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Feel free to enlighten us with your personal knowledge not a cut and paste from a Seaworld pr site.
While we await your responses...
"SeaWorld was created strictly as entertainment. We didn’t try to wear this false façade of educational significance."
George Millay founder of Seaworld.
"It's a bit like having Walt Disney tell us about mouse biology,"
Ken Balcomb, founder of the Center for Whale Research and a pioneering orca researcher.
A study by Ingrid Visser a marine biologist New Zealand’s Orca Research Trust found that
52 articles on SeaWorld’s list, three are duplicates, the exact same paper listed twice. Another of the papers on the list is a review by a SeaWorld employee of a book written by someone who claimed to be able to communicate with orcas. Others involved SeaWorld staff, but the research was performed entirely on wild populations. A few could not be tracked down with the citation information provided; SeaWorld’s director of research didn’t have access to them when Visser inquired. Several are not peer reviewed, and at least one had the title changed to imply that captive orcas played a more important role in the research (which was a statistical model) than they actually did.
David Shiffman is a Ph.D. candidate at the Abess Center for Ecosystem Science and Policy at the University of Miami.
Many of the papers cited on SeaWorld's website were coauthored by researchers from the Hubbs-SeaWorld Research Institute, a San Diego nonprofit founded in 1963. SeaWorld provides around 10 percent of its roughly $5 million budget. In 2012 and 2013, Hubbs-SeaWorld published 26 papers on topics ranging from abalone genetics to polar bears' hearing; none focused on orcas. SeaWorld also touts its SeaWorld & Busch Gardens Conservation Fund as evidence of its investment in killer-whale science and conservation. However, between 2004 and 2012 the fund spent no more than $550,000 on research focused on killer whales, according to an analysis by the nonprofit Whale and Dolphin Conservation.
How much does Seaworld actually contribute to whale and dolphin research:
What we do know is that from the 6% spent on cetaceans – which works out at approximately US$542,588 – US$320,000 went to the University of Florida (noted above) and US$146,000 went to Hubbs Research Institute (who in addition to studying the captive dolphins at SeaWorld, undertake work on a wild population of bottlenose dolphins in a Florida lagoon although some of the grants were noted as being for work on polar bears and manatees). This therefore leaves only US$76,588 directly attributable to monies spent focusing on “wild” whales and dolphins. And that works out at 14% of the total spent on whales and dolphins and a mere 0.88% of the total spent on ALL their projects.
So in answer to the question of SeaWorld being a conservation donor? It would appear not when it comes to the conservation of wild whales and dolphins.
In 2012, Orca Aware conducted a literature search for SeaWorld killer whale publications and found from the results that SeaWorld have only produced a maximum of 30 orca-related papers in the last 50 years, with only about five further articles having any affiliation with SeaWorld at all. Many of these papers were published pre-1990.
I believe that God put animals on the planet and gave man dominion over them.
And do you define dominion as the right to do whatever the hell you want with your god's most wonderful creations? Do you really think that you god would go through the time and effort to create such animals just so that you could wantonly drive them to extinction? Is that what you think your god meant by dominion or do you think that maybe your god was telling you to act responsibly with the gifts that he has given you?
And do you define dominion as the right to do whatever the hell you want with your god's most wonderful creations? Do you really think that you god would go through the time and effort to create such animals just so that you could wantonly drive them to extinction? Is that what you think your god meant by dominion or do you think that maybe your god was telling you to act responsibly with the gifts that he has given you?
OMG, this is priceless. You think that people should leave you alone when you want to kill a baby but you want to tell people what to do with their fish?
What? People like you that do not even know that an Orca is a mammal have no business on this thread.
It was a film about a buck of disgruntled former employees complaining about their former employer. I see you, like many here, think that only wealthy people who can afford an Alaskan cruise should be able to see and learn about animals.
The Bible also gave you dominion over women. Do you also maintain that quaint little tradition, or is it just more convenient for you to gloss over that part?
I believe that God put animals on the planet and gave man dominion over them.
Why am I not surprised?
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