Thank you.
My name is Hal Whitehead. I'm a professor at Dalhousie University and co-chair for marine mammals of the Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada, COSEWIC. I have been studying whales and dolphins in the wild since 1974, with a particular focus on their behaviour, ecology, social structure, culture, populations and conservation.
Fundamentally, scientists study whales and dolphins to understand their biology and to promote their conservation. Much of this research is done at sea, often with technologies such as underwater microphones, tags and drones. Usually this research is observational, but sometimes scientists manage manipulative experiments at sea. There is also research on whales and dolphins in captivity. Much more of this research is experimental.
Experimental science tends to be more definitive than observations, but set against this is the unnatural setting of captivity, which often makes interpretation of the results problematic. This is particularly the case for whales and dolphins, as the captive environment is especially unnatural. Captive whales and dolphins live in a space that is less than a millionth—and in the case of killer whales, less than a billionth—of the area of their natural home ranges. Rather than facing a wide range of living prey, they are typically fed dead fish.
These are extremely acoustic animals. That's how they sense their world and how they communicate. Concrete tanks are debilitating echo chambers. Whales and dolphins are also extremely social, and by some measures, more social than us. The captive social environment is utterly different from their social life in the wild. These, and other factors, make much of the research on captive whales and dolphins problematic, and have led most scientists not connected to the captivity industry, some philosophers, and much of the Canadian public to consider the captivity industry unethical.
Research in captivity has given us lots of interesting insights into the nature of the animals, especially their physiologies and cognition, although there is continuing uncertainty about how these results refer to animals in the wild. Most important captive results come from dedicated research facilities, such as those at the United States Navy and the University of Hawai'i, not display facilities. Ethical standards for scientific research are tightening, and research that was standard is no longer considered ethical. Studies of animals in captivity provide little of value for conservation of wild animals. They tend to ask the wrong questions about the wrong species.
As examples, I'll consider reports on the status of two emblematic Canadian whale species, members of which are held in captivity. In the 2015 COSEWIC status report on the endangered St. Lawrence belugas, about 1.4% of the main text of the report refers to captive animals. This is made up of one paragraph plus one sentence summarizing information on belugas in captivity and one reference to captive research in determining age of sexual maturity. There are seven references to wild studies for the same result. In the DFO recovery strategy for this population, reference to captive belugas is even less.
In the 2008 COSEWIC status report on the killer whale, including the endangered southern resident population, about 2% of the main text refers to captive animals. There is one sentence on mating seasonality and one sentence referring to the gestation period drawn from captive studies. Of the seven citations for a statement on the effects of noise, one was from captive studies, six from the wild. All other references to captivity in the report concern the negative effects of removals from wild populations for oceanaria.
In the 2011 DFO recovery strategy for the southern resident killer whales, there is one paragraph referring to diseases in captivity.
Thus, while studies of whales in captivity have given interesting and sometimes academically useful information, their contribution to the conservation of Canadian species has been virtually zero or negative if the effects of wild captures are considered.
Moving beyond Canada, captivity has been considered for the two most desperately and critically endangered of cetaceans: the Yangtze River dolphins, or baiji, and the Gulf of California harbour porpoise, or vaquita. As a last-ditch effort, plans were made to round up the last few individuals and keep them away from the harm that we humans are doing them in the wild, but for neither species was this successful. One is extinct; the other almost certainly doomed to extinction.
Past research on captive animals is being replaced by new techniques in the wild, including experiments. For instance, controlled exposure experiments on wild animals have given major advances in how we understand the effects of underwater noise on whales. If this bill passes, the cetaceans currently in captivity will still be available for research. Additionally, some animals will enter captivity for rehabilitation, and there may be rescued animals in semi-captive sanctuaries, both opportunities for gaining knowledge. In addition, computer modelling is also replacing some captive animal studies.
In summary, if captive displays of whales and dolphins end, our ability to conserve the animals in the wild will be virtually unaffected. And although studies of captive whales and dolphins have informed us about the species and their biology, much or all of this information stream can now be replaced.
Thank you.