunk two or three whale boats in Iceland in the 1980s. Fortunately it was done at night and no one was hurt but that is apure example of terrorism, whatever the cause, and they are still disrupting ships around the world. This is not the way to succeed, I think this does the opposite.
Danger of underwater noises and pollution is very likely a much greater threat to whales than the hunting that takes place now, and that must be addressed as well as admitting that whales can be hunted commercially, with scientifically based oversight and international quotas.
Whale watching is actually more profitable than whale hunting, except where hunting is necessary to control the population or the whales are eating up other valuable resources such as cod.
I don't see how these can't coexist if handled correctly and I'd like more efforts put into detoxifying our oceans, establishing hunt free zones for whales, corals and other animals and I'd very much like to see a ban on captivity and zoo keeping for these animals as well.
I think, possibly, that the whale killing a trainer is part of the animal's way of punishing humans for keeping them in captivity. No, animals might not be able to say: "Please let me go", in English or any other human language we can speak, but it's about time they had their views known. However, I think that humans really need to also start thinking about what we dump in their natural habitat before we say too much about the captivity.
Well ...
someone said the whales eat, sleep, hump and look for food.
Sounds like a lot of humanity to me.
Having to do tricks for clapping gaping things ... sounds like a customer service job to me.
Having little choice in the matter: Again a majority of the human population - except maybe the independently wealthy - suffer from this.
Oh and BTW the killer whales aren't having a discussion about cruelty to humans.
The pit bulls don't either, after a human gets mauled. Last I checked, the bears don't either.
So apart from the rather surprising similarities, there is at least one stark difference between humans and other species.
How do we know they don't? They might, in their own way, have discussions about cruelty to humans. Mind you, it does seem like a pretty far fetched idea that they would.
Aah Robo, but if the whales are doing customer service jobs they must move to India.
I wonder if humpback whales hump more than other whales, may be they are the lucky whales, and that's one thing a whale will probably not get to do much of in captivity, not by him/herself anyway.
the difference between whales and humans is that we understand working, we don't necessarily enjoy it, but we do it because it gives us money.
but to a whale in the wild and who has grown up in the wild, it's a totally new concept to be expected to learn tricks in order to get food.
Animals in the wild don't work for gthe benifit of humans. very few animals work for anyone but themselves, some insects and pack animals being the exception here. most animals work for themselves alone or for their young.
but the problem I have is that when we cage these creatures we take away their natural rutine. they don't hunt anymore, they eat meat that we give them, we strip them of almost everything that makes them what they are.
sugarbaby for someone with your name you sure are mean. hope you never lose a pet. i ought to congratulate you. as friends acquaintenances and family will proudly say i'm one tough bitch. you just made me cry. hope you are proud of yourself.
you go swiss miss. i'm impressed with your articulateness.
wildebrew, i'm so proud of you for bringing up the sea shepherd. they show a show on animal planet called wail wars or something like that. i watched it one time. those people totally creep me out. you are right what they do is terrorism but because it has to do with animals we are supposed to understand. the head dude, i don't know if he was the captain, but some big poo ba was so creepy. scary sounding voice and just a weirded out kind of guy. i mention this to others and they shake their heads and say i'm cruel and a whack job.
my final thoughts. has anyone here actually been to sea world? It's such a joke. you learn absolutely nothing there except that they love the money honey. i've been to other parks where they have great animal shows and interactions. At bush garden in the early 200s, i saw an absolutely fantastic show about animals in virginia. learned a lot and got to pat some adorable little critters.
my daughter went to one in south carolina where they learned all about the wild felines. they got to pet babies and the cats weree treated humanely and eventually were and are being rehabbed for life in the wild. The enclosures simulated their environments and they were far enough away that we couldn't get on their nerves but we could see them.
I've petted a cheetah. it was part of a program called Meet a Cheetah that the canberra zoo ran with the 3 cheetah's it got from africa. the canberra zoo is one of australias primarily breeding zoos, also retired circus animals and so on often find themselves their when they have no other future.
The canberra cheetah's were two females and a male that they hope to breed from.
they were still young however, so while they were, they ran this program to allow people to get close enough to big cats if they paid the fee. I love big cats and have always wanted to get close enough to see one, not necessarily to pet it, but just to see what it looked like.
I really enjoyed it, and the guy in the enclosure with us asked his friend to take me to watch the tiger being fed too.
Canberra zoo do this mostly for the money because they want to aquire breeding mates for some of their animals.
I approve of this, because it's safe and respectful to the animals and they aren't being taught to be something they're not, and that's what i disagree with about seaworld, the environment is just too dificult.
While I don't agree with some of the acts of environmental terrorism, I feel that without groups like Greenpeace and others like it, and they used to do this too, that we'd have been unawear of a lot of these issues for a lot longer. acts like this, while distructive have helped to open our eyes to what is actually happening out there to our planet, and I happen to think that's important. I like to know how I get my food, so I can choose not to buy it if it's too harmful to the environment.
it's sort of like those women who broke into the storage place of fighter planes and destroyed their capacity as weapons in order to open peoples eyes to the horrours of crimes against humanity in indonesia.
their defense was that they committed a crime to stop another greater crime.
Some of these big corperations are committing crimes in order to make money, and for the most part, I believe greenpeace did try to ensure that people did not get hurt.
I totally think that we should capture and train or eat whatever animal we want. It is written in the Bible that we have domain over all the creatures on the planet. While we may not be physically stronger or more agile as some animals, we still overpower them intellectually. I also think that we should do all we can to keep threatened or endangered species at healthy populations so that we can continue to breed the for entertainment, enjoy their existence, and eat them, or to have them around to feed other animals that we use.
The problem with these instances of animals attacking their trainers is that people humanize animals when they form a close relationship with them. They develop a trust for these animals and totally forget that they are from the wild and can revert back to skills they needed in the wild.
It was reported that this whale has killed twice before this trainer, so she shouldn't have been so trusting of the animal. I really think these animal trainers should be trained to watch for and react to sudden or unusual movement of these animals. One has to be prepared for the unexpected. That may not always save someone's ass, but it might saves somebody.
Yes, animals can experience some of the same emotions as humans, but they will not feel them in the same circumstances in which we might, and they will not always express them when or as we expect them to.
Not everyone is Christian and no one gave us domain over anything. Granted, this is your opinion, but unfortunately, this whole feeling of superiority and the idea that being wreckless/careless becasue, by some divine intervention, we're entitled to it is what led not only to these kinds of problems but to problems in the environment and against our fellow human beings. If I got 10,000 followers or more who said that it's okay to kill a group of people because, according to our sacred texts, it was okay to do so, would that make it right? If you're totally against the idea of comparing the lives of animals and people, what about something simpler. We all think it's okay to break into people's houses, without harming them, and steal their valuables because our god/s want us to. Is that okay?
People seem to justify anything.
I know. *sigh* Very sad.
just for the record, since I was a teen back when the dinosaurs roamed freely about the world, I have always been aware that we weren't treating the environment kindly or fairly. Some ecoterrorist group doesn't need to go around doing their thing to bring this to my attention. You know there is a cliche that says two wrongs don't make a right. this applies here. Anyone with common sense, you know that endangered way of dealing with tbig and little problems, would realize that over fishing, pouring junk in to the air, flushing toilets in to rivers, etc. etc. etc. is just plain dangerous and stupid.
As the ancient greeks said so well, "Nothing in excess" is the way we all should live. If we followed their direction, in policy as well as anin our livfes, we wouldn't be having this discussion. It is the job of smarter, kinder, and more farseeing minds than mine to sagely and sanely enforce limits to our greed and acquisitiveness. These good men and women shold quickly do our work or my grand daughter will get a trashcan instead of a treasure chest in which to pass her life.
This whole situation was awful in my view. The whale should have not bain forced to work in those conditions at all. No animal that is originally wild should be kept in captivity for human's entertainment. I think those guys should get a taste of their own medicine and be made to perform for people in a cage eh? The whale was probably a wee bit tired of doing tricks day in and day out without being able to see other animals of his kind.
Yeah, referring to the few posts after mine, this is exactly what I'm talking about. I think that feeling sympathy for animals in captivity is part of humanizing them. Capturing people is wrong, yes. Why? Because they are our own species. Capturing other animals is not wrong because we have a range of uses for them, and they are here for our use, so why not use them?
And I don't care what anyone says, we are superior to other animals. And here's the non-religious explanation: Most people are more intelligent than other animals, and that's what makes us superior.
Capturing animals has nothing to do with and is not as extreme as breaking into anyone's house, killing a person, or robbery. Those have obviously been established as crimes, so no it wouldn't be okay if it was written to be in a sacred text. But then again, what's acceptable to one person can be outrageous to another. The law enforcers and interpreters have the final say in what's okay.
And if I had a logical explanation and wanted to justify stealing, lying, cheating, or murdering, then I would.
Uses like food, providing tools and shelter through skin and bones, preserving the animals, is one thing. Even providing education about them, in a lcean, safe and decent environment is fine. But capturing them only for tricks and profit is where I draw the line. Agreed that two wrongs don't make a right. Everything in moderation is one of my favourite delphic maxims. Unfortunately, this isn't even followed in modern Hellas let alone in the rest of the world.
Amen to Tiffanitsa's posts. Some may think we're superior to all other animals, but we are actually beginning to destroy our own species from the inside out, so to speak. This incident at Sea World is a small example of this. the ones who think they are superior are the ones who will probably be blindsided with something they weren't looking for.
The maker of the Titanic bragged about the fact that it was unsinkable. Oops! Big mistake there, buddy.
Yes, we call that hubris in my religion. It's all fine and good to be proud of yourself and even to display that pride, again, in moderation. But tempting The Gods and The Fates is just a bad idea. Even from a nonreligious standpoint, coming off as a snob and repeatedly doing things that might cause harm just because they haven't so far will inevidably lead to bad results.
but, we in most countries have designated that Cruelty to animals is a crime, so it all really depends on your definition of cruelty.
In your very narrow view, EoE, we should continue to destroy the earth we live on just because we're more intelligent and supposedly can think.
should we continue to build nuclear and biological weapons because we're intelligent?
In my view, our intelligence has got us into an awful lot of trouble. Yes we're more intelligent, but that just means we're capable of acting without instinct and with thought instead. I don't want humanity to be remembered for their total disregard for other creatures that live on this earth. In the bible, and I am an athiest, I believe god instructed Adam and Eve to care for and tend to the garden of Eden.Are we caring for our home by destroying it and making some of these animals live miserable existances?
If god does by some stroke of bad luck happen to exist, I don't want to stand before him accused of being the sort of person who messed up the home he gave me and treated lesser creatures with no more care and respect than I do with some garbage or something. I don't want to have the attitude that just because I can think for myself that I shouldn't think for others lesser than me.
The point I was making about environmental terrorism is simply that the majority of people were unawear of the cost to the earth that their consumerism was causing. These issues were never really in the public eye because the big corporations didn't want it to be. Most countries in the western world recycle all manner of things now, a fact that was not true say 20 or 30 years ago.
There are so many eco measures now put in place and finally countries are looking at all sorts of alternative energy sources.
but the atitude of the past was to get energy any way we could, no matter the cost to the environment.
This is something that eco-terrorism and some science fiction movies helped rectify to the benifit of mankind.
I think the question about whether or not we should be allowed to keep animals in captivity is as controversial as the subject of abortions. The question really is, what is more important in the matter? Are we thinking about protecting these animals from the growing danger in the ocean, or are we just keeping them for our own, selfish entertainment purposes? Having little experience in this subject area, I can't really give a good opinion on this, but I do think this incident should definitely raise some awareness on the matter.
terrorism, whether eco, moslem, christian, or communist should never be tolerated. Education is how progress is made. As I said before two wrongs don't make a right. Besides, ecoterrorists usually target the wrong person. Instead of dealing with the man be it the lumber company or the countries that make the laws, they go out and hurt the people who are doing the work. Hey duh. spiking tree cutting equipment so men get killed proves what? Attacking native peoples who are using seals for fur and meat shows what? Gimme a break. Give me a break.
true, especially with the natives. They're actually using the animal appropriately. It's not like they're killing them so they can put their heads up on the wall and leave their bodies to rot. Also agree about the workers. While I think it's horrible that, for example, the rain forests are being destroyed and at such an alarming rate, it doesn't make sense to hurt the people doing it, since they're only employees of the companies. However, I would support actions that would force a machine to malfunction in a safe way so that, for instance, they couldn't start.
Yes. I won't blame the environmental destruction on the people who do it. Instad, I'll blame it on the fact that when it started, most people were unaware of the damage it would cause in the long run, and now that we know, it's difficult to alter our life style around it, and we are making some progress with this, so the situation is not hopeless. I've heard from some theories that one day, everything we have harmed will start to fight back. I wonder if this marks the beginning of it.
The things fighting back is an interesting theory. I'm a big believer in consequential education. i don't know if say the salmon fish will turn in to ravening beasts and bite our hands off or the trees will be like the ones in harry potter and start beating the hell out of us, but when there are no green things, the sky is a uniform drab gray and we are all starving to death, we will be reaping and weeping because of the irresponsible actions we have sown.
Actually, I don't believe that humans' intellectual superiority makes it okay for them to abuse the planet and its resources. I am all for environmental safety and preservation. But I do think that we should be able to use animals for our entertainment, food, fuel, whatever. Not that they don't serve other purposes, but that's just a few of them. I really don't think animals were just put here to thrive and be pretty. And animals attacking their trainers/owners/handlers is not a new thing. It's something that does not happen to everyone, but it is very likely. But because people humanize animals and gradually do what they can to equalize them with us, things like this happen.
Going on a whale watching tour is really not much more expensive than buying a pass to one of those parks. That being said, you would probably have a lot more luck seeing a whale if it wasn't for the boat scaring most of them off.