Does PeTA...have...a point here?!

[Milney]

Edit: Upon re-reading my post it came off as more an attack on PETA than a discussion of the topic so I'll hastily edit it to avoid going off-topic.

On-Topic: Accidents happen, PETA talk nonsense, and the world continues to spin oblivious to it all.

 

[Riobux]

The problem about releasing an animal back into the wild is that the animal is usually domesticated and unable to fend for it's self. This is something PETA constantly ignores as it shouts that every animal should be released out into the wild (you know, including chickens, cows and sheep). So the question then remains: What do you do? You could release the whale back into the wild and hope for the best. You could just keep it in captivity but stop using the whale to preform stunts for people, but maybe even just to just let people watch it through a window (which is probably the best option). You could carry on like nothing has happened. You also could put the whale down.

However, are animal shows ethical? God no. You're abusing animals for entertainment purposes, no matter how you boil it. You could even just be getting a whale to jump through a hoop, but you're still conditioning the animal to act abnormal for the entertainment of everyone else. I think animals should be just viewed how they naturally act in captivity and that's it, not altered behaviourally to jump, dance and scream on command. If you need animals to do what they don't usually do so you're not bored, then you really should just leave animals alone full stop.

 

[Valksy]

Even the most fervent idiots will get a point right once in their life.

Not today though.

As Kraken has said, (Boy, that's rather appropriate) Zoos and wildlife parks do a good job of keeping some species alive that would otherwise have died. If they need to get the public in to see the animals do tricks to keep them running, then that's capitalism at fault.

If it accidentally mauls someone, then watch those numbers soar...

Sad for the people that got killed, but it's a fecking whale, what did you expect?

Have to say that I concur completely with this sentiment.

I do very much hope that people won't suddenly try to decide that the orca in question should be destroyed. Tends to be the path taken when something like this happens (although from reading the article this is not the first person...so perhaps a little more respect around the whale would have been in order).

 

[LongAndShort]

There are certain animals in my mind that are so kick arse they should never be put into such situations and orcas are one of them. A species with pod (and location) specific tradition and even possibly cultures, as well as being incredibly brutal and deadly and cunning has got my respect.

Animal shows are for monkeys and small dogs.

 

[Nigh Invulnerable]

Here's a thought for all of you who say "It's okay for us to keep animals bred in captivity because they don't know the difference". How did the animals get into captivity in the first place? Somewhere along the line someone has to take these animals out of their homes for whatever reason and place them in a cage/tank. I'm not saying we should free all the critters in the zoos and aquariums, but I do think we need to take better care of them.

 

[Gardenia]

Using that logic, it's perfectly acceptable to raise a child in a cardboard box, because it thinks its the norm, so no harm done.

A child could not properly develop inside a cardboard box. This is hardly an accurate comparison, since the accommodations animals receive in most zoos are far more than just shoving them into a cage/fish tank.

I invoke the example of Josef Fritzl on that one. I don't think it was okay for his kids/grandchildren, just because the basement was the norm for them.

OT: You put an orca, also known as a KILLER WHALE in a tank to play with it. Occasional death is the rish you take, and PETA, being like a fanatical religious organization, tries to spin this story their way. If penguins could talk, they would probably try to spin the story in favor of eradicating every last orca in the world.

 

[Captain Blackout]

Hope I'm not ninja'd:
We need to preserve genetic diversity, period. I won't recommend mass-releasing Ebola but if we have to sacrifice a few near-sentient or sentient animals, to help ensure this concept to the masses, so be it. It seems to be that nature has no problem taking the occasional sacrifice in return. If we don't need this sacrifice then maybe we should end it for the sake of compassion to the spirit of animal we've enslaved. Dogs are much happier doing tricks for us anyway.

 

[Altorin]

should we catch wild orcas and put them in tanks? no, definitely not.

but releasing an even partially domesticated orca into the wild is just going to end up with a dead whale, and as for orcas born in captivity, they are entirely unsuited for life in the wild, so they would just die anyway.

So there are no "right" answers, hence why it appears PETA has a point. But they don't, because they're barking about stuff that can't be done, and anything that can be done is common sense. What should we do with these animals? kill them? release them? no, those aren't feasible.. so we attempt to teach people about them.

 

[Deleted]

The whale probably has no qualms about killing a human, just like we in general have no qualms killing any other species. It is a god damn top tier predator, why are people surprised?

I agree God needs to nerf the Orca a bit so we humans have a chance against it. Tired of tier lists deciding everything

I agree sea creatures should stay in the sea, anyone who objects to it because they "want to see the pwetty animals" is stupid.

 

[Gardenia]

should we catch wild orcas and put them in tanks? no, definitely not.

but releasing an even partially domesticated orca into the wild is just going to end up with a dead whale, and as for orcas born in captivity, they are entirely unsuited for life in the wild, so they would just die anyway.

Exactly. Remember Keiko (the orca from Free Willy)? Ludicrous amounts of money was spent to release it back into the wild, a few months later it ended up in a fjord here in Norway, and by that time, it was obvious that it would never learn to care for itself in any way. One politician suggested we slaughter it, to make meatballs for starving african countries. I had never agreed with him before (and have never agreed with him again), but in that particular instance, he had a point.

 

[Sark]

It is wrong to take animals from their natural environments, unless it is to preserve the species.

 

[sx890410]

PETA are a bunch of narrow-minded, short-sighted fuckheads. i will damn well enjoy eating my meat if the animals are humanely cared for and slaughtered, and wear my leather/fur if it does not involve inhumane slaughter/endangered species/unsustainable hunting.

 

[Altorin]

It is wrong to take animals from their natural environments, unless it is to preserve the species.

yes, but the question isn't "should we take orcas out of the ocean", because the answer is an emphatic NO, WE SHOULDN'T. If they're sick or injured, we might rescue them, but we aren't abducting orcas to put in circuses.. at least not in the west.

the question is "what do we do with the orcas we already have in captivity", and the answer is, there is no right answer. You can't release them though, unless you want to kill them. If you're going to do that, you may as well just shoot them. You'd be doing them a favor, but that's not the answer either.

So it's best to keep them in captivity.. but keeping a whale alive in captivity is an expensive thing - you think it's expensive raising a person, raising an orca is much more expensive.. they eat metric tons of food. and need constant care and attention.

So we kill two birds with one stone.. we educate the public, allow them to experience a wild animal and hopefully learn to respect them.. and you make money to care for them. Maybe we should strictly make these things non-profit.. I'm not sure what sort of profit margin sea world has, it probably isn't huge.. but ok, non-profit, that's ok I suppose.

So the solution that we're doing, is probably the best possible solution.

 

[Vigilantis]

I refuse to ever agree with PETA...NEVER!!!

If they eat animals I'll eat humans, if they wanna colonize Earth as a big hippie festival I shall colonize Mars.

On topic: I don't see the whale as "lashing out" as if it was truly pissed off at humans and was getting revenge, sorry guys but this is not a planned murder via whale. The point is all animals are dangerous, trained/tamed or not they all have the animal instincts inside of them that if pushed can and will be dangerous to those around them. Sure maybe we shouldn't use them for entertainment and make them do flips for the crowd but some people are acting as if this is news to the world...well wake up...we got people dancing with bears, shoving their heads in gators mouths and dodging cobra bites, all which are an apparent entertainment profit by purposefully putting their workers in danger. Also I don't quite understand PETA, they say that these whales need bigger areas, but then cite in a previous death that it was because the whale wasn't used to humans in its cage, not that its cage was to small and was obviously a danger. One way or another bigger cage or not things like this will eventually happen, its sad but true, that is unless we replace human workers with robots...

 

[CoffeeOfDoom]

All enclosures have to meet the five freedoms of all animals: freedom from fear and distress, pain and discomfort, hunger and thirst, illness and disease, and most importantly the freedom to express natural behaviour.
Training the animals to perform tricks is usually done to keep them occupied and stop them becoming bored, which can lead to stereotypical behaviours such as pacing and bar biting.
So no I don't really agree with PETA. They should get their facts straight.

(Sorry about that, I've just been doing an assignment for my animal management course, so I've copied and pasted some of it into this thread)

 

[Sark]

It is wrong to take animals from their natural environments, unless it is to preserve the species.

yes, but the question isn't "should we take orcas out of the ocean", because the answer is an emphatic NO, WE SHOULDN'T. If they're sick or injured, we might rescue them, but we aren't abducting orcas to put in circuses.. at least not in the west.

the question is "what do we do with the orcas we already have in captivity", and the answer is, there is no right answer. You can't release them though, unless you want to kill them. If you're going to do that, you may as well just shoot them. You'd be doing them a favor, but that's not the answer either.

So it's best to keep them in captivity.. but keeping a whale alive in captivity is an expensive thing - you think it's expensive raising a person, raising an orca is much more expensive.. they eat metric tons of food. and need constant care and attention.

So we kill two birds with one stone.. we educate the public, allow them to experience a wild animal and hopefully learn to respect them.. and you make money to care for them. Maybe we should strictly make these things non-profit.. I'm not sure what sort of profit margin sea world has, it probably isn't huge.. but ok, non-profit, that's ok I suppose.

So the solution that we're doing, is probably the best possible solution.

Right, so we should prevent them from breeding, an action that would be deemed incredibly cruel if done to a human? Or should we let them breed and either release the young into the ocean without parents or keep them in captivity and let the cycle endlessly repeat itself?

 

[lSHaDoW-FoXl]

Reading this article [http://www.cnn.com/2010/US/02/25/florida.seaworld.death/index.html] Snip!

Well I love animals and I've grown great disdain over fellow man - yet it's not too often I agree with Peta. (And to be honest, it's not to often I like to agree with Peta either.) On this issue however I agree fully and absolutely with Peta. In the end animals just like us are animals and not all of them are alike - just because five hundred whales don't devour a person just because they're a 'trainer' doesn't mean that every single whale is safe to be near.