By Andrew Christie, Chapter Director
Two years ago, New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristoff pondered the devastating documentary “Blackfish,” which “looks at the SeaWorld marine park and its (mis)treatment of orcas.” Kristoff was unsurprised that SeaWorld denied the reality the film depicted, “since it earns millions from orcas. Two centuries ago, slave owners argued that slaves enjoyed slavery…. Someday, will our descendants be mystified by how good and decent people in the early 21st century — that’s us — could have been so oblivious to the unethical treatment of animals?”
Two years later, Blackfish is biting down hard on SeaWorld. Despite the company’s denials and damage control, profits are down and everyone knows why.The realization is dawning on the general public that intelligent beings are being bred as medicated circus performers who, while living out their lives swimming in circles in a concrete tank, occasionally go berserk and kill someone. SeaWorld wants to enlarge its orca tanks, thereby improving the “habitat" for its captives, a transparent p.r. ploy.
Thus, on Thursday, October 8, at a meeting in Long Beach, the California Coastal Commission will be hearing Agenda Item 14a: No 6-15-0424: SeaWorld Orca Enclosure Expansion, San Diego.
Last month, the Sierra Club and 36 other non-profit NGOs, foundations and advocacy organizations dedicated to environmental conservation, animal welfare, social justice and coastal protection wrote a letter to the Coastal Commission pointing out that “The capture, keeping and breeding of killer whales in captivity for the purpose of providing entertainment is totally inconsistent with the Commission's mandate under the Coastal Act to maintain, enhance and restore and protect marine resources and to provide special protection to species of special biological significance, which most certainly killer whales are.”
We concluded, “If you decide to approve and not deny, we urge you to condition your approval to prohibit the captive breeding/artificial insemination of orcas in captivity, prohibit the sale or offer for sale, trade or transfer for any reason other than transport to a sea pen any orca intended for performance or entertainment purposes.”
SeaWorld has argued energetically that federal law preempts the Coastal Commission's authority to impose such prohibitions and the Commission is barred from imposing any such requirements -- except that federal law is not preemptive and the Coastal Commission is not barred, as their staff report patiently explains.
SeaWorld has agreed to a half-measure: It will not import any whales caught in the wild after February 2014 (a random date that probably has a lot to do with the fact that Russia captured ten orcas in the wild in 2012-13), but it will keep right on importing their offspring and breeding them.
This is the key point: No captive orca program can sustain itself without a wild capture component. The captive gene pool must be regularly replenished. That means that any permit the Coastal Commission issues to SeaWorld that does not bar the import and export of orcas -- whether wild caught or born in captivity -- will fuel the machinery of wild orca capture, with SeaWorld continuing to serve as its engine. This will violateSection 30230 of the California Coastal Act, which protects marine resources and species of special significance.
For anyone who has seen the film, the orca capture sequence in Blackfish is the moment that tears at the heart and sears the conscience. The description of an orca mother desperate with grief over the abduction of her calf and the attempts of her pod to save him; the sight of a hardened mercenary breaking down while recounting the incident, overwhelmed by the 30-year-old memory of the worst thing he'd ever done, should be sufficient impetus for Coastal Commissioners to go farther than a half-measure; far enough to place a condition on a Coastal Development Permit that will stop SeaWorld from causing such things to happen.
Section 30230 of the Coastal Act is an environmental regulation. In this instance, the full implementation of a rule to protect marine resources and species of special significance will incidentally happen to bestow moral and ethical protections on our own species.
Should the California Coastal Commission take the necessary action to remove SeaWorld from the center of the orca capture trade, our descendants will have less cause to be mystified by the obliviousness of good and decent people in the early 21st century.