Marineland Strikes Back With Lawsuit Against A Former Employee And Critic

A News Commentary by Doug Draper

The Toronto Star – the newspaper that featured a number of front-page stories this past summer and fall on alleged cases of animal abuse at Marineland in Niagara Fall, Ontario – reported this December 14 that Marineland has slapped a $1.25-million lawsuit against one of its former trainers.

Marineland protester at a demonstration in front of the park last summer. File photo by Doug Draper

The Star story says that Marineland filed the suit in the Ontario Superior Court of Justice in St. Catharines , Ontario against Christine Santos, who worked at the amusement park for 12 years before she was fired this fall. In an October 18 story in The Star, Santos alleged that Kiska, Marineland’s one and only remaining “killer whale” (more kindly known by marine biologist as an orca), had been bleeding “off and on” since last July. 

The Marineland suit, according to the latest Star story, claims that cuts on the whale were minor and that Santos’ allegations were “calculated to disparate Marineland in its business. The paper reported Santos responding that the allegations in the suit filed against her are “ridiculous” and she plans to fight them “all the way.” The 51-year-old Marineland park, which features marine mammal shows and exhibits, has been a target of protests for more than two decades now by animal activists who believe that sea creatures like whales and dolphins should not be captured and confined for the rest of their lives in cement pools.

But it was not until this summer, when The Star, Canada’s largest circulation newspaper, began publishing stories outlining allegations of animal abuse at the park by other former employees that the provincial government began showing interest and called on the Ontario Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (OSPCA) to investigate the allegations, which included charges of sub-standard water quality conditions for at least some of the marine mammals at the park.

2012 file photo of Marineland demonstration by Doug Draper

In the wake of The Star stories, the number of demonstrators picketing in front of the park swelled from the typical three or four dozen to hundreds during two weekend days this past August and September, and the OSPCA went so far as to ask the government for more funding and powers to investigate allegations of animal abuse.

Ontario’s Community Safety Minister Madeleine Meilleur, who confessed she had cried some tears reading The Star stories, said this fall she favours ramping up the province’s animal protection laws, but it probably won’t happen until next spring after a round of consultation with individuals and organizations in and outside of the zoo industry. 

Well, as far as we know, the Liberal government that Meilleur works for may be brought down by the NDP and Conservatives by next spring. That could leave animal advocates looking to a new government to do something about animal welfare laws – particularly laws with respect to marine mammals – that are far weaker than those in the United States and several other developed countries around the world.

For many years prior to the stories in The Star, alleging specific cases of abuse by Santos and other former Marineland employees, animal advocate groups, including Niagara Action For Animals (NAFA) and Toronto-based Zoocheck, and others have taken a broader position (supported for years by this columnist, by the way) that the capture and imprisonment of sea mammals like this in giant tubs of chlorinated water should be banned.

The challenge animal advocates have always faced and continue to face is that large numbers of people continue to frequent venues like Marineland and Sea World, and obviously view dolphins, seals and whales balancing balls, jumping through hoops and splashing people in the bleachers as an acceptable form of entertainment for themselves and their children. And as long as these parks remain popular, money making ventures in the communities where they are located, may politicians are afraid to do anything about them.

Ric O’Barry, a former dolphin trainer from Florida who has been lobbying against keeping marine mammals in captivities for more than two decades now, has visited Niagara Falls a number of times to advocate against the captivity of the animals at Marineland. 

O’Barry, who trained dolphins for the 1960s television show Flipper and was featured in the 2009, Academy Award-winning documentary ‘The Cove’, was back in the Falls this past October for what turned out to be the largest demonstration ever in front of the Marineland park. He said the number of people who turned out for the rally and the recent high-profile coverage was encouraging but the trick will be keeping people involved and keeping the pressure on government after the media coverage has died down.

On that score, it will be interesting to see how many people go out and demonstrate in front of Marineland when it opens again in the spring of 2013.

The December 14 Toronto Star story on the lawsuit can be found by clicking on http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/article/1302402–marineland-sues-former-trainer-christine-santos-for-1-25-million-for-toronto-star-article .

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