Two dolphins about to be released from captivity...some years ago (<2010, before Misha and Tom (captive dolphins from Turkey) ‘rehabilitation’) we probably jumped from joy about this fact with whole animal activist crowd. But deeper look at reality behind those events uncovered much darker picture. Animal activists /organizations turned out to be just as  vulnerable  to common/most widespread mindset we initially (and mistakenly!) attributed only to captivity industry or animal exploitation complex. Stubborn insistance on using very same methods and ways of behavior as in captivity finally acted as SECOND wake-up call for us (first one was about realization of captivity/widespread mistreatment of live beings as real serious problem) - hopefully it is not too late already!

“As Part II of this paper points out, any voice raised in objection to the

prevailing reductions necessarily will be “unrealistic” to the extent that the

prevailing reductions are self-validating. So let us embrace unrealism. We

do speak for realities and possibilities that are systematically being driven

into the ground, or destroyed outright. We are deliberately stepping out

of the cycle of dis- and devaluation. Looked at from the perspective of

the account offered here, breaking out of that cycle is part of the very

point of ethics. “Unrealism”—in this sense—is not somehow an objec-

tion to ethics, but rather part of ethics’ very calling.”

Anthony Weston, The Incompleat Eco-Philosopher Essays from the Edges of Environmental Ethics, p. 59

Humans tend to justify captivity and violence by saying there is no other way to help. However we think such procedures eminently criticizable from an “anti-cap” perspective

1 - The psychological arguments used to defend these measures are unsupported - we all live beings who respond with some cautious gravitation towards beings who managed to behave ..um, respectfully, _from view/feel/perspective of this very other being_. Seemingly-big and sizeable beings often in fact much more fragile than humans (speak about dolphins who lost their voice due to capture shock for months ...as just one example! )- so saying their feelings don’t matter very wrong, no debate about it. Yes, everyone (humans included, ourselves included) can do wrong turn, make some mistake - but this is not reason to annihilate very core of being respectful/responsible to feelings of others. In fact, in our eversurround society very talk about rationality tend to automatically dismiss this feeling part. So, everything _rationalized_ up. But get this rationalized violence as target/victim - and you quickly will learn how  even best of our rationalizations doesn’t help to heal real, objective effects of such mistreatment. So, truely rational behavior in those very uneasy changing-world type of situations must be about very soft kind of support, NOT repetition of very  sick tricks from worst ideology we ought to deseat! I (A.R.) very much dislike to  become AGAIN  cause of someone’s death (even indirectly, even with claiming more blame than humans usually can hold..) - yet isn’t this something to display as honest feeling towards very those beings I hope to liberate not just from very narrowly-defined captivity, but from whole system of domination? I care about them - so, I must learn how to project this true feeling of me to them, by doing somewhat non-standard (compared to behavior of other humans)  but supportive things all the time, for example …. Sure, we  both can be at lost in first moments - but then even I will much eager to try and swim a little farer than usual - and myself is very low-end swimmer! So, why completely artificially and dangerously limit cetacea to just few decimeters of space, if even I (human! And very unmuscular at this) not only can, but wish to swim much farer? Only good sea pen is one with hole in it (and hole big/comfortable  enough for making swimming thru it NOT another form of very acute psychological torture! And yes, I remember about possibility for _some_ ceti to overcome it literally, over the top - but let’s not pretend we don’t know their strong preference not to do it this way) - but then why we ever want to waste ourselves on building something we know will not help real cetacea beings, but pin them by force to extremely small and even wrong region of sea shore? Yes, our ‘helpful’ sense of superiority will  drag us into assumption trap our science of course so much superior..in reality it often so generalized to the point of being useless in any real situation - we know latin names for fishes yet can’t tell without some real looking  where exactly those live in specific region, or how/when it best to hunt  them (from cetacea’s point!)  ...it all learnable, but we tend to assume instead of real learning… Why hanging their life on the  very same rope (food supply completely determinated by humans) we all hopefully learned was very bad thing to do to any live being, humans included? Why create so many problems by _denying_ them to even try few things either by themselves, and/or in company of other beings (us included, but not enforced)? Why hide whole real world from them for some more time and call _this_ rehabilitation?! And afterwards - it all just assumed if dolphin (whale..) just left place and basically never contact anyone - it all good?! Yet at the same time humans demand PROOF for their survival, so they bolt (literally!) those satellite transmitters on their fins or just make some kind of tattoo (freeze branding) on ‘animals’....very irrational, if we consider idea exactly social connections make us aware about whereabouts of others …. Yes, it often assumed (w/o further thinking..so much for  ‘rational animal’ narcissic selfdescription!) contact with ANY human will expose non-humans to some more danger. Problem is ..bad (normal ..grr!!!) humans will not sit shy in some corner - quite the contrary, they will do all sort of bad things without any considerations  for life of others, so being ‘wild animal’ will not save you at all! Also, it sort of implies ‘animals’  can’t actually tell one being from another - while  exactly social nature of our life must tell us this is nonsense ..we (dolphins | elephants | dogs | horses | etc ..) have memory and such exactly for remembering who is who, and context where we live ….. Hey, dolphins even known for their use of names! Why we so much insist they can’t tell one human from another, especially if we about to accept them as beings who actively use language, names included?! We (humans) at very minimum can use _our_ names (probably transformed in some  way for easyness of  hearing them by another side and easy-to-use from their side, too!)  as  natural (!!) for both of us labels, so with time it will become clear who does what...mostly. I honestly hope we (one human is very much not enough!) still can actually act as gift-givers, and our gifts  will be real - no strings attached. Yes, we can be very unskilled when it comes to living at sea/helping cetacea - but with them ‘give as much as you can’ much more likely to result in some positive interactions than with many/most modern humans (something to fix if we want to live in  (still mostly human!) society). Yes, I somewhat deviated from usual form ..I really tired of all those argumentary wars - so my choice of different  shape for my part of text…. If you want some high-quality thinking (not for simple consumption, but for igniting/feeding your own!) - read book(s) from same author as quoted at very beginning of this short text  (Anthony Weston). Let’s not (mis?!)lead cetacea into thinking _our_ brain is simply for filling some vacant volume inside our skulls!

Sure, it seems unreal to have real social/friendly connection to non-human ‘at instant’ - but if we look at reality we realize captives need (in many, but not all cases) some way to get out of their pools/tanks/etc - transport, and we know it really not easy on them! So, we naturally will have some time to introduce themselves to them, and try to convince them about our real non-hurting intentions AND understanding of their uneasyness  about all this transport! For helping libre dolphins/cetacea ..let’s NOT wait until they strand, become entangled or sick! Become their real friends in relatively calm times - so in times of additional trouble they will already have someone to lean at, and we will already have some experience in being helpful and sensitive.

2 - A political perspective is needed. Political in sense  it must look critically at bigger world around, and consequences of our (mis)actions. We mostly draw from modern anarchist analysis of human society/politics, as much more accurate than usual blindness of political leaders about effects of our hierarchical behavior overkill. See for example chapter named “B.1.1 What are the effects of authoritarian social relationships?” In VERY big and fundamental work (I was stunned to see it in full!) https://libcom.org/files/Iain McKay - Anarchist FAQ.pdf (note the spaces in URL) and other bits from there or elsewhere about ecology as it must be understood, not as  it currently degraded!

3 - We need to deal with them (real non-humans - be they cetaceans or not..for example we found it unacceptable to dump/trash horses or dogs simply because  they had less promotion  as in need for real respect)  like with anybody else, with trust, honesty and a will to listen. I (A.R.) for instance very much want to care (as in - to give my time, dedication, effort ..)  about various cetacea and non-cetacea beings WITHOUT being forced  to stay blind to obvious or not-so-obvious cruelty, domination, and general suckness!

http://www.onegreenplanet.org/news/captive-south-korean-dolphins-heading-back-to-the-wild/comment-page-1/ --  upcoming event. (we already at 15 July).


P.S. - sorry if it looks like rant, but I think blogs exactly should allow us to express real-world, inprefect view, especially when some even coming up in just day or two.