Aquarist/Dugong keeper. Marine mammals have taken over my life. Pro responsible animal management and therefore a selective supporter of zoos and aquariums.
Fandoms include but not limited to: The Adventure Zone, McElroy content, Gravity Falls, Steven Universe, Captive Prince. There is no consistency to this blog, so just a heads up!
Hm anxiety attack about starting work without my core team…
Mostly because I found out the casual staff have been spreading bullshit about how my training experience is limited to working in a petting zoo. So that’s nice.
The common practice is, that if you don’t know an animal’s date of birth, it’s set at January 1st.
So this year, Corky is celebrating 55 years of age!
And she’s still (I need to remind people) the oldest living member of A-pod, and in a few weeks time, will have spent 32 years at SeaWorld San Diego.
Lolita is 53 this year, and is the second oldest living member of L-pod. By August, she will have lived at Miami Seaquarium for 49 years.
Queen Katina turns 44, and by November, will have lived in Orlando for 35 years.
Kiska will now be 43 years old, and by November, will have lived at Marineland Ontario for 40 years!
Ulises turns 42, still the oldest killer whale bull by far, and by next month, will have lived at SeaWorld San Diego for 25 years.
Stella turns 33.
And special guest Ferdinand is 49 years old this year - by far the oldest beluga whale on record. The second oldest, Kavna, died in 2012 at the age of 46.
I don’t know the oldest bottlenose dolphins since there are so many all over the world, but feel free to add them.
Meanwhile, likely the oldest cetacean in human care anywhere is still Amity, the Australian humpback dolphin at Sea World Gold Coast. She was caught as an adult in 1968 and may be well over 60 years old, Ceta Base listing her possible year of birth as 1953.
The video above, in summary from some quotes. Text outside of the quotes is my commentary.
I have added unrelated photos from her facility (Dolfinarium Harderwijk), and of Keiko.
Everyone knows the scenario. You got invited to a party, and you do some small talk with people you haven’t met before. Often, one of the first questions to come up is “So what do you do for a living?”
When I give my answer to that question, there generally are two types of reactions. The first one is, “That is so cool. I envy you, and you really do have a dream job.” The second one on the other hand, and recently, more common, is “That’s terrible. You’re an animal abuser!”
So, what do I do for a living?
I’m a dolphin trainer.
So, as someone who is dedicating her life to taking care of animals, whose passion it is to make sure that they live the most fulfilling lives, and would do anything to make sure that their well-being is ensured, it can be hard to hear that second response to the answer of being a dolphin trainer.
Photo by Gert Jan
When you look at the nature of humans, you can clearly see that we are social beings. We want to belong to a group, we want to fit in, and we want to be liked. That last one, you can almost take literally when you look at social media.
We live in an era where people do anything for likes. Likes on Facebook, likes on Twitter, likes on Instagram. One of the easiest ways to get likes, is to get people to be emotional about something. And animals are the perfect fit for that!
Focusing on dolphins living in a zoological setting is an easy way for the media and for organizations to get likes and responses from their followers and viewers, especially when you let the viewers get emotional.
Unfortunately, we human beings tend to respond more extreme to negative news, rather than to positive news. This fascinated me! I have personally seen a story being twisted, just to get the audience to believe something that was very different from the reality.
All of a sudden, a story that comes out in the media lets people behind their phones, tablets and computers think that they know everything there is to know about the situation, and spread the word about how wrong everything is, claiming that they are the experts.
It’s a strange thing. Because, when you think about it, are you also gonna tell a cardiologist how to do his job, claiming you know better?
Probably you don’t.
But when it comes down to animals, there generally are a lot more of emotions involved in people’s opinions. A loud minority is spreading word about the mistreatment of animals in zoological settings, based on emotions rather than facts.
She talks about Free Willy and Keiko, how people wanted to recreate the movie in real life, how he died alone after only one year in the wild, and that one year, he spent constantly trying to get back to humans.
Photo by Ken Bartlett
“Now, why do I tell you this sad story?
Because, ask yourself the question, can we love an animal to death?”
Even though we mean so well, we love animals and we want them to have the best of lives. But, is what we want for them, actually what is best? Was it in the animal’s best interest to be released back into the wild?
“Reality isn’t a Hollywood movie.”
I know Mark Simmons has previously said that zoos are great at talking about species, saving species from extinction, but terrible at talking about the individual, which animal rights organizations are terrific at.
Ironically, Esther here makes kind of the opposite point, that it’s the ARAs that are only thinking about “types” of animals, and what they “should” want and need, rather than what is good for the individuals, which is what the zoos do.
(Both are correct, by the way. Zoos talk to the public about their fantastic mission of preserving species, while often brushing individuals under the carpet, at least until recently. While AR orgs talk only about individuals - Tilikum! Lolita! Morgan! Marius the giraffe! Billy the elephant! But meanwhile, in the actual day-to-day job, zoos are the ones thinking of individuals, while ARAs only think in huge generalizations.)
Photo by Missud
Reality is, that when I think of the animals under my care, I don’t see them as just a group of dolphins. I see each dolphin as an individual. - Reality is, that when we’re talking about animals under human care, the focus should not be on the phylogenetic history of animals, meaning the history of a species. The focus should be on the ontogenetic history, meaning the history of the individual, what is the individual used to, how did it develop itself?
It is so dangerous for us to make assumptions and to think we know what’s best for animals without taking into account their life history, their preferences, and their personalities.
Being anthropomorphic is okay, up until some point. Because animals absolutely do have emotions, they couldn’t survive without them. However, being too anthropomorphic, can actually be dangerous to animals.
Meaning that we could assume that what we prefer, and what we like, would be the same thing as what an animal would prefer or like.
She also speaks on how people prefer to champion for animals that are more relatable and popular, like dolphins, elephants and great apes, rather than for example insects and reptiles.
Photo by Tambako the Jaguar
People will post on Facebook to never visit a zoo or aquarium, because according to them, those are bad for animals. They will close their computers, completely satisfied with themselves, thinking they did something good.
They’ll walk over to the fridge, open the door, take out everything they need for dinner, and start cooking their vegetables - hopefully - and their piece of meat. Not being fully aware that that piece of meat was a living animal not too long ago, that maybe didn’t have the best of lives.
She continues by speaking about the role of zoos in making people care.
Why do I think this story should be told? Because I absolutely love animals, and I think animals should be loved for the beings that they are, not for what we want them to be.
Todays doodles are Myras personal Horse Acting Guide! 🐴
DISCLAIMER: im not a horse expert, but i’ve been hobby riding for 13 years and read some books through the years, so it’s just my personal experience. I dont know everything and people have different ways!
ppl be like “if demand for meat decreases animals will just stop breeding bc they never reproduce on their own accord, centuries of selective breeding and necessary care will cease to matter uwu uwu”
sheep will naturally mate with less wooly other sheep uwu uwu uwu
These are my guilty pleasure posts, they make me laugh so much at the expense of ARAs 😂
