Marineland Protest Rally Should Be Followed By A Provincially-Launched, Independent Investigation Of This Niagara Falls Amusement Park

Conduct of Niagara Falls Humane Society And Ontario Society For Protection Of Cruelty To Animals Should  Be Investigated Too

 A Commentary by Doug Draper

Marineland owner John Holer was not as visible as he usually is this past Saturday, August 18.

There are children who don’t want to do Marineland. Here are a few at the August 18 rally in front of the Niagara Falls, Ontario park. Photo by Doug Draper

 While there were a few accounts of Holer sitting in his SUV, glaring at the protesters gathered along the shoulders of the road in front of his sprawling Niagara Falls, Ontario amusement park, he quickly retreated when approached by reporters. There was none of Holer’s usual driving back and forth repeatedly like a caged animal, doing his usual stare-down-the-protesters-as-if-to-intimidate-them thing.

This time out, Holer’s relative absence may have had something to do with the record number of protesters who showed up this August 18 – more than 400 in all, compared to the usual 30 or so who have spent many a summer weekend morning or afternoon over the past 20, picketing in front of Marineland in hope of slowly but surely convincing the public not to pay good money to enter a park where mammals as wondrous as whales and dolphins, who belong in the open sees, are kept prisoners in over-sized tubs of chlorinated water.

Holler’s inclination to do a little more hiding may also have had something to do with the fact that more big-time media than ever before, including the CBC and a couple of the Toronto newspapers with some clout in their ability to still get the word around, were clustered in front of the place, recording all the goings-on and just waiting for the possibility that the Marine land and his staff or the Niagara Regional Police (which have sometimes served as Marineland surrogates) might engage the protesters in a conflict.

Yet even as protesters crowded the shoulders of  Portage Road in front of Marineland, chanting lines like; ‘Hey Marineland, what do you say? How many whales died today?’ and using bullhorns to urge families heading for the amusement park’s gates to think about the conditions of the animals inside and turn around’, and even after a three-part, front-page series in the Toronto Star this August on allegations by former employees on the deplorable conditions for animals in the park, the Marineland parking lot was once again, as it so often is during the summer months, full or verging on full to capacity. 

This August 18 was (as has so always been the case) like two solitudes at play when it comes to the matter of keeping marine mammals, not to mention the bears and deer, in captivity for the amusement of the public. There were the protesters, lining the road with signs like; ‘Animals Suffer and Die Here’ and there were all of the cars driving by, egging the protesters on with honks and thumbs up. 

And yes, there were (as there always has been since the park opened 51 years ago) all of those thousands of cars rolling in to Marine land’s lot, not to mention the busloads of tourists being dropped off at the park’s gates – all, flocking through those gates and now paying more than $47 a pop for adults and more than $35 for children between five and 10 years of age.

Photo by Doug Draper

Captivated by the ubiquitous jingle  “Everyone Loves Marineland” – a jingle Canadian singer Suzie McNeil now says she no longer wants her vocals attached to it unless one of the lyrics is possibly changed to “all whales hate Marineland,” these folks want to get up close and personal with whales and dolphins, and watch seals balancing balls on their nose and so on, and they couldn’t give a fig what becomes of those animals as they go back home and immerse themselves in upcoming football and hockey seasons. When they are back home watching ‘Dancing With The Stars’ or wandering around like a zombie in the local shopping mall, one doubts they will be giving the fate of the animals that amused them so much at Marineland another thought.

So one must wonder how much will be done to address the concerns raised by Phil Demers, a former animal trainer at Marineland who was one of a number of employees who recently blew the whistle in the articles in the Toronto Star. How many people will show up with Marineland Animal Defense (a not-for-profit citizens group opposed to keeping animals in captivity at Marineland) and others, including Niagara Action for Animals (NAFA) when they gather in front of Marineland again on Sunday, August 26 from noon to 2 p.m.

How interesting it will be to see if the same number of people or more will show up at this coming rally, or will the numbers be dipping down to the usual 30 or so again? How many of the 400-plus who showed up on August 18 simply saw this as the issue, as in flavor of the week?

If this reporter sounds a little jaded, it is because I have been covering the Marineland issue for 20 years, going back to my final years as an environment reporter at the St. Catharines Standard (until the new Conrad Black owners told me to stop) and I have seen this picture before of heroic former trainers and other employees from Marineland, like Phil Demers, put their neck on the line. I have watched them tell all and get a splash in the media, only to have the media to move on to something else and Holer and Marineland beat them down to a point where they were afraid to ever speak out again;

And all through the years of protest from former employees and credible outsiders in the animal care field, the hordes of tourists – not to mention teachers in this region who are thoughtless enough to take classes of children there – just kept coming to Marineland, paying good money out of their families’ pockets to pet a beluga or have a killer whale (better known as an orca) splash them in one of the main theatres ponds. They also come to have their kids get up close and personal, and feed bears and deer that anyone that has any expertise in animal care knows are living in conditions that would not be tolerated for a cat or a dog.

Yet it goes on and on, and what is particularly maddening for someone who has been writing about this stuff for more than 20 years, is the bullshit now coming out of the mouths of Ontario Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, the Niagara Falls Humane Society and Ontario’s Community Safety Minister Madeleine Meilleur, who had the nerve to tell the Toronto Star in an August 17 front-page article that she “was in tears” when she read the first installment of the Star’s series, chronicling, among other things, the plight of a now-blind harbour seal named Larry.

A provincial cabinet minister who has some responsibility for animal welfare in Ontario was in tears after reading a report in a newspaper? Where in hell has Meilleur been for all of the years that good people from David Suzuki, U.S. marine biologist Naomi Rose and Rob Laidlaw of the Toronto-based public interest group Zoocheck, to veteran animal advocates based in Niagara, like Dan Wilson and Catherine Ens, have been blowing whistles, trying to get the attention of people in her position to show any interest at all in this issue?

Never mind Meilleur’s tears for an article or two in the newspaper? What is particularly horrifying, and should be to her, is the fact that she was never told about these conditions by the Ontario Society for the Protection of Cruelty to Animals and the Niagara Falls Humane Society – two groups that should place the welfare of the animals they should be showing some compassion for.

These two bodies have been receiving complaints from people, including Marineland employees, about the conditions for animals in this park for decades and have never taken it to court or had it successfully charged with cruelty to animals once. Any two bodies that could go through Marineland over the past 20 or 30 years and see the condition the deer and bears are in, then come out and say that’s okay should have their badges to inspect anyone dealing with animals taken away.

Click on this image to bring it to full screen for information.

There is no excuse for a cabinet minister in the provincial government finding out about what may be going wrong with animals at a facility as large as Marineland in the newspapers before she is told by provincially licensed human society inspectors. The inspectors at the Niagara Falls Humane Society, starting with the director Jay DesRoches, ought to be investigated themselves for not already addressing what has been alleged by the latest group of Marineland employees that has gone public. Never mind all of the information that has come forward in the past. 

Meilluer, if she is truly sincere in her concern, should bring in an independent group, including marine mammal and other animal experts from the United States, to carry out a thorough investigation of Marineland. She should not trust the Niagara Falls Humane Society, with a plaque on its walls, thanking Marineland owner John Holer for contributing to the building it is in. Nor should she trust the Ontario Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals whose chief licensing inspector, Connie Mallory, was quoted saying in the Toronto Star this past August 17, after that newspaper revealed the most recent allegations of poor animal conditions at Marineland, had the nerve to tell the Star that her organization has “got to do what’s best for animals’ welfare” when it has never demonstrated much interest in the welfare of animals at Marineland before.

Meilluer should make the actions or lack of actions by the Niagara Falls Humane Society and the Ontario Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals visa vi the treatment of animals at Marineland part of an independent investigation, going back at least 20 or 30 years when these bodies had every opportunity to know about allegations of mistreatment and abuse from former employees and others who attempted to report them then. 

Allowing these two bodies and the Canadian Association of Zoos and Aquariums (CAZA), a zoo-sponsored, self-regulatory body of which Marineland is member, would be a joke. The animals Marineland hold in captivity deserve better than that. 

By the way, if anyone is wondering why this commentary hasn’t asked for an investigation by Canada’s federal government, that would be an avenue to pursue except that this Harper government and the Liberal governments before it NEVER EVER showed an interest in doing what the United States has done, and setting regulations (Canada doesn’t have any, believe it or not) for marine mammal zoos or aquariums.

(Niagara At Large invites you to share your views on this post in the space below, remembering that we only post comments by individuals who also share their first and last names.)