Finally we have more media actually publishing skepticism towards sanctuaries - rather than the usual uncritical puff pieces and feel good stories.

Jason hits the nail on the head here is saying that the concept of a “sanctuary” is a way to assuage human guilt about the original sin of capturing the dolphins from the wild. And it makes the public decide they no longer need to worry about the animals in a sanctuary because they’re Safe there.

This allows sanctuaries to get away with not actually proving that their facilities are an improvement to welfare. We see this a lot with the lax husbandry standards in terrestrial animal sanctuaries. Things that would never be accepted in accredited zoos get a free pass because it’s a Sanctuary.

do you genuinely support seaworld? because if you do, then that is genuinely disapointing to me as i loved your content. dolphins (esp bottlenoses) are incredibly intelligent creatures with their own languages and cultures, can experience emotion in the same ways we do, and display self awareness on nearly the same level as us. there's no situation in which they should be kept in and bred in captivity, and dolphins that cannot live in the wild deserve to go to sanctuaries that are able to provide actual proper living space, respect, and care for them. they are real, living creatures, with their own personalities and identities. they shouldnt be abused and exploited for profit. it's inherently cruel, even if you personally dont view them as their own people as some (like me) do.

I'm sorry that you're disappointed. I thought I had been clear about my opinions on here but yes, I do support SeaWorld, just like I support every other AZA-accredited zoo and aquarium. I support their veterinarians and veterinary staff, people I've actually met or who have worked closely with many of my colleagues and mentors. I support their rescue teams, which have responded to over 40,000 individual marine animals in distress, and are currently one of only half a dozen facilities equipped to handle the Florida manatee unusual mortality event. I support their husbandry and training staff, folks who've made a career out of caring for animals and, like the trainers I currently work with, tirelessly advocating for their needs. I support their contributions to marine research, both through the parks and the independent Hubbs-SeaWorld Research Institute. I support the connection to the marine world that they provide children (and adults) like myself years ago, gifting them with a lifelong love for the ocean and its life.

At the moment, I'm completing a residential internship program with the medical team at a small marine park (not SeaWorld, but similar in many ways) as a complement to my ongoing education as a DVM student. I see and work with dolphins every day. You’re right, they are extremely intelligent. Each one is an individual, with his or her own distinct personality, likes and dislikes, best friends (human and dolphin), and favorite activities. Perhaps they are “people” in their own way, although from a scientific perspective I can’t anthropomorphize them to that extent. Their trainers are more intimately familiar with the dolphins’ moods and needs than the vast majority of people are with their own pets (speaking as a 7-year veteran of general practice and emergency vet hospitals), and every second of their work day revolves around the animals, be it enrichment, training, husbandry, diet prep, habitat maintenance or, yes, public presentations. Each dolphin has a specialized care plan, made for them by their own full-time veterinarian, to ensure they are always in peak body condition. They receive a full routine medical work-up (complete with bloodwork, fecal, urine, gastric, and chuff cytology) multiple time a year, far beyond what any domestic animal receives. Their diet consists of a wide variety of human-grade seafood, with each individual fish (hundreds of pounds a day) hand-checked by a trainer to ensure it has no defects. They are never, ever forced to participate in a session and usually happily do so, because exercising their minds and bodies is enriching for them. If not, no big deal, they will still get all the food they need. 

About half of our dolphins are rescues, deemed non-releasable by the federal government (not the team who rehabbed them, or even the “higher ups” in aquarium/marine park management). These dolphins stranded when they were babies, too young to have learned what they needed from their mothers, or suffering from disabilites or chronic health conditions that would make survival in the wild impossible. Without “captivity,” they would be dead. Instead, I get to see them thrive every day, bonding with their trainers, playing with their dolphin friends, exploring their enrichment, and inspiring everyone who meets them. I’m sorry but no, I will never say these dolphins should be put to death or left to suffer an excrutiating fate in the wild. Not when I’ve seen the life they get to live instead.

An accredited “dolphin sanctaury” like you suggest, run by people with the proper training, resources, and (extensive) funding to care for these complex animals, does not exist. And if one did, it would be no different than any other accredited facility (many of which are “sea pen” habitats, which have their own pros and cons versus a traditional “tank” habitat) that is already open. There would still be training for husbandry, exercise, and enrichment. There would still be hand-fed diets. There would still be (nearly constant!) breeding behavior, just without any babies. And there would still be barriers keeping them from leaving although fun fact, the US Navy uses trained dolphins in open ocean missions and they always return to their human caregivers. The only thing missing would be the educational, inspirational experience aquariums give the public. 

But don’t take my word for it. Last year, the Cetacean Welfare Study was published, the result of years of work by 43 different AZA and/or AMMPA-accredited institutes. It’s a collection of studies, the first of their kind, surveying the factors affecting welfare in managed cetaceans (mainly bottlenose dolphins but also Pacific white-sided dolphins and beluga whales), and oftentimes, it’s not what the general public might think. Both SeaWorld and my park were part of it.

Thanks for hearing me out. I don’t expect you to suddenly agree with me, but I hope you’ll try to understand. If you want to hear more of what I’ve said on this topic, please look at my #seaworld and #cetaceans tag.

Just seen a person call seaworld evil because one of the dolphins showed stereotypical behaviours (repetitive behaviours that have a variety of causes and is hard to manage/stop once it starts) and then call a video of a horse showing stereotypical behaviour (stable weaving specifically) cute and claiming the horse was dancing.

The hypocrisy is real in the anti-cap fandom

(Un)friendly reminder that pro caps can be just as nutty as antis.

DOES ANYONE REMEMBER THAT ONE CROSS TAGGING ANTI WHO WENT "Don't worry fellow antis! The radqueers will never gain any traction and they'll never go offline!"

CAUSE THAT SHIT IS AGING SO BADLY RN LMAOOOOOOO

gifs not mine

I saw on the original post of these gifts the reblogs and...wow. Not the people saying "Tony reacts like that because that's what Steve tried to tell him before!! #antitonystark"

What actually Steve said: This job... We try to save as many people as we can. Sometimes that doesn't mean everybody, but, if we can't find a way to live with that, Next time... maybe nobody can be saved.

Peter is basically saying he can't live with the knowledge of not helping everyone, Steve is saying that they have to learn to live with it because it's better saving someone than not saving everyone.

While I think Steve is not an asshole and doesn't like when someone dies, I also think that Peter and Steve are not guided by the same morality. Steve accept the fact a lot of people die with his job, Peter and Tony don't. They can't accept the fact they cannot save everyone, they feel responsible for every damage they cause. That's why Tony had that look, because he related to Peter's words. That's literally the point of why he wanted the accords.

Tony blames him self and not just for Ultron. He blamed himself since IM1. When he said "I just finally know what I have to do, and i know in my heart that's it's right" and right before that he mentioned the soldiers who were killed by his weapons, even if it wasn't directly his fault. You can se the parallels between the two of them, they both blames themselves for everything.

Were the accords bad? Yes. Were they needed? Also, Yes. The idea of the accords was good because if I was one of the civilians like Zemo I would want them, and you cannot say otherwise if you were in their place.

So yes, I still think Peter would have been on Team Iron Man anyway because Peter would never turn his back on the civilians (He sacrifices his identity for them, he sacrificed his whole life for them). Even if he didn't like the accords, he would have accepted them and willed to change them. Peter and Tony have the same guilt, the same morale. Tony choose Peter because he saw himself in him, and Peter found comfort in Tony because he was the only one who understood him (Like confirmed in IW novelization).

Tony was the best person to mentor him.

Plural culture is appreciating and loving your local persecutor+protector+anger holder so fucking much even though they mess up plenty. Ours has such a hard job to do but all he ever wants is to try to help, and we care about this guy SO FUCKING MUCH MAN (he is NOT a fan of us fawning over him rn but we can NEVER appreciate him enough for what he does for us)

.

imagine thinking ca:cw existed for a reason that wasnt an rdj tantrum that forced them to scrap cap 3 which was supposed to be focused on steve, bucky and sam, and instead make into ironman 4🤣🤣🤣

Alongside all the many other reasons; Azriel liking Gwyn is M E S S Y.

Being interested in Mor, then Elain, then Gwyn isn’t romantic at all— it makes him look super desperate. Does a hot dude with a job and massive wings sound like someone who would fall in love that easily? No.

keep in mind he pined over Mor for centuries

It also doesn’t sound like a love story anyone would be remotely interested in reading or rooting for. Ya feel me?

I saw this ask from Leigh (back in 2013) and I'm SCREAMING

"The Darkling rarely drinks"

AND YET IN S&B:

THE MAN BROKE HIS "NO DRINKS" POLICY 'CAUSE HIS FEELINGS WERE SPIRALLING OUT OF CONTROL.

Imagine how betrayed, angry and secretly hurt he felt. Alina choosing Mal, seeing them kissing and the fact that she left him so easily (oh and his mother betraying him and him blinding her) made him act like NOT HIMSELF.

Update to academic smackdown of "Do Dolphins Live in Impoverished Environments"

So the people who wrote the paper claiming that dolphins and elephant brains in zoos are exactly like mouse brains in impoverished environments (Jacobs et. al 2021) (A maaajor reach considering 1) dolphin and elephant brains are nothing like mouse brains and 2) dolphins and elephants in zoos do not demonstrate an inability to learn new things)

Well they have beef with the paper that came out criticising their "work."

Of course, instead of writing a rebuttal they wrote a bitchy Facebook post about it.

Let's break it down shall we?

No no no, you see. That was what your paper did. You used the comparison of lab rats to zoo animals and said that the two were exactly the same. "She never seems to understand that a natural environment is more enriching than an artificial one" just SCREAMS "I have never worked with these animals before." Because guess who decides what is and isn't enriching? THE ANIMAL.

A natural environment for dolphins may have live fish, currents, tides, waves ect. But that can quickly become a stressor. As we've just seen Little Grey from the beluga sanctuary developing stress related stomach ulcers within days of being put into in the sea pen.

This is the naturism fallacy at it's most obvious.

"Enrichment is, to me, a public admission of defeat." I'd be insulted on behalf of every single team developing amazing enrichment plans for their animals if this wasn't so obviously ignorant.

You know what wild animals spend most of their time doing? Trying not to die! That's why they don't need enrichment! And even then, you still get animals that like to engage in object play with anything they find (eg. dolphins throwing around sponges or Kea birds ripping apart car bumpers and windshield wipers).

So, in lieu of the whole trying not to die thing, animals in zoos get more opportunities for play. Animals in zoos can absolutely "fly, run, climb and soar" too - but without a reason (like trying not to die) they won't pointlessly expend energy. So enrichment gives them opportunities for that! Hooray!

This study never actually examined orca, elephant, dolphin or porpoise brains from animals living in human care. Not one. Yet it claimed that these species were suffering from brain damage and neurological damage.

It also blatantly ignored the recent examination of cetacean brains by the late Dr. Sam Ridgeway, that found no such brain damage or comparable differences between wild and captive dolphin brains.

I know for a fact some of the authors of these papers were invited to examine captive dolphin brains by scientists who work with them and were refused.

It's so obvious these people are not interested in having a discussion based on actual data but are more interested in already having an answer and working their "data" to make it look like they have it right. And, of course, to make sure the media outlets pick it up too.

Please remember that you’ll be hard pressed to find a pro-cap who thinks it was okay to capture healthy baby orcas to begin with. Like. Seriously. Guys.

Daily Doodle #137

WHO POSTED MY-

This is it. This is the pinnacle of my shitposting.

If this gets a thousand notes I'll make the full "Eggman's Announcement" but as the future trio.

Audio is from SnapCube's SA2 Fandub!

I watched Infinity War today, sometimes I question why I liked it so much because half the things they do pisses me off. Especially Quill he pisses me off so much.

And STEVE, don’t even get me started on him. “We don’t trade lives,” JUST A MOVIE A GO YOU WERE PREACHING THAT WE NEED ACCEPT THAT IN YOUR LINE OF WORK YOU CAN’T SAVE EVERYONE. And than he goes ahead sacrifices a bunch of people (POCs) to save a ROBOT! Who mind you could be made again.

But I guess that only applies to faceless people. Not to the people you know personally and especially not if Wanda loves that person. I hate his hypocritical ass so much.

I've seen some anti Steve Rogers posts and the level of delusions tony stans have is appalling.

They accuse Steve of being a hypocrite (why???) while ignoring the fact that Tony:

- created murder bot and then faced zero repercussions AND the blame for that murder bot fell on ALL Avengers somehow

- signed the Accords and then broke them when he involved Peter into the fight and when he left for Siberia

And you know what's the funniest? Almost every single villain in Tony movies (or even in Spider-Man movies) was Tony's creation.

And all villains in Steve's movies are outside of his influence (Hydra, the corrupted government).

So it speaks volumes about the kind of characters those two are.