Questions raised about Birmingham’s nature reserves and aquariums

• Mar. 4 by Sian Jones (7)

The Captive Animals’ Protection Society (CAPS) have criticised  nature reseves and aquariums like the West Midlands Safari Park and Birmingham Sea Life Centre for the captivity and treatment of the animals they keep.

The Manchester based organisation commented after the recent death of trainer Dawn Brancheau at Seaworld in Florida, that it was a ‘consequence of the way that people have close contact with wild animals in captivity’.

The society who have campaigned in Birmingham before to put a stop to the National Cage & Aviary Birds Exhibition at the NEC told us that ‘Since 1990 over 200 people worldwide have been injured or killed by elephants in zoos, circuses and other captive environments’.

What the WDCS do

According to the Birmingham Sealife Centre website they have been working in partnership with the Whale and Dolphin Conservation Society (WDCS) to stop whaling and claim to be ‘working together to make the world a better place’.

Laura Stansfield from the society explained that they work towards completely banning captivity due to the breeding, transfer’s whales and dolphins go through and the way they are kept.

This is because whales are as intelligent as humans and have very complex brains, so being cooped up in barren tanks causes stress and abnormal aggression.

Birmingham Sea Life Centre

The local Sealife Centre are quick to reassure that they are doing all they can to protect marine life:

‘Sealife Centres continued to enjoy considerable breeding success in 2009 with a variety of species including: seahorses, squid, sharks, rays, jellyfish, Humboldt penguins and Asian short clawed otters’

The first breeding successes were also recorded this year at a newly created freshwater turtle facility in the National Sea Life Centre Birmingham.

Sponsored walks at several SEA LIFEs in the UK raised a substantial sum for the Whale & Dolphin Conservation Society.

Chris Butler-Stroud, CEO of WDCS said of the relationship:

‘SEA LIFE has been instrumental in WDCS being able to carry out its essential conservation work.

The commendations that WDCS has received from governments and the public alike this last year, would not have been possible without the strategic long term support of the relationship with SEA LIFE.

WDCS has ambitious plans in these coming years, and SEA LIFE and its public outreach is critical to ensuring continued success.’

Tillikum

Sea World’s Tillikum was captured in Iceland (1983) at just two years old and Laura explains that recent events were an accident waiting to happen, taking into consideration there were incidences like this before.

Males stick with their mothers throughout their life, in a complex society where they can choose when they eat, and who they are friends with, Tillikum and many other captive whales are made to perform, put with whales they may not get on with and it has been noted that Tillikum has on more than one occasion been kept on his own.

Considering everything that Tillikum has been through Laura suggests that it is highly likely that he suffers from severe psychological problems.