Vancouver Aquarium has been ordered by the city鈥檚 park board to stop breeding whales, porpoises and dolphins. The decision reflects growing public discomfort with the keeping of wild creatures in permanent confinement.
The directive does not apply to breeding programs for endangered species. And it stops short of an outright ban on retaining and displaying marine mammals. Nevertheless, the impact might well be far-reaching.
Aquarium staff argue that it would be heartless, and practically unfeasible, to prevent cetaceans such as dolphins from mating. The facility has arranged a court hearing to challenge the decision.
But if it is indeed a form of cruelty to deny captive animals the opportunity to breed, and yet the park board鈥檚 order stands, where does that lead? Can the keeping of cetaceans be justified at all in such circumstances?
Aquarium staff point out that they no longer capture wild, healthy specimens. The practice was discontinued in 1996. Now, marine mammals are only brought to the facility if they are injured or sick.
But while those that recover are sometimes released, any offspring they give birth to must be retained. Experience has shown that young sea mammals raised in captivity do not acquire the skills they would need to survive in the wild.
And it鈥檚 here the dilemma emerges. If breeding is permitted, eventually those offspring will mature and a new generation is born to a life in captivity. What began as a rescue service for animals in distress leads to permanent confinement for their offspring.
On the other hand, there are clearly moral issues around forced segregation or the solitary penning of adults. There are no easy answers here.
Indeed, one set of questions leads to another. Can we ever justify retaining healthy wild animals in aquariums or zoos?
It is troubling to see massively active creatures such as beluga whales cooped up indefinitely. Their entire existence is supposed to revolve around a nomadic and unfettered traverse of the oceans.
The same might be said of animals such as wolves. Their well-being is jeopardized if they cannot run free.
Yet there is also value in allowing the public, and in particular children, to get up close with species they might otherwise never see.
As our society grows increasingly urbanized, encounters with creatures in their native habitat become increasingly rare. Aquariums and zoos fill that gap.
While this quandary will continue to gnaw at us, an aquarium at Ucluelet has come up with a partial solution.
The facility uses a form of catch and release in stocking its tanks. Divers collect species such as giant Pacific octopus, sea stars, prawns and a variety of rockfish.
The creatures are held for an average of 10 months, at which point they are set free. To make this possible, tanks draw water from the ocean with a flow-through system that provides the same seasonal temperature fluctuations that occur in the wild.
The aquarium also employs a number of measures to prevent any form of dependency arising. Feeding times are shuffled at random. Staff are careful not to allow any bonding or habit-forming. To some extent, that limits the kind of experience visitors can expect. The well-being of the occupants comes first.
It鈥檚 unlikely this system could be used with more complex species like cetaceans. Yet it points the way toward a different understanding of how zoos and aquariums might function.
And the experiment has not gone unnoticed. A number of facilities around North America have expressed an interest in Ucluelet鈥檚 approach.
Perhaps here is a way to ease our moral dilemma. If wild species can be treated as visitors, rather than permanent captives, we come closer to regarding them as equals.
It will take time and resources to develop this idea. But it feels like a step worth taking.
