Ok so this is a massive post but thought I would condense it all into one to avoid clogging up the thread. I'm involved with animal care and know quite a few people in the field so I always like to chime in with some devils advocate stuff to aid the discussion.
nadroJ said:
Nah, I completely disagree. They're 100% better off keeping their mouths shut and not responding. Especially when companies like PETA are involved. It's not worth the hassle. It's all about perceived trustworthiness, and if a damning documentary has come out about you and you're, like I said, the 'big evil corporation' nobody gives a **** if you're telling the truth or not. People love to see big companies be brought down a peg or two.
Look at Tesco, for example. During the horse meat scandal they were taken to the cleaners. They didn't actually do anything wrong (it was the company Findus that actually used horse meat in their products and didn't label it properly, Tesco merely sold them) and yet because Tesco are the big dog people jumped on the 'outrage' band wagon to have a go. And Tesco handled it beautifully. They never once put out any ads justifying what had happened or any of that, they simply apologised, held their hands up and said it won't happen again. And people soon forgot about it. People aren't interested in humble admittance. They want a war. They want an argument. And this is precisely where Sea World is failing miserably.
Yes I agree that Sea World's animals are probably very well cared for now and what have you. That doesn't stop their animals from being incredibly inbred and, at some point in history, snatched from their natural habitats. And what Sea World have still yet to do is go yes this happened, we are ashamed of it, we can't change the past but we are working to do things differently in the future. Instead they insist on this approach of 'no actually it's not like that, here's a video of some happy Shamu's'. No. Do not give these instigators of conflict a response. Do not satisfy them with a direct comeback like that. It's just antagonising and in the end not beneficial to brand improvement in any way, nobody cares to see the big evil corporation fight their corner, what they want is to see them taken down a peg or two and humbled for it.
Whatever they do in response can be taken negatively. If they don't do anything people will criticise them for hiding facts and trying to ignore things and if they do counteract people will say what you've just said. It's a lose-lose really. My previous comment about it re-assuring people was mostly aimed at previous park visitors. I know quite a few people who are interested in animals and have visited the parks but were confused by Blackfish and started to wonder whether they shouldn't visit again so I think press releases like that help to re-assure those people. I think also a lot of their supporters are pleased that they have come out with this stuff as they don't have to fight their corner by themselves now as a lot of online discussion has gone on between animal fans and activists people on this issue.
Re-Tesco- I'm not sure it's that easy to compare the two as people don't really give that much of a sh*t what kind of meat they're eating whereas as a LOT of people are passionate about animal welfare (and will make big decisions based on their beliefs in it e.g. turning vegetarian). People still have to eat so of course they're still going to go to their local tesco if it's nearby, cheap and convenient. Going to Seaworld is a luxury that people can do without and if animal welfare is questionable a lot of people will passionately choose not to go.
Re-Inbred and wild capture- Afaik only a few individuals from SW's orcas are considerably inbred. AI actually helps avoid this but of course animal rights people think that this is terrible despite it being a common practise with farming and domestics already. White Tigers are actually a lot worse off. They're very inbred to the extent that a considerable number of them have genetic defects and health issues. Inbreeding is also something that occurs naturally to an extent anyway. I understand your point and obviously we'd love for them to have as large a gene pool as possible but from what I know it's not as bad as PETA would like people to believe.
All animals in zoos came from the wild at some stage as they couldn't come from anywhere else so I don't think all zoos and aquaria suddenly need to say "hey look guys these animals originally came from the wild". We all know that and don't need to keep appologising for things that happened decades ago. The fact that no wild caught cetaceans have been taken on in the UK or Europe (Western at least) for decades shows that we have already made changes and don't consider that acceptable anymore.
I get what you're saying about it possibly being a bad idea to engage the naysayers but at the same time I think it's good that there are now some positive press articles out there to counterbalance all of the negative ones. Now that it's become such a big issue, anything Seaworld does that is positive will get big press now too.
Robbie said:
That video would be hilarious if it wasn't that SeaWorld was so in denial. Despite putting "FACTS" and "Government Scientists" in large letters they fail to back up with any independent research; and no-one's saying all their animals live shorter lives than in the wild - in fact, a central part of Blackfish is that the killer orca is so old he's gone nuts thanks to too many years of captivity and abuse.
I agree the approach should really say, "hey, we may have made mistakes but we're fixing things" rather than carrying on as if there's no issue.
One of PETA's claims, whether in Blackfish or not is that the Orcas at Seaworld don't live as long as in the wild. One crucial point to this what that a wild Orca was discovered that was estimated to be around 100 years old. In actual fact it was then realised that this individual (who would be an anomaly anyway) only had a 20% or whatever chance of actually being 100 years old. So basically it was very weak science. I saw a presentation on this piece of research so it could be this piece of research that they are referring to. I believe they've simplified it all down for the video for layman consumption but I've certainly heard of research having come to similar conclusions.
I addressed the whole "hey we've made mistakes" thing earlier. I think to an extent they have admitted to this as they've constantly upgraded and updated their protocols e.g. no wild capture etc. Animal keeping has evolved a lot over the last 50 years. I don't think London Zoo or wherever needs to keep apologising for their past animal enclosures or practises from decades ago.
gavin said:
^ Yep, PETA is ridiculously flawed. Doesn't make Sea World right though.
That's exactly the sort of tactic that they actually tried with Blackfish. Instead of addressing the issues raised, or suing the arse off them (which clearly they couldn't do, or they would have), they instead just tried to discredit the film and film makers. The idea is that if people see some liberties taken with the film, they'll turn against it and believe that there were never any real problems that needed addressing.
Unfortunately for Sea World, people aren't generally that stupid.
I, again, agree with nadroJ. Despite seeming to take a strong anti-Sea World stance, I'm not actually all that bothered whether they have them or not. I'm far from some animal rights nut. I just can't STAND that they're so duplicitous and treat their customers like idiots, trying to wriggle out of every criticism, and flat out lying, instead of just holding their hands up and being honest.
There's a reason that we don't have dolphins in the UK any more. People won't accept any "conservationalal/educational/natural behaviour" bulls**t.
Ok so I see that you're obviously anti anyway but whatever I'll give my 2c seeing as this is a discussion. How exactly are they flat out lying? I think they've been honest with a lot of the stuff they've come out with and that there is also a lot more that they could truthfully say that would help their cause (like talking more about their training and behind the scenes stuff).
Re-UK Dolphins- The main reason why we don't have dolphins anymore in the UK is because all of our facilities were too small and when the new regulations came in around 1991/2 none of the zoos could afford to upgrade and expand their facilities. A lot of people who support dolphins in captivity elsewhere would not have supported them here in the UK with the size of tanks that we had. We also have a high proportion of animal rights people over here in a relatively small country (i.e. people like to moan here). Thousands of british people visit dolphinaria and zoos abroad.
I assume that you're anti-zoo in general if you're calling "conservational/educational/natural behaviour bulls**t" as plenty of other animals are trained in the same way elsewhere and many zoos contain animals that are much less endangered than Orca or some species of dolphin. Which is fair if you have your reasons, but I was just making a point.
