Marineland Should Not Be A Burial Ground For Any More Animals

A Brief News Commentary by Doug Draper

You may have read stories in some of Niagara, Ontario’s mainstream media this late December that there are more than a thousand carcasses of whales and other mammals buried on the back grounds of the sprawling Marineland amusement park in Niagara Falls, and that the province’s Ministry of Environment is finally investigating in the event the remains may be contaminating surrounding groundwater.

A killer whale – orca – in one of Marineland’s ponds – pre-burial site.

Let me respond by saying this. There is nothing knew about this news that Marineland has been backfilling the remains of whales, dolphins, bears, deer and other mammals that have expired at the park toward the back area there, near the coaster ride or whatever it is. That has been going on for most of the more than four decades Marineland has been in business.

More than two decades ago, while I was still gainfully employed as an environment reporter for the then independently owned St. Catharines Standard and that newspaper  had the courage to allow a reporter like me to investigate concerns raised about the condition of animals at highly popular regional tourist attraction like Marineland, I reported at that time that the park was burying its animals at the back of the property. In one account, a former Marineland trainer at the time described to me in detail  his witnessing of the remains of Kandu, a popular killer whale (better known as an orca) from Marineland’s ‘King Waldforf’ show pool being chain-sawed in pieces that were then transported out to the back acres where animal remains were dumped.

Now I don’t know whether it is simply because The Toronto Star recently mentioned the fact that Marineland has buried numerous hundreds of animals at the back of its park over the years or what.  But all of a sudden here is the Ministry of Environment moving in to test the groundwater in and around the burial area as if any contamination problem they detect would not have been a problem a long time ago. 

Then again, I suppose we can say better late than never.

That hardly explains the lame quotes attributed to Ontario Environment Minister Jim Bradley in an online story posted this December 21 on Bullet News Niagara however.

Bradley, who is a veteran St. Catharines MPP and who has had a reputation for reading and keeping an active eye on almost everything that has been going down in this Niagara region for the last 30 or more years, apparently told Bullet News that he did not know Marineland had a practice of burying its animals at the park until he read about it in the dumbed down St. Catharines Standard this December 20.

He reportedly went on to tell Bullet News that his Ministry of Environment launched an investigation of the Marineland burial site on its own “volition. … They are similar to the police in that they are not directed by the minister or the government.”

In all due respect to the position of Ontario Minister of Environment, which Bradley held with far more gusto during the short-lived David Peterson government more than 20 years ago, he had no bones back then about directing his ministry to investigate concerns about possible leaking PCBs in the West Lincoln town of Smithville, a discharge of toxic waste to the Niagara River or St. Claire River watersheds, or whatever else it was, and that was good.

The fact that he apparently only found out this December 20 through a report in a newspaper that is hardly doing a bang-up job of covering much of anything anymore suggests that he may be getting too lazy to march ahead of the parade any more. To give the impression to the public that he does not have the powers as Minister of Environment to direct action is ridiculous.

Having said all that, it may not really matter what the groundwater tests in and around the old animal dump show anyway. What should be of more upset to everyone is that whales like Kandu and dolphins like Duke (a determined animal I met a few times who managed to survive more than 20 years at Marineland in a round tank before expiring) should have lived out their lives where they belong – with their pods and families in the open seas.

For those of us who oppose marine mammals and all of the others, including deer and bears, being held in captivity at this place, there should be no more burials at the back end of Marineland anymore. The government should see to that and never mind the belated testing of groundwater.

Niagara At Large is now posting a release circulated by Marineland Animal Defense, a Niagara-based animal advocate group, on this issue.

“There’s about as much educational benefit studying dolphins in captivity as there would be studying mankind by only observing prisoners held in solitary.” – Jacques Cousteau 

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