will sea pens work for captive whales?

I think that sea pens will work and will be put to good use. we could use them to improve the lives of cative whale and we coud use them to rehabitate larger whales eg sperm and bule whales and show them to people and study them to learn even more

 

Sea Pens are difficult and expensive to maintain, and they only become more and more troublesome as they become larger.

Additionally, they offer limited viewing of the animals (surface only), and are open to any potential pollutants in the water. As well, they offer little different from a typical pool aside from perhaps currents and natural sea water, so it is essentially the same environment. They also offer a far larger drowning risk due to the materials used to create the pen. And these are only some of the problems!

They do have their place, but they should not be something considered outside of perhaps unique rehabilitation situations or unique captive situations (US navy, for example), and are hardly the future of cetacean captivity.

Netted/fenced off Lagoons, however, are a completely different story! I'll type something up about those tomorrow when I'm less tired.

 

can wait to hear it

 

I must be half-asleep - it took me a few minutes to work out that you were talking about large enclosures built in the ocean, and not the cnidarian. I couldn't understand how a sea pen could improve the lives of whales, as they don't eat them. And how would you use one?

[ame=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sea_pen]Sea pen - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia[/ame]



Hix

 

One other benefit of sea pens is the lack of echolocation stress, so there's that. If you're trying to do studies on echolocation, it might be more beneficial to do them in a sea pen rather than a tank, where the noise bounces off walls and might not give accurate results.

But a sea pen would have to be made in a very clean area. (and among other things, it would be preferably to have it in a place with little boat traffic) Though I've heard that filters can be put on sea pens; anyone know if that's true? It's true that there's no underwater viewing, but unless you're making a zoo that doesn't really matter. (even then, would an underwater tunnel be too far out of the question, or would it be too expensive to be practical? Fjord & Baelt has something similar, though their animals are in a harbor basin and not a penned-off area)

A sea pen to rehabilitate large whales? That would certainly be interesting. You'd need something pretty massive.

 

It is probably a better alternative to what we have now. This forum is comprised of people who are 100 percent in favor of animals in captivity and yet many of us on the forum (myself included) are uncomfortable with the size of tanks currently used for orcas.

 

Ditto. Happy Canada Day.

 

haha wrong sea pen

 

thanks for that

 

I totally agree. zoos can be good but in my mind it still need much improvement

 

And now I look at the title and think "If the whales had opposable digits, they would".



Hix

 

hahahahaha

 

Sea pens are just another form of captivity and the whales would still rely on humans for feeding more than likely. Plus, they would be exposed to bacteria that could potentially be fatal, like what happened with Keiko.

I used to be very supportive of Sea World, but that has changed over the past couple of years, especially when they made the choice to artificially inseminate an 8 year old whale. I still support their rescue and rehab work of seals and sea lions, but I would rather they stop the breeding program and shows and just allow the animals to live out their natural lives.

Captivity is not a good option, but it's better than the certain death they would face with release or being put in sea pens. The majority of the whales in captivity were born there and have never lived in the wild. They could not survive in the wild. Even though Keiko had learned how to hunt for himself again, he was still seeking out humans.

In a nutshell, I'm anti-captivity, but I'm even more anti-release. I was a long-time visitor to Sea World hand enjoyed many benefits of being an 'insider' so I'm able to see things from both sides of the equation.

I've stated it in other threads and will do it again here...if anyone ever had any questions about what really goes on behind the scenes, especially if you've seen Blackfish, do not hesitate to send me a PM. surprisingly (or maybe not) nobody has ever asked me anything after I've made that comment, but I still leave that door open. I've been there. I've seen a lot. I know a lot about the goings on.

 

I'm surprised that movie is still relative. I guess people really are that gullible. The reason I'm purposefully coming off as insulting is because everyday I get nothing but spam on my instagram SeaWorld photos vein people who call themselves the 'anti cap cult'. I'm tired of it, and all their references are to disliking SeaWorld is nothing but a propaganda film.

 

I hate Blackfish for a number of reasons. One of them is that it has made reading the comments below videos of SeaWorld Killer Whales (which I get a lot out of) a lot like reading the comments below Rammstein videos. Just replace America with SeaWorld. Well, actually its not that simple of a conversion but hopefully you all get my drift.

My big concern with seapens is the practical problems maintaining them in categories such as water quality and safety. If there is a storm or a pollution incident or some nasty bacteria or virus in the water (all of which can happen very easily) you need a way of dealing with this. My understanding is that there would need to be a back up facility ready and going at all times and the means to move them at what could be a very short notice. If we are dealing with a small animal, say a bottlenose or a harbor porpoise, this might not be a huge problem. But with a larger animal like a Killer Whale moving them on short notice could be very problematic. Also there comes the matter of keeping the pens clean, have them located away from shipping lanes, etc. That is my big concern with seapens for permanently housing captive cetaceans.

 

I think I would support a sea pen sanctuary if someone could figure out a feasible plan. As Wensleydale points out, there are a lot of things to take into consideration. Such a sanctuary would probably be pretty expensive, so unless there's some wealthy person or company backing it, gotta find a way to get money. A sanctuary can do guest admission sometimes, but can't rely on it entirely, especially if this sanctuary ended up being in a very remote place. (which would be a pretty good possibility, since you need a place with low pollution and preferably, low boat traffic) I want to see orca captivity phased out, and I will be in favor of sea pen retirement if it's practical.

 

Speaking as someone who opposes orca captivity, I too am a bit confused as to why the movie still has so much influence. Shoot, I'm a bit confused as to why it got so big in the first place. The best I can figure is that most people don't know that much about orcas, and they don't usually think about animal captivity or where the animals come from or anything like that. A mainstream movie shows them, and it's not too nice a picture. It especially hit SeaWorld hard because they're a big institution and they market themselves as inspirational, caring, what-have-you. What's more, SeaWorld hasn't exactly done a good job of handling the backlash. I think the movie's influence might've gone away by now if SeaWorld had acknowledged some of the problems in orca captivity and started working on improvements, rather than put out a kind of lousy PR campaign.

 

I think 'helping killer whales' has become too much a money-making enterprise on its own.

And not money well spend or based on sound knowledge of animals.

 

Too many sanctuaries are only open to high rollers (not that aquariums are necessarily cheap) which to me is wrong. For example the Tennessee elephant sanctuary will give you a behind the scenes tour if you give them some ridiculous amount of money over a period of years. Plus their website tell you this after shaming you for going to see captive elephants anywhere else and giving you misinformation about the state of elephant husbandry in the United States.