ARA oppose species like Vaquita being in captivity just as much as they do orcas. Better dead than captive.
Who/what is ARA? Appalling attitude whoever/whatever they/it is. Are they like those weirdoes who want to have all pets put to death as they aren't "free"?
"Well in captivity" and "fine in captivity" are the main things I'd argue. While I do believe a dolphin/beluga in a proper sized enclosure with an APPROPRIATE amount of animals is okay, I wouldn't say any "thrive" in captivity. All holders of ceteceans in the world basically mass breed them to unhealthy numbers for it to be considered natural, and it's very apparent that most places that keep them aren't the best for the animal's well being. The few places that I think are 'fine' still aren't ideal. Places like Mystic Aquarium, Georgia, National Aquarium, etc. are okay but even they seem to sometimes prioritize "keeping them in captivity" over whether or not they should keep that many. In this regard I'm referring to Mystic's import of 5 more belugas when it was clear they shouldn't. When I did think that their enclosure with the 3 they had was okay.
Do you guys think is it appropriate for zoos or aquariums to keep and display Belugas, if yes, how large the pool should be provided for them at least. And currently what is the longest lifespan of Beluga in captivity?
I think yes, belugas can be held in zoos and aquariums. The pool/s should be at around 125 x 75 ft. And in my opinion, depth should be around 20 feet. They can live up into their 50's in the wild, although the average in captivity is only in the early 20's. There's only a small sample size, compared to the wild which does make these sort of statistics inaccurate. Belugas have done well breeding wise in captivity. Marineland in Canada has breed quite a lot and numbers in their 40's at one point.
If memory serves me correctly, one of the animals at SeaWorld San Diego is in his mid-50s, having been captured as a young adult in the early 1970s (being estimated to have been born in the late 1960s) and was displayed at Duisburg Zoo until 2004. I am not 100% sure whether he is the oldest beluga in captivity, but he is certainly the individual which has been held *in* captivity the longest.
That would be Ferdinand. He was captured in 1975 in Hudson Bay, Canada, to join two females at the Duisburg Zoo with the hope of breeding. No successful calves were ever born though. Ferdinand was estimated to have been born in 1969, making him 53 years old this year. I don’t believe there’s a captive beluga older than him.
I.e. the “Animal Rescue Agencies”, except they really aren’t. By that, I mean that such organizations have positive names that sound like they care: their names use words like “ethical”, “humane”, “mercy”, “defense”, and “welfare” (though “animal welfare” is a whole different thing).
Frankly when it comes to cetaceans we’re only really beginning to properly understand how to keep the species and have them live long lifespans. Currently lots of tanks used to display them aren’t necessarily the best, but they clearly are doing something right as breeding occurs readily in multiple species. However, it is more than possible to create large, natural exhibits for cetaceans, as can be seen with dolphinarium harderjwik and their spacious dolphin lagoon. If more facilities invested in larger cetacean exhibits, or renovated current ones, maybe we could eventually look into bringing in more species. Good candidates would be river dolphins and Finless porpoises out of their native range, a plan which has already been suggested by the ICUN itself.
Since the topic of the evolution of cetacean husbandry has come up, I guessed I would dispense some of my thoughts. From what I see, the current state of many cetacean tanks across the globe is rather subpar - uninteresting enclosements of concrete which is largely unfriendly to echolocation. And scheduled daily theatrical performance. Not totally condusive to the very nature of whales and dolphins! But if anything, we have seen an evolution for facilities of what were dubbed 'lost causes' in their time - namely in the likes of bears, great apes, and elephants. Simply because those species were at one time largely undermined, that doesn't necessarily mean the same has to be true for cetaceans, one may say! And so, how does one design a 'quality' dolphin enclosure? I would believe that a good place to start looking is the aforementioned Dolphin Lagoon in Harderwijk. By no means of one's imagination is it an 'ocean' per se, but neither are any penguin or seal exhibits one is capable of finding. Exhibits like this appear significantly more naturalistic, and perhaps more importantly, echolocation-friendly, than do many existing enclosures for dolphins. But of course, the problem of installing such a dolphin exhibit is finance. To build a large-scale pool costs significantly more than the erection of a smaller tank. And perhaps this is amplified if one's intent is to install such a lagoon for larger species, such as pilot whales or orca. And as is rather evident in the zoo-world, if a species' upkeep is not quite worth its monetary value, then said species is perhaps to be less common. But perhaps it is so that if the creation of more 'lagoons' leads to the closure of numerous existing cetacean exhibits, then perhaps that's the way it is... though seeing as many facilities are caving in to popular pressure for the total phase-out of cetaceans, perhaps such a reality is not to be.
