Cetacean Gifs

Gifs. Cetaceans, cetaceans, cetaceans. Zoological and Wild cetacean gifs.

[namu-the-orca]

In a weird twist of event, Marineland Canada has befallen the same fate as Marineland France. The park has been closed for good, and 30 belugas as well as some bottlenose dolphins are left behind. The park has no income and no money to take care of these animals for long. Chimelong Ocean Kingdom, a state of the art modern marine park in China was willing to take them.

But Canada's minister of Fisheries and Oceans barred the transfer.

"In a statement, DFO Minister Joanne Thompson said she could not "in good conscience" approve the export and that her decision aligned with regulations in the Fisheries Act to protect marine mammals from exploitation. "It was obvious to me that whales belong in the ocean," she said. "To see 30 belugas in contained spaces was very difficult." "

Yeeesss. These 30 animals, that have either been born in Marineland or have been in captivity for decades, should really be released into the ocean! Or a sea sanctuary, because we've seen how eagerly animals adapt to a completely foreign and - to them - really stressful environment with the SeaLife beluga sanctuary! Oh oops, but there are no sanctuaries, let alone one that can take so many animals.

And so, while there is a suitable park that is willing to take these animals and make sure they are well cared for, now euthanasia is on the table. For thirty, healthy whales.

It is maddening and heartbreaking how the very people who claim to want the best for these animals, would truly rather see all these whales dead than continue their life under human care.

All these whales have a life, a personality, a family. They were or are trainers' favourites, their special baby, their best friend. I honestly can't believe we're living in a world where animal activism has gone so far where governments are influenced to the point of (possibly) forcing mass euthanasia. When a single (killer) whale dies at a park there is massive outcry. But purposefully killing 30 animals is fine if done for the right reasons! Anything except doing something for their actual welfare, because that makes us feel yucky!

I am hoping so, so hard that the worst doesn't come to pass. Because these animals do not deserve it.

What can you do? (thanks for Cetal Fauna on facebook for the links and sharing the photos of the whales!)

Contact Fisheries Minister Joanna Thompson and the DFO at:

Fisheries Minister Joanna Thompson [email protected] [phone] (St. John’s, Newfoundland)

DFO Headquarters [email protected]

[vegannerdgirl]

[teaboot]

ZOOS ARE NOT ANIMAL CRUELTY FACTORIES THEY ARE RESEARCH CENTERS, HOSPITALS, REHABILITATION CENTERS, ANIMAL RESCUES, SANCTUARIES, SCHOOLS, AND REPOPULATION PROGRAMS. DONT SAY "ZOOS" WHEN YOU *MEAN* "ROADSIDE ATTRACTIONS, PRIVATE COLLECTIONS, CIRCUSES, AND POACHERS"

[agro-carnist]

Zoos ARE verified conservation organizations, dipshit

[wild-west-wind]

Accredited zoos are held to higher standards than sanctuaries, which are rarely accredited or subject to any oversight. Many of the ‘sanctuaries’ you see, at least in the US, are nothing more than terrible for-profit menageries that milk their animals for cash.

Others bank hard on ‘animal rights’ issues, and end up creating facilities run by folks with little experience, overcrowded and ripe with disease.

Zoos do SO MUCH critical conservation work. Zoos are responsible for saving many species from extinction, and protecting animals in and out of captivity. Zoos are not the enemy.

[forever5hines]

I worked at a zoo as a student and lemme just tell you. They fund so much research, they're part of international breeding programs, saving and helping animals from near extinction. The people working with these animals are highly educated and so passionate about their job and the animals. They work on enrichment all the time.

There are 'bad zoos' but so many zoos are important and do incredible work

[duchess-of-mandalore]

Another former zoo employee here. Please take into consideration that not only do accredited zoos have to meet very stringent guidelines for their animals, but also that the vast, vast majority of animals have either been bred in captivity (and as the previous commenter noted, they are often exceptionally important to growing the species) and thus never could be released or they are animals who were rescued from the wild because they could not have survived there. Many zoos, including my own, commit that none of their animals will be acquired by any method other than the two listed above.

Both of our sea lions were “taken” from the wild. One was born blind and was abandoned by its mother. The other was critically injured after a run-in with a boat propeller. Both would have died except for the fact that they had a place to go.

Are zoos perfect? No. But the “zoos” that have flagrant problems are usually the sideshows and sanctuaries that simply want to capitalize on ignorant people who just want to see some cute animals and put no other thought into why those animals are there. 

Please do not lump accredited zoos that do so much for research, conservation, and educating the public with those places. 

Always do your research, but when you are convinced, please support your local zoos and animal sanctuaries that care about the wellbeing of their animals. They are the last line of defense for many animals and species that would be in great trouble otherwise.

[heartnosekid]

the glass octopus (vitreledonella richardi) | source

[local-hellhound-steals-spaghetti]

People will really be accusing accredited zoological facilities that use positive reinforcement of abusing animals to “force them to perform” and then have a photo of them with a horse wearing a bit and flash noseband…

Sorry but your whole sport pretty much involves forcing an animal to perform. Like… I know we all want to say that horses enjoy being ridden but let’s be honest… a horse probably would rather not have a bit in their mouth and a strap that keeps their mouth shut so they can’t avoid it.

But these people are saying dolphins are being forced to do behaviours that are all trained using positive reinforcement. Something that the horse world is extremely averse to using because we can’t “just be feeding our horses treats all the time! They should just do their work because they love me!”

I don’t think realise the hypocrisy.

[why-animals-do-the-thing]

Pssst... something new is coming...

...this weekend!

Free, non-AI animal art references.

[local-hellhound-steals-spaghetti]

The 5kg of leaves we had to manually pull out of a dolphin’s stomach living in a sea pen would beg to differ, Lori. (reminder, dolphins don’t have gag reflexes)

This is just objectively false.

The dolphin in question.

[orcinus-veterinarius]

Who’s going to tell her about the turtles that swallow fishhooks and plastic bags or the whales who choke on balloons? You’d be hard-pressed to find a part of “the wild” that’s completely safe from manmade pollution.

And let’s not even mention the seals that show up to rehab with bellies full of rocks. Plain old naturally-occurring rocks.

[ihazyourkitty]

Hogle Zoo is an AZA accredited facility, opening up a new area 3 acre area called "Wild Utah" to feature various native Utah species. 3 of those animals are going to be orphaned cougar cubs that were rescued and unable to survive in the wild on their own.

Note that 2 of these cubs have shortened ears and tails because of frostbite. They were rescued in Nebraska where the weather conditions were severe, and again, these cubs were unequipped to handle it on their own.

This would be a very positive story about giving orphaned cubs a second chance at a good place where they will receive all the care that they need... or so you would think.

Instead, multiple people on the comments were asserting that they were just going to prisons, one even going so far as to say that it would've been better to just let them die.

Wonderful. Nothing says "I love animals" than explicitly saying that they're better off dead than at an accredited zoo. Again, you will note that 2 of the 3 were suffering things like frostbite when they were rescued. There is nothing humane about letting animals that are within your power to help die like that.

I cannot, and will never, understand the "logic" behind this kind of mindset. Yes, baby orphaned animals die in nature all the time. No, we cannot save them all. But for those we can help... why not help them? And why is a life well cared for at an accredited zoo somehow worse for them than suffering a slow and painful death from starvation and exposure?

These animals do not have the same concepts of freedom vs. prison like we do. All they knew was that their mother is gone, and they were cold and starving.

Yes, bad or less than ideal zoos exist. Hogle Zoo is not one of them. Zoos and aquariums are not universally prisons, and if you think that, then let me just ask... what kind of prisons have you been to!? Seriously, all of the animals I've had the privilege to work with eat better than I do, and are treated vastly better than human prisoners are. How privileged must you be to think that all zoos and prisons are equivalent to one another!

Here's the reality: the zoological industry is a complex, nuanced thing that is ever improving and expanding. We're not stuck in the 1970s like you are. Stop judging animal welfare based on vibes, and stop drinking the PETA, HSUS et al. kool aid, because they're lying to you.

[goryfluff]

Nautilus expedition live streams (+ their commentary) 2020 / 2021 / 2022

[local-hellhound-steals-spaghetti]

Any time I see someone worshipping Ingrid Visser I remember the time her organisation, under her advice, kept an orca calf on a mattress in a horse trailer overnight because they wanted to “rehabilitate” him/put him in a makeshift sea pen to treat like a pool toy until he died.

I remember when videos showed up of newly named Toa vocalising (usually a sign of stress) and her cooing and making nonsense noises at him. And the comments were like “she’s talking to him!!!”

Ingrid also insisted of making Toa interact with people despite him being a very sick baby orca who was slowly dying.

This was later confirmed by people who were there:

I remember when untrained volunteers were crowding this stressed sick orca calf, bragging about swimming with him and bonding with him and ignoring advice to stop habituating him.

They had young kids in with him that didn’t know better and were told by Ingrid to interact with him like this. They were also laughing about how he “snored.” (Cetaceans don’t snore - anything that sounds like snoring is respiratory distress).

(Funny how waterwork is only okay when they do it with the stressed and dying orca calf but not in SeaWorld.)

The pathetic attempt to rehabilitate this dying calf by treating him like a pet, putting him in a tub of freshwater that quickly became toxic with ammonia. Signing off feeds with belly rubs and formulas changed behind the backs of the actual experts from Wellington Zoo and the experts consulted overseas who actually have successfully rehabbed calves.

How Whale Rescue (Ingrid’s organisation) lied again and again about Toa’s health and chances to be rehabilitated and released. How they misrepresented information about habituation when rehabbing whales and how Ingrid wanted to “train” Toa, despite plans to release him. How they demonised SeaWorld and claimed they weren’t involved despite records showing that SeaWorld and Loro Parque vets had provided their formula recipes and calf rearing protocols.

None of this is true - Ingrid has never rehabilitated any whale from a marine park. All the information she was getting was from DOC and the advisory group team

I could go on but I hit my image limit.

Basically: Ingrid’s “expertise” misled the New Zealand public, bullying out the actual experts so she could play orca trainer with her new pet.

[orcinus-veterinarius]

If you want whales to stay wild, let them stay wild. That’s fine. But recognize that it means no rehabilitation. If a neonatal calf strands with no proper facilities available for rehab and no pod in sight, then the most humane option is euthanasia. Full stop. Not… whatever this disaster was.

Wildlife biology is not wildlife rehab. No matter how esteemed a biologist you are, you are not a veterinarian and you are not a rehabber. Housing a cetacean out of the water, on its side… keeping him in freshwater… letting members of the general public love all over him… these things would never, ever happen at a true rehabilitation facility. But Dr. Visser insisted on presenting herself as the end-all be-all expert on cetacean rehab, even while the DOC was reaching out to actual marine mammal veterinarians (not random NZ vets with no cetacean experience) and being told no, stop, stop this now.

And don’t get me started on the hypocrisy of insisting that orcas must remain wild under any and all circumstances, and then cooing about how this wild baby loves belly rubs and kisses. And I don’t doubt that he did by the way, because cetaceans, especially calves, adapt incredibly quickly to people. It’s why calves under one year of age are automatically non-releasable. They will never return to the wild, and if that’s unacceptable to you, then euthanize the calf.

Oh, and the claim that “dozens” of marine park cetaceans have returned to successful, fully wild lives after “years” of human contact is a lie from the pit of hell. As is the statement that Dr. Visser has ever rehabilitated a captive cetacean.

For all America’s issues, I’m at least grateful we have formal marine stranding networks, with experienced rehab experts and specially trained veterinarians. And if New Zealand doesn’t want to follow suit, so be it. But never allow something like this to happen again.

[peduncling-away-deactivated2019]

Trick training isn't Enrichment it's circus skills and wild animals shouldn't be subjected to that

Lol hello animal rights activist with no clue about enrichment :)

Behavioral enrichment (closely related to environmental enrichment) is an animal husbandry principle that seeks to enhance the quality of captive animal care by identifying and providing the environmental stimuli necessary for optimal psychological and physiological well-being.[1] The goal of environmental enrichment is to improve or maintain an animal’s physical and psychological health by increasing the range or number of species-specific behaviors, increasing positive utilization of the captive environment, preventing or reducing the frequency of abnormal behaviors such as stereotypies, and increasing the individual’s ability to cope with the challenges of captivity.

Training is enrichment. High energy behaviours improve and maintain the whale’s physical well-being by keeping them fit and also gives them mental challenges in order to work out the behaviour they need to perform to get treats. Like look at this training session with Shouka. Huge rates of reinforcement (they even get a nice big fish jackpot) and really having to engage their body to get those extra high jumps. 

Training also prevents animals from being inactive and engaging in stereotypic behaviours like logging, as we see in this video (although there’s still toys provided for the whales, which is good to see).

“Circus tricks” is a really lazy definition of behaviour imo. High energy behaviours like high jumping and flipping and splashing are good for physical activity for these animals, which are living in fairly under stimulating environments. They’re not going to be released into the wild since a lot of them are not suitable candidates and also have terrible immune systems due to lack of exposure.

So yeah I’d prefer to see these animals being physically and mentally engaged via “circus tricks” then to leave them to wallow in their pools with nothing to do simply because some people don’t agree with the concept.

[why-animals-do-the-thing]

All of this. Also, what a lot of people think of as ‘tricks’ often double for husbandry behaviors. (Not this example, though). A bear sticking it’s tongue out may also be the same cue as for an oral examination.

[underwatercore]

[wakewithgiggli]

There are many benefits of being a marine biologist. I'm not sure running into this is one of them.

[just-rhys-things]

That's the marine biologist don't be rude

[pigcatapult]

ah, to be a rolling mass of loaches(?)...

[chillgamesh-the-swing]

Diversity win! These fish are shambling

[ofishal-fish-posts]

official fish that make me vaguely uncomfortable to look at post

@identifying-fish-in-photos can we get confirmation on what sort of fish these are?

[identifying-fish-in-photos]

✨striped eel catfish✨

[markscherz]

These venomous fish are the exclusive prey item of one species of sea snake, Hydrophis major, and some individuals eat *dozens of them* at a time (Shine et al. 2019). They can even track the chemical cues the fish use to maintain connection in these dense foraging balls (Udyawer et al. 2020).

[the-cetacean]

Dolphins: Spy in the Pod (BBC)

[the-cetacean]

Dolphins: Spy in the Pod (BBC)

[the-cetacean]

Dolphins: Spy in the Pod (BBC)

[the-cetacean]

Dolphins: Spy in the Pod (BBC)

[the-cetacean]

Dolphins: Spy in the Pod (BBC)

[the-cetacean]

Dolphins: Spy in the Pod (BBC)