Canadian amusement park threatens to euthanise 30 beluga whales
Canadian amusement park threatens to euthanise 30 beluga whales
www.bbc.com
Canadian amusement park threatens to euthanise 30 beluga whales
A Canadian amusement park is threatening to euthanise 30 beluga whales after the government blocked its request to send them to China.
The park is said to have told ministers that it was in a "critical financial state" and unable to provide adequate care for the whales
This is pretty awful from all sides.
Marineland was a hellhole and I'm glad they're dying, but those whales are caught in a battle between people and there isn't a good way out.
Marineland doesn't have the money to continue to take care of them and the government has refused to help.
Marineland tried to offload them to a center in China, but that would mean they are almost certainly misused as an attraction again, so the government said they can't do that either.
Basically, these whales will either be euthanized, or live with increasingly neglectful care as Marineland continues to bleed money unless someone else with the capability of caring for captive whales is willing to take them.
Sure does sound like an unwinnable situation.
I don't trust any of these facilities in any country to give animals this large an appropriate level of care in captivity.
That means it's a question of how much misery the animals should endure to avoid being euthanised. I don't know the answer.
Marineland should declare bankruptcy if they have legal obligations for animal care that they no longer have the funding to satisfy. Then the government can liquidate the (substantial) remaining assets and use that to find the animals a good home, instead of letting the company tell us what it decides it can and can't afford to do for the animals because they'd rather put that money in their own pockets and let the animals die.
But we never hold companies to such standards. We let them get away with literal murder when they later cry about how they had to, until we shrug it off as just "companies being companies".
I think we need better standards. Don't give them an inch. Hold them responsible. Hold their feet to the fucking fire. They bought these animals. They used them. They monetized them. They made their owners rich. Their (intentional) lack of planning for what to do when the animals were no longer profitable anymore should not be rewarded by letting them continue to pour the rest of their coins out of their piggy bank while the animals die.
They created the cost with their actions. The government should take every penny of value down to the CEOS kids toys and then foot any costs not paid for.
This was 30+ years ago, when I was a wee lad. There was a fair visiting my town and they gave goldfish to to children in a certain attraction. Literally a plastic bag with the goldfish.
Somebody for the city hall came and forbid them, because children can't take case of little fish (and, I guess, they were all living with no adults /s).
Short story, they just stopped feeding the fish and a few days later they just dumped them somewhere.
Same story now, but with belugas.
The government hasn't said no to transferring them to that particular place, but they're still trying to find other suitable takers