Evidence of meeting #135 for Fisheries and Oceans in the 42nd Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was animals.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Liberal
Bobby Morrissey Liberal Egmont, PE
If you were approaching it from a negative perspective, the most negative perspective would be that you would be phasing this activity out. Correct?
Liberal
Bobby Morrissey Liberal Egmont, PE
At the same time, it would be preventing wild animals from coming into this type of environment?
Joanne Klineberg
Right. Possibly the amendments to WAPPRIITA would prevent new cetaceans from being imported into Canada, but I can allow my colleague to speak there.
The other relevant part of the Criminal Code amendments is the ban on the breeding, so that no new cetaceans could be born—
Mr. Ken McDonald (Avalon, Lib.)
Thank you Mr. Morrissey.
We have a little over two minutes left. We'll go to the Conservative side. Mr. Calkins, you have three minutes.
Red Deer—Lacombe, CPC
I'm never terribly concerned about the blatantly obvious—well, the intended—consequences of legislation. I don't mean “blatant” in a pejorative way. The problem that I have as a legislator is always the unintended consequences of legislation and what those might actually be.
I have a question for you as the department officials. Would there be a way to achieve the result of ending the captivity of cetaceans without S-203? Certainly, every one of those organizations, like the Vancouver Aquarium and Marineland—and I'm not advocating for this—must get permits somewhere from somebody in order to continue on with their operations. Why would it not be a matter of just revoking those in perpetuity, instead of having to create legislation that I'm afraid will eventually lead to the end of rodeos, captive breeding programs and a whole host of potentially beneficial things?
I feel like we're swatting a fly with a sledgehammer here.
Director General, Fisheries Resource Management, Department of Fisheries and Oceans
As mentioned earlier, I think some of the amendments the House has passed in Bill C-68 will accomplish—if you will permit me to say it—probably two-thirds of the objectives. The amendments in C-68 would prohibit the minister from issuing a permit to capture a whale within Canadian fisheries waters for the purpose of public display, as well as allow the government to create an import prohibition for new whales to be brought in. It would leave the captive breeding piece, on which the province of Ontario has already exercised jurisdiction in relation to orcas.
Red Deer—Lacombe, CPC
Maybe, Mr. Burns, you can help me. I, as an Albertan, cannot possess any wild species of fish in an aquarium in my house without a permit to do so. I can have tropical fish. I can't do anything with wildlife. I can't keep a deer alive in my yard. I can't keep an elk alive. I'm not allowed to possess any wild animal unless I have a permit that allows me to do so. Surely to goodness Marineland and the Vancouver Aquarium have permits allowing them to do so. If so, and if this is a problem, why can't we simply revoke the permits over time, if that's what the end goal is of whatever we're trying to achieve here? Why do we need legislation and Criminal Code things that are going to potentially put travel agents in jail for selling tickets to SeaWorld without actually knowing it? That's the way the legislation reads. Everyone commits an offence who promotes or arranges—well, selling a ticket to somebody for SeaWorld, if you're....
I can go right now to the Alberta Motor Association in my home province and buy tickets to SeaWorld. According to me, they're conducting and receiving money. They would receive a commission for the sale of that. They're arranging my ability to go see captive whales. I know we talked about this before, but why are we using such a heavy-handed approach? I don't understand this.
That's just my comment. I'm going to go back to one of the questions I have.
The animal that's currently in captivity in Vancouver.... When the Department of Fisheries and Oceans is alerted to the presence of an animal in distress, what kinds of facilities do we have as a government? What kinds of facilities are available to us to provide sanctuary or safe harbour until we have the ability to actually nurture or nurse the animal back to health? Where would we do it if the Vancouver Aquarium had never been built in the first place? Are there other facilities? If we find something in the southern resident killer whale population—a whale that is in distress—how would we help it if we needed to take it outside of the wild environment? Would we just let nature take its course?
Director General, Fisheries Resource Management, Department of Fisheries and Oceans
There are very limited.... Vancouver Aquarium would be the key facility that immediately comes to mind that—
Red Deer—Lacombe, CPC
But the ethics behind this bill would suggest that the Vancouver Aquarium should never have been built in the first place, correct?
Director General, Fisheries Resource Management, Department of Fisheries and Oceans
I can't speak to that.
Red Deer—Lacombe, CPC
I think that's the point. Anyway, I think I've made my point. I thank you for coming here and trying to help me through what is, in my opinion, a well-intentioned but extremely clumsy piece of legislation.
Mr. Ken McDonald (Avalon, Lib.)
Thank you, Mr. Calkins.
Our time is now up for this particular portion of today's committee meeting. Before I suspend, I would like to apologize and recognize at the same time the presence of the Hon. Larry Bagnell, MP for Yukon. I missed doing that earlier. I do apologize for that.
We will suspend now for a couple of minutes just to change out for the next hour of witnesses.
Thank you to our witnesses.
Mr. Ken McDonald (Avalon, Lib.)
Welcome, everybody, to our final hour on the study today on this particular motion.
I welcome all our guests.
By video conference, we have Dr. Hal Whitehead, professor, Biology Department, Dalhousie University.
As well by video conference, we have Dr. Laura Graham, director, WRG Conservation Foundation.
Here in person, from Ocean Wise, we have Clinton Wright, executive vice-president and chief operating officer, aquariums; and Dr. Martin Haulena, chief veterinarian.
Here from Marineland of Canada Inc., we have Mr. Andrew Burns, legal counsel.
We're going to start off with our seven-minute presentations by video conference.
We'll go to Dr. Whitehead first, for seven minutes or less. Go ahead, please.
Dr. Hal Whitehead Professor, Biology Department, Dalhousie University, As an Individual
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.
Mr. Ken McDonald (Avalon, Lib.)
Thank you, Dr. Whitehead.
We will now go to Dr. Laura Graham, for seven minutes or less, please.
Dr. Laura Graham Director, WRG Conservation Foundation, As an Individual
I would like to thank the committee for this opportunity to voice my concerns about Bill S-203, to ban cetaceans in captivity.
Specifically, I want to make sure the committee is well informed on the critical role that scientific research on cetaceans in captivity plays in the advancement of the management and conservation of captive and wild cetacean populations.
My background is in wildlife physiology and captive breeding for endangered species. That is the area on which I will focus. One of the areas that I am an expert in is developing non-invasive hormone techniques to use in wildlife to assess reproduction and welfare. I collaborate with various zoos and aquariums with their captive population to develop and validate these techniques, then we can apply them to the captive population. We can also adapt them for use in wild populations. Think of home pregnancy tests for women, where we just measure the hormone in the urine. In this case, we're collecting urine or feces from the species in a non-invasive way.
I want to point out a couple of examples where this is critical to advancing our knowledge about cetaceous species, including our critically endangered cetaceous species.
Article one, which I have provided you, is an example of these techniques that have been developed in dolphins. These non-invasive hormone techniques, which have been developed for some cetaceous species in aquariums, in collaboration with aquariums, have provided some critical information.
This includes critical information on our own southern resident pods of orca on the west coast that are listed as endangered under the Species at Risk Act. They are the most polluted mammal on the planet and for several years have been declining in numbers, as you all know.
Various measures have been taken to reverse the population decline, including reduced tourist activity based on the unsubstantiated assumption that tourism-associated stress is negatively impacting their recovery. The decline has continued. Everybody's seen the viral picture of the mother carrying her dead calf around for weeks.
A colleague of mine has used our non-invasive hormone techniques that have been developed in captive animals to study this particular population of orca. His study has determined that the female orcas are actually getting pregnant, but they are losing their calves. They are losing the fetus or their newborn to malnutrition. That is not something that you can get just from observational studies.
As far as the tourist boats go, the study has indicated that the stress hormones of this particular population actually are at their lowest during the peak tourism season. This is in article two, which I have provided for you, that was published by Sam Wasser in 2017.
These orcas are getting pregnant, but they are losing their fetus or newborn because of malnutrition. Using the information that came from this study, we are now able to pinpoint the most important threat to the survival of this orca population: the declining salmon stocks. I want to emphasize that we would not have this technique to use on this critically endangered population without having captive orcas to study the hormone patterns for the species.
Another example would be the St. Lawrence beluga. Again, like the orcas, its population is declining for unknown reasons, although various measures have been undertaken to try to attempt to reverse this decline, including reducing tourism activity. It would be possible for us to do a very similar study to what was done with the southern resident pod of the orca; however, we would need to have a captive breeding population of belugas to validate the techniques. This proposed legislation would obviously prevent us from carrying out this research.
I have focused just on two examples, because they're of immediate Canadian concern and that's my research area of expertise.
The previous speaker was also talking about some of the field research, so I want to remind everybody that much of the techniques used for that field research were developed and validated on captive populations under captive conditions.
Indeed, the vast majority of what we know about cetacean biology is based on research in captive populations and is critical for rescuing cetaceans in dire straits. I'm glad the Vancouver Aquarium is going to be here because they can talk about their contribution to the conservation and management of wild cetaceans and how their research has been critical to that. I have provided the open letter from the list of scientists, in defence of the research done by Vancouver Aquarium when they were attacked by the anti-captivity people, and I strongly encourage you to read it.
A great deal has been suggested about the reduced welfare of cetaceans in captivity and there's no doubt some institutions should definitely be closed. However, in modern accredited zoos and aquariums, great strides have been made to maximize the welfare of animals in their care using science. For example, in the proposed legislation, there's a ban on cetaceans performing for the public under the assumption that it's stressful, yet research, which is article three that I have provided to you, has indicated that dolphins do not act stressed in anticipation of training and performance.
Another investigation comparing wild dolphins to captive dolphins actually indicated that captive dolphins were healthier than the wild dolphins. That is in article four, which I have also provided to you.
In my extensive experience, accredited zoos and aquaria are far more eagerly pursuing research into animal welfare than most other animal industries, including the food and companion animal industries. Another example of the research would be article five.
The CCAC has developed guidelines for the care and use of marine mammals that could be implemented as regulations to ensure that the highest standards of welfare are met in captive cetaceans and allow science to continue to guide the evolution of these standards. Indeed, colleagues of mine in the U.S. are currently doing a scientific study involving more than 300 captive cetaceans held in seven nations to determine the factors that are critical to improved cetacean welfare, with the aim of improving it around the world.
Vancouver Aquarium was going to participate in this international study until the Vancouver parks board banned them from housing beluga, so Canada will not be part of this international effort.
In conclusion, I want to dedicate my testimony to the critically endangered cetacean species I already mentioned, the vaquita. There are fewer than 10 left and the population is expected to become extinct in a few weeks, as the fishing season peaks. We could have saved them. If we had started years ago when the population started to crash, we could have learned more about them and we could have set up a captive population. We could have saved them from extinction, but now they're going to be gone forever and that is shameful and unforgivable.
Thank you.
Mr. Ken McDonald (Avalon, Lib.)
Thank you, Dr. Graham.
We'll now go to Ocean Wise and Mr. Wright.