We now have the benefit of tools for connecting with one another which are far more effective than even our most recent ancestors could have dreamed.  Yet, much of our public discourse has come down to short bursts of noise – often nothing more meaningful than an attempt to take the legs out from under the other guy rather than any sincere attempt at greater understanding.  If anything, many of us are getting less adept at finding common ground and working towards solutions to problems.   

This is despite the fact that, increasingly, much of our best work in today’s world is produced through collaborative efforts which combine our unique skill sets and specializations.  This process enables us to innovate at a pace that none of us could ever achieve on our own, and very much to mutual advantage.  Nevertheless, this knowledge doesn’t prevent us from behaving quite stupidly, much of the time.  Indeed, many of the discussions we engage in on a daily basis, even on issues of importance, have become remarkably ineffective in terms of moving us closer to genuine understanding.  A corollary of this is that we’ve become polarized to a degree I never thought possible.  And I’m not just talking about social media.

So what could we do differently?  Well, let’s say we explore this by way of a single example – on an issue that is singularly important to us here at CCA – and think about how we might approach it in a way that’s helpful to effecting positive outcomes.

One of the key reasons we started the Canadian Cetacean Alliance is to help move the world more quickly towards that day when whale and dolphin captivity is universally condemned and abolished.  On this issue that is so vital to us, one thing we do not want is for the debate to descend into a battle of competing ideologies.  We need to keep talking, and to keep moving forward towards the bigger goal.  Having the discussion break down along partisan lines won’t move us any closer.

As activists, we need to able to think well in the abstract.  To understand what it is exactly that we’re putting forward for discussion, and how it fits into the bigger picture.  We also need to be able to break the proposition into its constituent parts, to fully understand how the argument is put together and, if need be, to reconstruct it in a more logical manner. 

So what do I mean by this?  Well, let’s say we want to answer a big question such as “Is there a role for captive facilities to play in the service of advancing the well-being of cetaceans?”.  How do we do that, exactly?  Such a question can’t be answered as it’s presently formulated.  Before you can tackle it, you need to consider a large number of other things, and you need to evaluate each independently.  Together, they might build up to a workable argument for or against the larger proposition. 

Maybe start by taking a look at the talking points used by the captivity industry (usually centered around conservation, research, education, and happy dolphins well taken care of!) and honestly look for merit in each.  If your objective is to formulate a thoughtful and logically defensible opinion on whether keeping cetaceans in captivity is an acceptable and desirable practice, here is some of what you might look for:

• Do captive facilities help promote the conservation of cetaceans?
• Do they serve a purpose in rescuing animals injured in the wild and unable to survive without human intervention?
• Does captivity give us valuable opportunities to study cetaceans that would not otherwise be available to us?  Can we learn things about whale and dolphin physiology, needs, and behaviours that can really help us to protect them in the wild?  
• Do we have the veterinary knowledge and tools to keep them healthy in captivity?
• When we do provide them with such care (assuming we know how) do they in fact remain healthy in captivity? 
• Because we put them into environments without pollution or predation, and with medical care they wouldn’t otherwise get, do they live lives as long, or even longer in captivity than they can in the wild?
• Is there educational value in dolphin shows (along with the obvious commercial purpose of entertainment)?

Considered in this way, in each case you now have questions that can be evaluated by researching the best available science, from which you can then begin to draw conclusions based on the facts.  

Now regardless of where you’ve landed on these questions so far – you might have enough already to conclude the captivity is abhorrent and undesirable.  Or maybe you’ve concluded the opposite.  But can you form an opinion at this point?  Well, perhaps, but only to a degree.  What I’d like you to consider is whether we’ve brought in everything that’s relevant and important to the question.  Perhaps there are aspects of this that SeaWorld would prefer you don’t bring into your analysis?  What could those be, for example?

I will state categorically that the answers to any of these questions so far don’t distil down to what is really at the heart of the matter.  The questions that would decide this for me are as follows:

• What is the true nature of cetaceans, and therefore what is the experience of captivity really like for them?
• How far along are we in our studies of these beings, and how close are we to arriving at a fact-based, scientifically-derived determination of the first question?
• Given what we already know (and acknowledging what we don’t know), what would erring on the side of caution look like?

I believe that the facts we have available to us today suggest an exceedingly high probability that whale and dolphin captive facilities do enormous harm to a cetacean’s well-being, and the moral course of action is to discontinue their use immediately. Our descendants will probably view what we’ve been doing as inflicting a tremendous injustice upon a fellow species. Further, they will probably think that, given the information available to us, we should have known better. Or worse, that we knew but didn’t care.

I would change my mind about captivity if our studies were to put forward enough evidence that I’d have to alter the following conclusions I’ve made thus far:

1. That cetacean (and especially dolphin) intelligence is unique in the non-human animal kingdom in that it is sufficiently complex as to rival our own.  That the cognitive abilities they seem to demonstrate, along with the extraordinary social intelligence they display, are not accidental displays of instinctive behaviors. That they are creatures who really are as smart as they appear to be.
2. That their social bonds are every bit as intense as our own – that what they experience for other members of their pods (family units) is a level of concern (and what we describe as love) as intense as what we feel for one another.
3. That the experience of having other members of their pods slaughtered all around them in a drive hunt is as horrific for them as it would be for us.  That what we understand of their brain physiology suggests a social intelligence which may even be superior to ours.
4. That being deprived of their liberty brings about as much mental anguish and despair for them as it does for us.  In fact, for an animal that swims up to 100 miles per day, often at speed and in straight lines, confinement to a tiny concrete tank is almost certainly an unbearable hell.  

If the evidence for these beliefs doesn’t add up, and these conclusions aren’t supported by the facts, then I can change my mind.  Until then, I will remain opposed to cetacean captivity regardless of what conclusions we might draw from the first set of questions.  What it comes down to is that even if the industry’s claims about conservation benefits, education etc. were true (preview…. they aren’t!), holding a being such as a dolphin in a concrete tank is abhorrent and morally indefensible.  At least until someone can present compelling scientific evidence that they are not what they so far appear to be.

Can we agree on that?

Finally, if science does one day lead us to conclude that these beings are in fact what they appear to be, it will be time for us to acknowledge that being human does not constitute the totality of what counts to determine who dominates over whom – and it will be time for us to extend our moral frontier to include them. 

For The Orca’s Voice, 

Chris and the CCA Team