Response to Petula Dvorak on her article "Dolphins in Tanks Whips Up a General Divide"

On June 17, Washington Post columnist published an article called "Dolphins in Tanks Whips Up a General Divide," and I sent her a rebuttal, correcting several of the falsities within her article. A month and a half later, I still have not received a response from Ms. Dvorak on her article. As a result, I feel compelled to share with the world my letter to her, which attempts to (very politely) correct her article.

Feel free to read the original article first, before reading my rebuttal.

(To be clear, I am not trying to call out Ms. Dvorak for not responding to me, nor am I placing blame or trying to talk bad about her or the Washington Post. I did write a follow up Letter to the Editor of the Washington Post, which was later published. I am simply just sharing what could not be said in the Letter to the Editor, due to my word limit.) 

Ms. Dvorak,

My name is Daniel Frank, and I am a lifelong supporter of the Baltimore Aquarium, SeaWorld, and all accredited zoos and aquariums. I will not pretend to be a professional, nor an expert in the field of zoology, or in the general issue of captive cetaceans. I am, however, the son of a librarian, and I know a thing or two about research and observation. I am 16, but I have spent more days visiting zoological facilities than most people will in their lifetime. I am not, however, the product of brainwashing, nor a sucker for propaganda. I simply have a deep passion for these animals, and their well-being. That is why I am writing this.

I am genuinely concerned about the fate of the Baltimore Aquarium's dolphins. In approximately four years, these animals will be moved to a sea pen in either Florida or the Caribbean, where "they will, at long last, taste real seawater and swim in a huge but still safely enclosed seaside space." If only if were that simple, Ms. Dvorak. As you later state in your article, “all but one of the aquarium’s eight dolphins…have lived their entire lives in tanks,” which means that all but one of the eight dolphins have never been exposed to an ocean environment. Their immune systems would be completely inept to handle the countless bacteria and high levels of pollution in which they would be forced to live out the remainder of their lives. I fear very few will survive longer than a year.

There is one specific line in your article that I wish to address:
“And the more we learn about these amazing animals, the more the cruelty of forcing them to jump and toss balls for squealing crowds becomes clear.” Anyone who knows anything about animal training, better known to professionals as “behavior modification,” knows that you can’t force dolphins to do anything. Trainers simply reinforce desired behaviors, and use those natural behaviors as building blocks for other trained behaviors. Dolphins at the Baltimore Aquarium (and SeaWorld, etc.) don’t do “tricks.” They perform behaviors. There is a difference.

“Research has long shown that animals suffer psychological damage in captivity, yet we’ve always found a way to justify confining creatures to tanks and cages.” Except it hasn’t. Take the whales at SeaWorld for example. None of the animals under their care show any signs of distress, depression, nor any other sign of psychological damage directly related to “stresses of captivity.” I am not aware of any research that indicates otherwise.

It is time to stop anthropomorphizing cetaceans, and all animals in zoological facilities. “…They totally look as if they’re smiling. Basically, they are so much like us. And we know how we would react to spending our entire lives locked in a sterile environment that has little resemblance to the rest of the world.” Except that’s not how it works! That dolphin is not happy, just because they appear to be smiling, nor is that gorilla sad because they appear to be frowning. Do animals have feelings and display them in many different ways? Absolutely. But do they do it in the exact same way that humans do? No. Only on the day that we accept humans and animals to be totally different will we every truly understand them.

But let’s take a look at the real issue here: the uninformed public. We, as a society, cannot pretend to really know anything about the issue of cetacean captivity until we stop calling Blackfish a documentary. It is as qualified to be a documentary as Donald Trump is to be president. The movie is primarily funded by PETA for crying out loud! I strongly encourage you to do some serious research on the can of worms you just opened. Real research. Real facts. Not from PETA, nor SeaWorld, but from people who really know what they’re talking about. Take the independent organization who is in charge of monitoring all zoological facilities in the United States for instance. By all accounts, SeaWorld, the Baltimore Aquarium and many others are fully accredited by the Association of Zoos & Aquariums (AZA). There are several qualifications to be accredited by the AZA, and almost all of them are based around the animals’ well-being. They are also regulated by the Department of Agriculture under the federal Animal Welfare Act

And last, but certainly not least, it is essential to know who the main voices of the movie Blackfish are:
•John Jett, who was demoted from Shamu Stadium to Sea Lion and Otter Stadium for being a poor swimmer, and thus being disliked by the whales he worked with.
•Dean Gomersall, who was fired by SeaWorld for kicking an otter, and never spent a day at Shamu Stadium.
•Jeff Ventre, who was fired for breaking safety protocol and sticking his head inside the mouth if a whale known to be aggressive

In addition, I strongly encourage you read through these two evaluations of the movie. The first link is to a paper I wrote evaluating the film, while the second is a critique by Dolfinarium Harderwijk, the largest oceanarium in Europe.

My "Blackfish" Review

Review by Dolfinarium Harderwijk

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