Perhaps the most unfortunate thing we’ve allowed to take place in our public discourse over the last few years is the emergence of ‘alternative facts’, and a kind of absurd moral relativism   This has done enormous damage to our ability to talk to one other.  It makes it very difficult to work together to solve problems.  

I believe this was a deliberate strategy employed by people who never intended to compete on the basis of any kind of adherence to reality (which takes a lot of effort).  It’s what you do if your desire is to have whatever position you wish to put forward taken seriously, and to advance your interests, without having to do the work.  

This requires a blurring of the lines between fact and opinion.  Between truth and lies.  

We don’t have this luxury in the realm of science.  You’ll only hit your launch window if your math is right.  Your cell phone won’t work if its developers ignored even one of the laws of physics, and so on.  Unfortunately, many of us have come to believe that when it comes to political or moral arguments, one set of ‘facts’ will be as good as any other.  And anything goes if it aids your cause.

A pernicious aspect of this is the arrival of what some call a ‘post truth’ society or body politic.  Many people now routinely demonstrate a startling indifference to whether or not the information they’re getting out there is literally true.  To them, it doesn’t matter as long as it gets the job done and advances their agenda.  It’s all about the spin.  It expects of you that you’ll completely disregard your own entirely human tendency towards confirmation bias if you want to be a player in this game. 

This is dangerous and entirely counter-productive.  Truth is not relative, and this is definitely not a game.  The problems we need to solve are real.  The solutions won’t come from what we wish to be true.

I mention all this because we at CCA believe in the need to be very careful not to get drawn into using bogus facts as a weapon.  Honest mistakes can happen, but they need to be corrected when identified.  Perpetuating them will work against our purpose.  Better still, we believe that our adversaries’ reliance on misinformation is what will doom their cause in the long run.

We are part of a global movement to raise awareness of the issues that impact the welfare and wellbeing of whales and dolphins.  Among these is our hope to one day see a universal end to cetacean captivity.  We want this because it reflects the kind of world we hope to live in – defined by justice and compassion towards other species.  But in order to get there, we need to have a clear understanding of what we mean by these terms.  We’ve written about this many times, and will continue to explore these topics in future blogs, but it comes down to respecting the essential nature and intelligence of these beings.

Don’t join our cause unless this is precisely your motivation as well.  We are in a battle with an industry that routinely uses misinformation and misdirection to put a humane face on activities which are exploitative and, frankly, exceptionally cruel.  What they rely on is that a sufficient number of potential patrons remain unaware of what life in captivity is really like for the dolphins coerced into performing.  Marine parks could gamble that the public won’t care even if they knew, but it’s interesting that they’ve shown no inclination to take that risk.  They know that a well-informed public means empty seats at their shows and, eventually, empty tanks.

If you’re on the other side and you want to fight us, here is the only way you can do it.  Consider it free advice.  If ongoing research into cetacean behavior, intelligence, communications and brain physiology (to name a few) ends up supporting your case, you will have beaten us.  If the best available science demonstrates, let’s say, that dolphins really aren’t as smart as we think they are, then your argument favoring the perpetuation of captivity will be that much stronger. 

If you can show how they really don’t experience emotional trauma when captured, forcibly separated from their pods, and transported hundreds or thousands of miles, that’s in your favor.  That they don’t see other members of their pods as family, in a sense that we ourselves would recognize.  That life in a featureless concrete tank 1 10,000^th of 1% of their natural range is not something they experience with stress, boredom and despair. 

If you’re confident that ultimately those are what the facts will show, have at it.  I’ve just given you the secret to how you can beat us.  Why would I do that?  Because I know as well as you do that you’ll never be able to accomplish it.  

Now, to be clear, you will succeed in exposing lies and misinformation among those of us who describe themselves as defenders of dolphins.  Be careful not to see those as victories.  Any movement, including ours, has a few entities looking to capitalize by exploiting a problem for financial gain.  

A couple of examples quickly come to mind.  One is dolphin friendly labeling made possible by an institute that is well aware that dolphins still die in order to provide the tuna inside the can, but will lend their name to it anyway.  Or to be more accurate, sell their name.  Another is organizations that advocate against the ocean plastics that do so much harm to cetaceans, but who refuse to tackle the issue of the fishing industry’s ghost gear that does so much more.  When more than 50% of these plastics are discarded nets and other fishing gear, such a dismissal is hypocritical in the extreme.

But know this – having exposed this kind of dishonesty among supposed environmentalists doesn’t get you anywhere in terms of providing support for cetacean captivity.   For that, you need science to make the case that I’ve outlined above.  What is the true nature of whales and dolphins, and what is the experience of captivity really like for them?

We intend to see justice done, and for cetacean species to receive the compassion and fair treatment that they deserve from us.  For our moral frontier to be extended to include them, because their essential nature demands it.  We believe this is what’s right because this is what the facts will continue to show. 

For The Orca’s Voice, 

Anna, and the Canadian Cetacean Alliance Team