Ethos

In a March 15th listserv post, respected marine mammal scientist Naomi A. Rose, Ph.D. alerted members of the MARMAM listserve (marmam@lists.uvic.ca) about a company called Ocean Embassy (www.oceanembassy.com), which has been seeking permission of the Panamanian government to build a resort featuring captive dolphins. Dr. Rose described plans for the company to stock this aquarium with dolphins captured from Panamanian waters. Dr. Rose said: “I am appalled at the misrepresentation of scientific and conservation concepts currently taking place in Panama. In the 14 years I have been working in the field of marine mammal protection advocacy, I have never seen quite such an egregious and propagandistic misuse of science and conservation to sell this type of business development plan.” She has asked that marine mammal biologists speak out against this project. “If companies like Ocean Embassy can masquerade as research and conservation organizations with impunity, when they not only are just business ventures but are actually perverting scientific, conservation, and management principles to further their own commercial interests,” she continues, “then we can hardly expect governments to continue to respect and heed legitimate science.” Dr. Rose has urged biologists and the like to speak out and clarify to Panamanian officials that the manner in which Ocean Embassy represents science and conservation is inconsistent with that of the international marine mammal science, conservation, and management communities. I would echo her request, and also call for input from social scientists and animal studies scholars, especially those with insight on the ethics concerning Ocean Embassy’s plans.

The ways that dolphins are captured, transported, and kept for research, display and/or entertainment raises many ethical concerns. Family groups are broken up when one or more dolphins are taken from their home waters in traumatic takings, and the effects of changing the social structure of the wild population once those individuals are removed from the community are unknown. Many captive dolphins display physiological and behavioral indicators of stress such as elevated adrenocortical hormones, stereotyped behavior, self-destruction, self-mutilation, and excessive aggressiveness towards humans and other dolphins. To be sure, captive dolphin facilities vary around the world, but even if Panama provided the very best in captive dolphin care and management, the decision to keep healthy dolphins in human care at all disregards their moral value. Captivity denies dolphins their psychological, physical, and social integrity, inflicts untold kinds and amounts of stress, and drastically alters the fundamental life experience of being a dolphin.

As far as we know, like other bottlenose dolphins, Panamanian bottlenose dolphins (those targeted for takings from the Caribbean and the Pacific sides of Panama), are not endangered or threatened. Ocean Embassy’s plan to capture, display, and breed local dolphins make no sense as part of a “conservation plan”. Unlike the complicated issues that can come with keeping extremely vulnerable species in zoos as part of a greater species survival plan (great apes, for example), there is no reason to think that we can benefit dolphins, ensuring the survival of their species, by keeping them in human care. On the contrary, the demand for the capture of more wild dolphins to support increasing numbers of captive entertainment and encounter programs has the potential to harm dolphin populations and is therefore a conservation concern as well as a question of individual animal welfare.

Generally, proponents of dolphinariums argue that public display facilities offer opportunities for scientific research as well as a great educational benefit to human visitors. There are currently sufficient numbers of dolphins in captivity to satisfy scientific research demands, and many contend that we have learned all we can from studying dolphins in captivity. As for the educational value of marine parks, that is what essentially exempts United States facilities from the harassment provisions of the Marine Mammal Protection Act. The US government can authorize the capture or importation of marine mammals for public display purposes “as long as [such a facility] offers a program for education or conservation purposes that is based on professionally recognized standards of the public display industry,” even if their bottom line centers on commercialization and profit. Why should Panama act any differently?

In fact, there has been no study to date that has tested what, in fact, customers of marine parks learn as a result of their visitation, or what information is retained that helps animals or the environment after their visit. Nor has there been any investigation as to whether marine park visitors have more accurate or in-depth knowledge about marine mammals as compared with those who do not attend marine parks. Furthermore, when it comes to attitudes about animal welfare, conservation, and the environment, there is no empirical evidence to support whether marine park visitors are more environmentally sensitive or knowledgeable about marine mammals and/or their environment-in fact, the opposite may well be true! In short, dolphinariums are no more educationally or scientifically valuable than other, less invasive alternatives.

Panama should reject Ocean Embassy’s current plan. It has so much more to gain from a scientifically valid, environmentally sound, and ethically informed conservation plan that excludes any attempt to capture, display or breed its native dolphins. I visited Panama twice last year. I was in awe if its stunning array of wildlife and kind, beautiful people. Today, more and more Americans and Europeans are vacationing on both the Carribean and Pacific sides of the isthmas, and many are retiring to Panama, in large part because of its pristine and beautiful environment. Panama has a wonderful opportunity to respect and preserve its natural environment and wildlife while enjoying its economic growth with thoughtful, progressive environmental policies. Even if our top priorities are education, scientific advancement, and conservation-even profit-aren’t there better ways to achieve these goals than by harmfully exploiting the residents of the ocean we are seeking to protect? I applaud Panama’s concern for the ocean environment and its desire to move forward with sound conservation initiatives that advance the well-being of Panamanians, local wildlife and their natural environment. Ocean Embassy’s plan to capture and display Panamanian dolphins, however, is morally indefensible and counter to those aims.

For more information:

Naomi A. Rose, Ph.D. is a Marine Mammal Scientist for Humane Society International (www.hsi.org; www.hsus.org).

To learn more about the MARMAM email discussion list, visit whitelab.biology.dal.ca/marmam.htm#para4.

Photo from www.oceanembassy.com

Kris Stewart :: Mar.25.2007 :: Animal Studies, Ethics :: Comments Off

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Kia ora.

We have pleasure in announcing the launch of New Zealand’s first national research centre for Human-Animal Studies at the University of Canterbury, Christchurch, Aotearoa New Zealand.

For more information on the New Zealand Centre for Human-Animal Studies (NZCHAS), please see:

www.nzchas.canterbury.ac.nz/

Best regards,

Annie Potts & Philip Armstrong
Co-Directors
NZ Centre for Human-Animal Studies
School of Culture, Literature & Society
Te Whare Wananga o Waitaha/University of Canterbury
Private Bag 4800
Christchurch
Aotearoa New Zealand
Phone: 64 3 364 2987 ext 7967
www.amst.canterbury.ac.nz/people/potts.shtml

William Lynn :: Mar.18.2007 :: Animal Studies, Art, Environmental Studies, Ethics, Politics :: Comments Off

In early July of 2006, Suzanne Stone and her daughter, Sierra, drove to the Sawtooth National Forest to search for an orphaned group of eight-week-old wolf pups. The Stone’s drove there after learning that an arm of the US federal government had killed the parents – a male and female from the Big Water Pack in the Soldier Mountains – and left the pups to die from starvation or predation. The agency responsible for this was Wildlife Services, formerly known as Animal Damage Control.

I have known Stone a long time, and she is neither stranger nor opponent of lethal ‘wolf control’. As the Northern Rockies representative of the non-profit organization Defenders of Wildlife, she works with citizens, scientists, the livestock industry, and government officials to manage the growing wolf populations of the western US. Part of her work involves administering two funds, one that compensates ranchers for livestock or working dogs lost to confirmed wolf depredation, and another that subsidizes proactive measures to avoid or mitigate conflicts between wolves and people. She is a sympathetic voice for ranchers and rural communities in wolf country, and realizes that killing wolves is at times an unfortunate necessity. I should note that I agree with her. And still, she was disturbed enough to search throughout the day and into the night for the pups. Stone never found the pups. Neither did Wildlife Services, which hoping to take the edge off a public relations disaster, also went looking.

An interesting contrast to Stone’s actions was the attitude of Steven Nadeau of the Idaho Department of Fish and Game. He authorized the killing of this wolf pack because they were believed to have preyed on livestock. In comments to National Public Radio he said, ‘the regrettable loss of a few pups does not have any real biological impact on the recovery or long-term viability of this population [of wolves]‘.

Nadeau is almost certainly right about the biological effect from the loss of these pups. Pups have always been particularly vulnerable to disease and predation, and the reproductive cycle of wolves is adapted to high pup mortality. The loss of a few pups will have little if any impact on the population biology of wolves in Idaho. But I do not think this is why the story made the news. Rather it was the contrast between the admirable care on Stone’s part, and the apparent indifference on Nadeau’s that captured the attention of the public in the US and Canada.

At root, wolf management involves questions of how one monitors and intervenes in the lives of wolves whether for scientific research or for the administration of wildlife policies. And in the contrast between Stone and Nadeau’s approaches, there is much we can learn about the ethics of managing wolves.

Now in any discussion of predator management, you are likely to hear quite a bit about ’sound science’. Sound science is supposed to be the evidentiary, theory-rich baseline for managing wildlife and making public policy. Yet when science is substituted for ethics, our moral compass fails and we are likely to be led astray. Wolf management provides a particularly powerful example of the moral controversies that can arise from a seemingly technical subject.

The techniques used to study and manage wolves are frequently intensive and intrusive. Wolves are radio-collared, monitored, tranquilized, assessed, captured, incarcerated and killed on a regular basis. We still have much to learn about wolves, and there are undoubtedly legitimate scientific reasons to study them using such techniques. Managing wolves in this way may also be required to meet certain goals of wolf recovery. It is, for instance, a necessity in the Red wolf recovery program, where monitoring and managing wolf pairings helps prevent hybridization with coyotes. Even so, the use of these techniques is not a sustainable model for long-term recovery. They are expensive propositions in terms of time and labour, and a burden on under-funded and under-staffed organizations, as well as an annoyance to individuals and communities. As noted before, with sufficient food and space, wolves will flourish. Over time, they will establish their own population levels and distribution in dynamic relationship to the habitat and other resources they need for survival.

There is another more insidious reason for conducting intensive wolf management, namely to appease vested human interests that oppose our coexistence with wolves. This kind of management is not undertaken for the benefit of science, much less for the well-being of wolves. Although sometimes justified as maintaining the ’social carrying capacity’ of wolves, intensive management in this context involves killing or removing wolves with little attention to other proactive measures for mitigating human-wolf conflicts. This approach is also behind the artificially low population goals in some wolf management plans, the designation of certain wolf populations as expendable, and land-use planning that effectively creates wolf-free zones. Wolf recovery and conservation may be the stated goals. The reality of this type of management is quite different; it amounts to an institutionalized system of species cleansing that tries to exclude wolves from the vast majority of the landscape.

Vested interests that distort wolf management are ethically problematic in their own right. Equally disturbing is employing lethal and other blunt-force techniques with little apparent concern for the well-being of individual wolves or their packs. For wolves, the social disruption of intrusive management can be severe. Pups without parents starve or are preyed upon. The loss of adult members that teach younger wolves how to survive in the wild as well as around humans, can lead to heightened mortality and further conflict with people. Wolf packs that are exterminated are replaced by new packs, which may be even less familiar then its predecessor with how to avoid the danger of particular humans on the landscape. What we have here is the makings of a vicious cycle that, from an ethical point of view, we should try to break.

A growing number of voices are objecting to wolves being relegated to a gulag of isolated habitats, surrounded by exclusion and free-fire zones, and subjected to routine and invasive management. From an ethical perspective, managing wolves for the wrong reason and with little concern for their individual well-being is wrong. Those of you who care about the non-human world and raise your voice in defense of animals and the rest of nature are in the right. Keep it up.

Cheers, Bill

Portions of this column are excerpted from my ‘Wolf Recovery’ article in Marc Bekoff’s Encyclopedia of Human-Animal Relations (Greenwood Press, 2007). For more information on this groundbreaking work, see www.practicalethics.net/blog/?p=100.

You can hear Elizabeth Shogren’s report, Orphaned Wolves Lost in Idaho, on National Public Radio, www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5550973.

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Bill Lynn is the founder and Senior Ethics Advisor of Practical Ethics (http://www.practicalethics.net/), and a professor at the Center for Animals and Public Policy at Tufts University (www.tufts.edu/vet/cfa).

Image: Tracy Brooks, 2003, Reflection.

William Lynn :: Mar.15.2007 :: Animal Studies, Environmental Studies, Ethics, Wolves :: 2 Comments »

A new anti-whaling book called Echoes in the Blue by New Zealand author and wildlife biologist C. George Muller is now available. The book is what publishers have termed “fact-based” fiction, and tells a compelling story about humanity’s conflict with the natural world based on evidence about illegal whaling in the Southern Ocean.

I was eager to read Muller’s latest work for several reasons. First, the way he weaves a fictional story based in real world data collected about contemporary whaling activity is akin to how I incorporated composite narrative into parts of my own dissertation about human-dolphin encounter spaces. I also think the book is timely and important. Whaling continues today despite the International Whaling Commission’s 1986 moratorium and the establishment of the 1993 South Ocean Whale Sanctuary. Whaling nations continue to ignore (or use loopholes to circumvent) International Whaling Commission rules, and whaling seems to be expanding with Japan announcing plans to kill up to 1,500 whales annually from 2007-including species classified as vulnerable and endangered on the IUCN redlist.

Echoes in the Blue is about the real-life conflict surrounding Japan’s controversial pelagic whaling and dolphin drive kills. Muller is clear about his aim: This book is undoubtedly a bid to raise wider public awareness and support for the anti-whaling cause. His website even promises that he will donate money from every book sold to Save the Whales. http://www.cgeorgemuller.com/index.htm

Several years ago, trained as both an attorney and a social scientist, I might have been uncomfortable publicly taking sides on any issue-even one related to whales and dolphins. But I have no problem now: In today’s world, there is no good reason to slaughter dolphins and whales. Why would I have ever been on the fence about the ethics of harming dolphins and whales-beings that have always been dear to my heart?

Early in my graduate career, before I had more fully developed my understanding of social constructionism, I experimented with the constructionist way of thinking in a paper about whales and whaling. To describe the politically charged dispute concerning modern-day whaling, I articulated the situation this way: Nations like Japan and Norway that want to continue their whaling practices have “constructed” whales as economic resources, while those that want to permanently end whaling and “Save the Whales!” have “constructed” whales as sentient, sapient beings worthy of a right to life. That is where my paper ended-with explanation, but without evaluation or recommendation. Emotionally and intellectually, I believed that whaling was wrong. But, in an effort to remain theoretically coherent, I held to a social constructionist framework and sacrificed my intuition to the constructionists’ position that I was just one more member of the camp that merely constructed whales as special.

However, the influence of hermeneutics, practical ethics, and the work of contemporary animal geographers corrected my acceptance of the inevitable relativism resulting from constructionism. We may have different ideas about what whales are or are not, and what we would like to use them for. But whales exist in the world’s oceans, regardless of human ideas about them. Moreover, convincing evidence suggests that whales are sentient, sapient, social animal subjects-regardless of whether we acknowledge as much. As animal beings with intrinsic moral value, I would now argue that their right to life outweighs any economic or cultural benefit claimed by (human) pro-whalers. In my analysis, this is the better (more nuanced, engaged and ethically superior) position, given the current whaling situation. By honoring an ethical, critical and interrelational perspective, the social constructionist argument was rendered not only incomplete, but downright offensive. Echoes in the Blue is a compelling drama that highlights the assuredly nonfictional moral incoherance of Japan’s contemporary whaling activities. Bravo, Muller!

Kris Stewart :: Mar.11.2007 :: Animal Studies, Ethics :: Comments Off

I have the pleasure of introducing you to a remarkable person, and an advisor at Practical Ethics.

Kristin L. Stewart earned her Ph.D. from the Department of Geography at Florida State University in 2006. A practicing trial attorney in Florida since 1994, Kris returned to graduate school to study human-animal relationships and the dimensions of ethics, place, law, and policy that sit at the heart of those relations. In 2000, Kris completed a Master’s degree in Political Science, honing her use of quantitative methods while focusing on wildlife law and policy. Thereafter, as she pursued a doctorate in cultural geography, Kris expanded her work to include qualitative explorations of human-animal relationships, at the same time enriching her law and policy background with investigations of animal geographies, social theory, and practical ethics.

Kris serves on the Board of Directors of the Animals and Society Institute, and has a courtesy appointment with Florida State University. She is currently engaged in post-doctoral research projects including a policy paper on contemporary human-dolphin encounters and book titled Facing Dolphins: The Joy and Shame of our Love Affair with Dolphins. In addition, Kris works as a consultant to those in the private and public sectors that grapple with the myriad questions associated with contemporary animal-society issues, particularly questions of animal law, policy and ethics.

You can contact her at:

Kristin L. Stewart, PhD, JD
Animal Law, Policy & Ethics Consultant
PO Box 1083 Gulf Breeze,
Florida 32562
850.221.5562
kristinlstewart@yahoo.com
www.ArkEthics.com

Selected Publications

Stewart, K.L. (Forthcoming). Dolphins. In Robbins, Paul (Ed.), The Encyclopedia of Environment and Society. Thousand Oaks: SAGE Publications

Stewart, K.L. (2007). Marine Mammals, Aquariums, and People. In Bekoff, Marc (Ed.), The Encyclopedia of Human-Animal Relationships: An Exploration of Our Connections with Other Animals. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press.

Stewart, K.L. (2007). Animal Geography. In Bekoff, Marc (Ed.), The Encyclopedia of Human-Animal Relationships: An Exploration of Our Connections with Other Animals. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press.

Stewart, K. L. (2006). Animals and Geography. In Warf, Barney (Ed.), The Encyclopedia of Human Geography. London: SAGE Publications.

Stewart, K. L. 2002. “Environmental Protection Act.” In Schultz, David (Ed.), The Encyclopedia of American Law. New York: Facts on File, Inc.

Stewart, K. L. 1999. “The Debate Over Reauthorization of the Endangered Species Act.” Coastal Currents 7: 1-3.

Stewart, K. L. (1998). Dolphin-Safe Tuna: The Tide Is Changing. Animal Law Journal 4: 111-136.

Stewart, K. L. 1998. “Marine Mammal Strandings: Cooperation from Rehabilitation to Release.” The Coastal Society Bulletin 20: 16-22.

William Lynn :: Mar.04.2007 :: Animal Studies, Ethics :: Comments Off

As the administration mounts its surge/escalation of upwards of ~45,000 troops (~20,000 combat) in Bahgdad, Andy Davison sends us this reminder of what happens to the best laid plans of imperial ambition.

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In the Sixth Year of the Peloponnesian War: The Invasion of Aetolia by Demosthenes of AthensBy ThucydidesTranslation by Richard Crawley (http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/7142, pages 119-120)

Edited by Andy Davison

“Demosthenes had … been persuaded by the Messenians that it was a fine opportunity for him, having so large an army assembled, to attack the Aetolians… The Aetolian nation, although numerous and warlike, yet dwelt in unwalled villages scattered far apart, and had nothing but light armour, and might, according to the Messenians, be subdued without much difficulty before succours could arrive. The plan which they recommended was to attack first the Apodotians, next the Ophionians, and after these the Eurytanians, who are the largest tribe in Aetolia, and speak, as is said, a language exceedingly difficult to understand… These once subdued, the rest would easily come in.

To this plan Demosthenes consented, not only to please the Messenians, but also in the belief that by adding the Aetolians to his other continental allies he would be able, without aid from home, to march against the Boeotians …

His base he established at Oeneon in Locris, as the Ozolian Locrians were allies of Athens and were to meet him with all their forces in the interior. Being neighbours of the Aetolians and armed in the same way, it was thought that they would be of great service upon the expedition, from their acquaintance with the localities and the warfare of the inhabitants.

After bivouacking with the army in the precinct of Nemean Zeus, in which the poet Hesiod is said to have been killed by the people of the country, according to an oracle which had foretold that he should die in Nemea, Demosthenes set out at daybreak to invade Aetolia. The first day he took Potidania, the next Krokyle, and the third Tichium, where he halted and sent back the booty …

Meanwhile the Aetolians had been aware of his design from the moment of its formation, and as soon as the army invaded their country came up in great force with all their tribes; even the most remote Ophionians, the Bomiensians, and Calliensians, who extend towards the Malian Gulf, being among the number.

The Messenians, however, adhered to their original advice. Assuring Demosthenes that the Aetolians were an easy conquest, they urged him to push on as rapidly as possible, and to try to take the villages as fast as he came up to them, without waiting until the whole nation should be in arms against him. Led on by his advisers and trusting in his fortune, as he had met with no opposition … he advanced and stormed Aegitium, the inhabitants flying before him and posting themselves upon the hills above the town, which stood on high ground about nine miles from the sea.

Meanwhile the Aetolians had gathered to the rescue, and now attacked the Athenians and their allies, running down from the hills on every side and darting their javelins, falling back when the Athenian army advanced, and coming on as it retired; and for a long while the battle was of this character, alternate advance and retreat, in both which operations the Athenians had the worst.

Still as long as their archers had arrows left and were able to use them, they held out, the light-armed Aetolians retiring before the arrows; but after the captain of the archers had been killed and his men scattered, the soldiers, wearied out with the constant repetition of the same exertions and hard pressed by the Aetolians with their javelins, at last turned and fled, and falling into pathless gullies and places that they were unacquainted with, thus perished, the Messenian Chromon, their guide, having also unfortunately been killed.

A great many were overtaken in the pursuit by the swift-footed and light-armed Aetolians, and fell beneath their javelins; the greater number however missed their road and rushed into the wood, which had no ways out, and which was soon fired and burnt round them by the enemy. Indeed the Athenian army fell victims to death in every form, and suffered all the vicissitudes of flight; the survivors escaped with difficulty to the sea and Oeneon in Locris, whence they had set out.

Many of the allies were killed, and about one hundred and twenty Athenian heavy infantry, not a man less, and all in the prime of life. These were by far the best men in the city of Athens that fell during this war. Among the slain was also Procles, the colleague of Demosthenes. Meanwhile the Athenians took up their dead under truce from the Aetolians, and retired to Naupactus, and from thence went in their ships to Athens; Demosthenes staying behind in Naupactus and in the neighbourhood, being afraid [for now] to face the Athenians after the disaster.”

Andy Davison :: Mar.01.2007 :: Ethics, Politics :: Comments Off