Another prominent biologist has weighed in on the keeping of whales and dolphins at the Vancouver Aquarium ahead of a special park board meeting on the subject scheduled for next week.
Terrie M. Williams, founder of the Center for Ocean Health-Long Marine Lab at the University of California, Santa Cruz, recently submitted a letter to the Vancouver Park Board about the importance of the Vancouver Aquarium’s captive cetaceans to her research on wild populations.
Dated July 13, the letter says that Williams will be unable to attend the board’s July 26 special meeting because she is currently in Greenland studying the effects of ship noise on narwhals. She writes that her current research is possible because of a “foundation of work” she did with the beluga whales at the Vancouver Aquarium.
“Without the aquarium’s help in determining the basic physiology of whales and in developing our instrumentation we could never have moved forward with this field work,” the letter reads.
Williams writes that people on both sides of the debate over cetaceans in captivity have the same goal: “to save the dolphins and whales of the world.” Her argument is that facilities like the Vancouver Aquarium are vital to this goal, because they allow scientists to study the animals up close and develop techniques and hypotheses to test in the field.
Williams’ letter comes less than two months after a similar letter from famed primate biologist Jane Goodall took the opposite position. Goodall sent a letter to the park board in May urging it to discontinue the practice of keeping cetaceans at the aquarium.
Vancouver Mayor Gregor Robertson has also weighed in on the subject, saying that his personal preference would be for cetacean captivity at the Vancouver Aquarium to be phased out.
The aquarium falls under the jurisdiction of the park board because of its location in Stanley Park. It is permitted to keep cetaceans under park board bylaws, but may only acquire new ones under specific conditions.
According to the bylaws, the aquarium may only keep cetaceans that were born in captivity, caught in the wild prior to September 16, 1996, or were already being kept in the park as of that date. It may acquire new cetaceans only if they are members of an endangered species and their arrival is approved by the park board, or if they are injured and in need of rehabilitation.
The aquarium currently houses two beluga whales and two Pacific white-sided dolphins, as well as Jack and Daisy, a pair of harbour porpoises deemed non-releasable by Fisheries and Oceans Canada.
The aquarium is scheduled to give a presentation on its work with large marine mammals at a special park board meeting on Saturday, July 26, at 9 a.m. The presentation will be followed by an opportunity for public comment on the issue. Those who would like to speak should sign up online at the park board’s website.
