Conditions For Animals At Marineland Are Just Plain Dandy – Canadian Zoo Lobby Insists

By Doug Draper 

According to the latest in a series of investigative stories The Toronto Star has published animals kept at the sprawling Marineland amusement park in Niagara Falls, Ontario, the Canadian Association of Zoos and Aquariums – a self-regulatory zoo group Marineland is a dues-paying member of – has given the controversial park a ‘clean bill of health’.

One of Marineland’s ‘killer whales’ – more known as ‘orcas’ in the wild – up for a reward of food at entertainment time. File photo courtesy of Zoocheck Canada.

Inspectors for CAZA, adds this latest September 14 Star report – “only took a day for inspectors to give Marineland the thumbs up” – news that would likely not come as a surprise to anyone who has reported concerns about the condition of animals at this park for years to this group and to the Niagara Falls Humane Society and Ontario Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals with little or no hint from them that their concerns have any merit. Since this August, The Star has interviewed several former Marineland employees, including people responsible for training marine mammals or supervising animal facilities at the park, about charges they’ve made of mal-treatment of animals and CAZA reportedly only interviewed four of these individuals by phone.

CAZA’s members and inspectors are made up of owners and operators of zoos and aquariums across Canada that have a vested interest in promoting the animal exhibits of their members, including Marineland. The organization has also had a history of lobbying against strong regulations for animal welfare at zoo sites, claiming that it should be trusted to police its own affairs.

The Niagara Falls Humane Society and OSPCA are still in the processing of conducting their own investigation of Marineland but they are not talking to Star reporters or almost any other media, save those local media outlets that have a record of taking things lightly on anything to do with animal abuse allegations at the park.

Bear working up park visitors for a throw of food at Marineland. File photo courtesy of Zoocheck Canada.

Meanwhile, Niagara Fall, Ontario city councillor Janice Wing tabled a motion earlier this September that would ask the provincial and federal governments to set stricter regulations for conditions of animals at commercial outfits like Marineland. However, Marineland owner John Holer, who has always received a good deal of respect in the Honeymoon City given the popularity of his park as a tourist draw, wrote a letter to the city council asking for Wing’s motions to be deferred, which they were, of course. 

Why they were deferred is not entirely clear. If, as Holer has always claimed, he could meet the same more stringent standards that have been in effect for Sea World and other marine mammal entertainment venues in the United States, why would he or any of his cronies in CAZA have any problem if those same standards were made law in Canada? 

Finally, there seems to be no further indication that Ontario’s Liberal government would put together an independent, blue-ribbon team of experts to investigate and recommend new rules for commercial animal exploitation venues like Marineland. So far, it looks like the government is prepared to accept whatever self-serving guff it gets from CAZA and those two other agencies – the OSPCA and Niagara Falls Humane Society – that have had a long record of wandering through Marineland with blinders on.

Read the latest Toronto Star article on Marineland at http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/article/1256466–inspectors-take-only-a-day-give-marineland-a-clean-bill-of-health

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