Animal Activists Breach Marineland Gates During Giant Protest Rally

By Doug Draper

The gates of Marineland are now closed for the 2012 season but not before several dozen protesters marched through them and took their campaign against keeping marine mammals in captivity into the heart of the sprawling Niagara Falls, Ontario amusement park.

Hundreds rally in front of Marineland in Niagara Falls, Ontario on Canada’s Thanksiving weekend to protest keeping of animals in captivity. Photo by Doug Draper

The unprecedented breaching of Marineland’s ticket gates by protesters had the few Niagara Regional Police officers at the site this October 7 calling for reinforcements that arrived in several cruisers racing into the parking lot with lights flashing. To their credit, the police managed to escort the protesters out of the park without any violent incidents as some of the more than 500 other animal activists, lining the shoulders of Portage Road in front of Marineland, shouted to police that they should instead be going after John Holer, the founder and owner of the 51-year-old park.

“We don’t care if the Niagara Regional Police want to protect a multi-millionaire,” said Dylan Powell, head of the animal activist group Marineland Animal Defense as the largest protest rally the park has weathered in more than two decades continued on. “We will hold John Holer accountable.”

Indeed, Powell promised a record-setting turnout of protesters this October 7 and it certainly was one. For many years going back to the early 1990s, as many as 50 to 100 animal activists might show up for a season-end rally in front of the park. More often, there would be a couple of dozen, waving placards and handing out ‘educational material’ to anyone who might slow their car down to accept it.

Then early this August, when the Toronto Star began publishing a series of front-page stories focusing on concerns raised by recently departed  trainers and other employees about what they charged were substandard conditions for animals at Marineland, the number of protesters has grown by leaps and bounds. But now that the park has closed for the winter and the amount of media coverage on the conditions of animals inside may fall back to the odd column on the back pages, how will that momentum be sustained?

Toronto animal activist Cara Sands and Ric O’Barry, a renown opponents of keeping marine mammals in captivity, hold up a picture of Duke, a dolphin they hoped to free from Marineland two decades ago. Photo by Dou Draper

That question was front and centre for Ric O’Barry, a veteran opponent of marine mammal zoos, who spoke at the rally.

 “We must keep this issue alive,” said O’Barry, who was a dolphin trainer for the popular 1960s American TV show ‘Flipper’ before completely breaking from that kind of career with a book critical of using marine mammals for entertainment called ‘Behind the Dolphin Smile, and playing principle role, a few years ago, in the Academy Award-winning documentary ‘The Cove, about the willful slaughter of dolphins in Japan.

“If we don’t work to keep it alive, it will die,” said O’Barry, adding that those who believe that keeping whales, dolphins and other wild animals in captive conditions have got to begin lobbying their members of government for tougher regulations, including laws that prohibit the importation of marine mammals to parks like Marineland from other countries, including Russia which has been a source of beluga whales for the park.

O’Barry said pressure should also be placed on school boards and teachers not to take groups of children to Marineland on field trips. “One of the keys to getting these places shut down is to break those school contracts,” he said, adding that mammal exhibits like those at Marineland do nothing to educate children about these animals as they should live in their natural habitat. “It is a spectacle of dominance,” said O’Barry. “School children leave here mis-educated and desensitized.”

Protesters crowd around ticket gates at Marineland before taking their anti-captivity message right into the park. Photo by Doug Draper

Here two decades ago in an unsuccessful bid to assist Toronto animal activist Cara Sands to have Duke, an aging dolphin at Marineland, transferred to a protected cove in Florida, O’Barry also pointed fingers at veterinarians who are hired by marine mammal zoos and become “the Gods of this industry.” He noted that the director of veterinary services at Marineland, Dr. June Mergl, is primarily “a dog and cat veterinarian.”

This August, following the first in the Toronto Star series of stories critical of conditions at Marineland, Dr. Mergl was quoted in a daily newspaper in the region, the Niagara Falls Review, saying that the park does everything possible to care for animals and address any problem they may have.

 A recent report, released by the Canadian Association of Zoos and Aquariums (CAZA), a self-regulatory body for Marineland and its other members, appeared to support remarks by Dr. Mergl and other Marineland spokespersons. It concluded, following an inspection it made in August, that “the animals in question in the Marineland collection, including the marine mammals, were in overall good health and there was no evidence of animal abuse (and) that water quality in all the pools was very good, and it appeared that staffing levels were adequate.”

Police stand line Marineland’s front gates after escorting protesters from the Niagara Falls, Ontario amusement park. Photo by Doug Draper

Marineland owner John Holer has insisted for decades that the park treats the animals in its possession well and would be foolish not to given the fact that their presence is a major drawing card for visitors.

Of course those who believe that marine mammals belong in the ocean argue that keeping them captive is inherently cruel, regardless of how clean the water may be or how much care they receive from veterinarians and trainers

To watch a video, now appearing on YouTube, on protesters marching through the ticket gates at Marineland visit http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N2rUyQNefbg&feature=em-share_video_user .

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