Marineland, another reason to hate some humans.

What I meant was maybe things are best left alone.

 

Nah, I agree completely, while most of me hates seeing animals in MOST zoo's, good Zoo's are a necessity. They allow kids and people to actually see these animals and appreciate them, hopefully raising awareness so people will help more with conservation. And the breeding programs are a must at the rate species are going extinct.

Good hijack

 

It's my thought that many hobbyist tanks are worse offenders than Marineland and some of them may be ones protesting conditions at Marineland.

 

a lot of very good points. Its true the Toronto Star is a terrible paper with very biased non ethical writers. Most articles in that paper have no background checking on their information. Very possible this is made up from animal rights activists groups. I agree there are some bad practices at marineland in niagra falls such as keeping a lone orca whale in capativity. The videos showing sick animals are always sad and strike a heart. But i do have some doubts that marineland just passed their annual inspection by CAZA if the conditions at the park were as described for the past few years. As any one of us personal aquarium owners knows, water quality is extremely important and with them having outdoor facilities and it being a massive park I am betting their system is comepletely different then ours. In the article it goes on to mention they use chlorine and ozone for most of the filtration. I can only imagine how fast something can throw a system like that off and make a very rapid decline quickly. Especially keeping aniamls of their sized in the tanks they have. Zoos, and aquariums are educational and fascinating. But certain animals such as whales should not be kept in captivity. Just my opinion.

 

There was a great article in CORAL magazine about captive breeding becoming Noah's Ark, with species in the wild becoming extinct and only captive raised fish existing, but this has nothing to do with the mistreatment of animals in parks and zoos. Sure, Animal Kingdom has gone to great lengths to crate as "natural" a habitat as possible, but 50 people driving by on a camoflage bus is not natural...

 

Agree very much, there just seems to be ALOT of info out there, much much more info about bad conditions than most places, and I read that Canada's animal cruelty laws don't apply to marine animals, except for 1 branch of government. Anyways, my point kinda being, if you're going to keep large animals, that have hundreds to thousands of square mile territories in a small concrete enclosure, maybe water and food quality issues should be nothing but stellar. But I agree.

I agree, I don't really like any zoo's on principle, but I feel there is a right and wrong way, and Animal Kingdom does it pretty good. I think the love, respect and education people get helps animals in the wild and is better in whole for a species than it is damaging to have a few in a zoo.

I worked at Sand Diego Wild Animal Park for a few years, and that is probably the best I've ever seen done, very few "cages", almost all animals roam free over acres, and very few step foot on concrete. Neat place that does alot of conservation.

 

So long as a park that keeps live animals, or a zoo, strikes a balance between profit and conservation/education, I think that they are very worthwhile.

I hope for the animal's sake that the Marineland controversy turns out to be exaggerated. I heard on the radio today that they have invited the media to tour their facilities. Hopefully this will keep them on their toes in the future.

 

Good point, if anything, they have a bullseye on them now and wil have to keep on their toes and doing everything perfectly. But I do hope it was exaggerated