Dr. Lori Marino is a neuroscientist and Senior Lecturer in the Department of Psychology and faculty affiliate of the Center for Ethics at Emory University. We asked her about the ethics of keeping dolphins in captivity. Check out our interview below. To find out more about Dr. Marino, visit her bio.
Some experts say that dolphins in captivity behave just like, or nearly like, dolphins in the wild. What's your opinion?
I don't need to give my opinion because there's an abundance of evidence that shows that dolphins and whales in captivity show a lot of the same abnormal behaviors that are exhibited by other animals in captivity. These include things like stereotypies where they do repeated movements, self mutilation and just basically other behaviors associated with being psychologically disturbed. There are also several peer-reviewed studies that have shown elevated stress hormones in dolphins and whales in captivity.
So there really is no way that an artificial setting could provide an opportunity for the range of natural behaviors that dolphins enjoy in the wild, just from a physical point of view. The largest tank in the world is something like less than one ten-thousandth of one percent of the natural range of most dolphins and whales. So there's physically no way that these animals could exhibit natural behaviors in captivity.
I know that some members of the captivity industry have made the point that in captivity these animals are fed fish and they don't need to deal with the stress of capturing their own prey. But in fact, being fed dead fish can be a stress. In the wild, they really enjoy the opportunity to collaborate with each other and catch prey and travel with their companions, and basically work for their prey. In captivity, all of that stimulation is taken away.
So there is a lot of scientific evidence that shows that dolphins and whales — both wild-born and captive-born — exhibit a lot of psychological abnormalities in captivity.
Would you say that dolphins in U.S. aquariums and marine parks are well-cared for?
Well, what I would say is that modern husbandry techniques are very sophisticated, but this isn't the same as being well-cared for, and it doesn't mitigate the fact that these animals cannot thrive in captivity. Surviving for a certain amount of time is not the same as thriving, and the mortality statistics show this conclusively. Dolphins and whales live only a fraction of their natural life spans in captivity. So if they're being so "well-cared for," what is killing them? That's a question that needs to be answered.
Ric O'Barry says that the best way to help dolphins is to not buy a ticket to a dolphin show. Do you agree with that?
Yes, I agree. The captivity industry is responsible for making dolphins and whales into money-making commodities, and it really does contribute to the sense that these animals are here to be controlled by us. Even more pragmatically, I would say that marine parks are driven by demand. They're an entertainment industry and the demand drives them to keep more and more animals confined. That often — not always, but often — means taking them from the wild, including during these horrendous drives.
The public has the power to end all of this: don't buy a ticket!
Is a dolphin show an effective tool to help educate the public about dolphins and dolphin conservation?
This is really a topic that has been on a lot of peoples' minds lately. In April, I was a witness for a congressional hearing on this matter, and I testified that the educational claims made by the captivity industry have absolutely no foundation. There's no compelling evidence, at all, that visiting dolphin shows and seeing dolphin and whale displays is educational. I've done a lot of research in this area and I've published peer-reviewed papers that show this so-called "educational claim" is not supported by any evidence.
In fact, what most people don't know is that the Marine Mammal Protection Act requires captive displays to be educational in order to keep these animals on display, and yet marine parks all over the world continue to display them without even having met this criterion.
In addition, I've done a lot of research on the information on AZA websites, or websites of AZA facilities, and a lot of the information is factually incorrect. So I would ask you, how can it be educational if it is wrong?
The public should not confuse entertainment with education. So no, there's absolutely no evidence of this at all.
Scientists have learned a lot by studying dolphins in captivity. In light of this, do you agree or disagree with keeping dolphins in research facilities?
I agree that we've learned a lot about who dolphins are from studies in captivity, but I do not think we should be keeping them in captivity.
I did studies with dolphins in captivity. In one of those studies, my colleague and I showed that they are self aware; they recognize themselves in mirrors. But dolphins have paid a very high price for satisfying our curiosity. For instance, the two dolphins that I worked with at the New York Aquarium when I did that mirror study are now dead. And in fact, many of the individual dolphins that were research subjects in these groundbreaking kinds of studies are dead, prematurely. That tells you something.
Despite having learned a lot about dolphins from captive studies, if we think we're intelligent, then that means we need to adjust our behavior to the information that comes in from our science. What we have learned about who these dolphins are tells us unequivocally that they do not belong in captivity.
I think it's really important to know that those of us who are advocating for dolphins have nothing to gain and everything to lose from doing this. For instance, after I did the self awareness study, I gave up doing studies on captive dolphins once I discovered I was working with two self-aware individuals. I felt that they should be leading the life of an intelligent, self-aware, social being, and they weren't.
In fact, not only do I have nothing to gain, but I have given up a lot of professional opportunities when I made that decision. But it was the right one.
What have scientists learned by studying dolphins in the wild? And do you think field studies on dolphins are a replacement for captive studies?
I think that field studies are and can be a replacement for some captive studies. In the past few years, almost nothing has been learned about dolphins from captive studies. Likewise, some of the most exciting things we're learning about dolphins and whales are coming from studies of wild individuals. In other words, field studies. For instance, we now know that dolphins and whales have complex cultural traditions. This was learned from field studies, field observations, and actually could never be ascertained in captivity where they're deprived of their normal social relations. So all of the cutting edge research on dolphin and whale lives and behavior and psychology is coming from the wild, not from captive labs.
Ric O'Barry says that the captive dolphin industry as a whole fuels the dolphin hunting industry. Do you agree with that?
There's a very simple equation here, and that is that the captivity industry drives the dolphin hunting industry because it creates a demand for dolphins. Plain and simple. If there weren't a demand to see dolphins in these spectacles and on display, then the captivity industry around the world would not be breeding dolphins, not taking dolphins from these horrendous drives and so forth. It's a very simple equation. So yes, indeed, the captive dolphin industry does fuel dolphin hunting of all kinds around the world.
When making that statement, shouldn't one make an exception for the AZA (Association of Zoos and Aquariums) and their facilities?
There is a moratorium on taking dolphins from the wild in this country, but up until recently, marine mammal parks in this country did take dolphins from the wild and from dolphin drive hunts. There are still dolphins who you can go see in these marine parks who were taken from the wild. And they also reserve the right, under some circumstances, to take again from U.S. waters in the future; it's not illegal if there is any possibility left in the law.
But more importantly, the success of the AZA marine parks here serves as a model for the rest of the world. And when the rest of the world tries to emulate us, it means that they're going to take animals from the wild — in particular these drive hunts, which are some of the easiest ways that you can stock your pools with animals.
So the AZA has a responsibility to police the captivity industry and their colleagues. WAZA, the World Association for Zoos and Aquariums, has done very little to do this. In fact the Taiji Whale Museum, which takes from the Taiji drives, is a member in good standing of the Japanese Association of Zoos and Aquariums (JAZA) and JAZA is a member of WAZA. So WAZA can't be doing all that much to help with the situation.
The other thing that's very important to remember is that the AZA will tell you that they're trying to do what they can to stop these drive hunts. In fact, what that means is that if you go to their website, embedded somewhere in their website you can click on a link that goes to a petition that's called "Act for Dolphins." And in fact, I and my colleague Diana Reiss were the primary authors of that petition against the dolphin drive hunts. We authored it, we collected the signatures, for the most part, and so forth. All the AZA has done is pretty much just taken that link and put it on their website.
They also talk about the fact that they have sent a letter to the Japanese government. That letter is on that website, you can click on it, and it is exactly six lines long. And it doesn't look like that website has changed in years.
So that's what they call trying to do something about it.
Can an ethical distinction be made between the killing of dolphins for food and the killing of cows, pigs and chickens for food?
This is an argument that is thrown out there to divert attention from the brutality of the hunts. Look, there is an argument to be made for treating other animals respectfully. All other animals, certainly. But the fact that some people eat cows and pigs and chickens doesn't make killing dolphins any less egregious — that it makes other wrongs more right.
Again, I see this kind of question as a diversionary tactic. Whether you make an ethical distinction or not, the fact is that killing dolphins is wrong.
Is it cultural elitism to disapprove of, or speak out against, another country's traditional hunting practices?
No. The secret is that dolphin drive hunting is not a cultural practice in Japan. Most of the citizens of Japan don't know about it, so it can't be an important component of their culture if they don't know about it.
But also, and perhaps even more importantly, we speak out against all kinds of human rights violations around the world all the time, and I would ask why should we be silent when it is a violation against a non-human? Again, cultural or not, morality dictates that this be stopped. It is something I think that Japan's government likes to say to make us look like cultural elitists, but the fact of the matter is that we speak out against all kinds of violations everywhere and this is just one of them.
Lori Marino is a neuroscientist and Senior Lecturer in the Department of Psychology and faculty affiliate of the Center for Ethics at Emory University. Her research spans the evolution of brain, intelligence and self-awareness in dolphins and whales and other species, and the ethics of human-nonhuman animal relationships.
She is the author of over 80 publications in the areas of cetacean neuroanatomy and brain evolution, comparative behavioral ecology and evolution in cetaceans and primates, including several methodological critiques of dolphin-assisted therapy and dolphin-human interaction programs.
In 2001, she and Diana Reiss published the first definitive evidence for mirror self-recognition in bottlenose dolphins in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
She teaches animal intelligence, brain imaging, animal welfare and other related courses.
Profile provided by Dr. Marino.
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