Mass Gathering Against Captivity

Captivity is one word that can stretch across the globe and so many people can have comments about. The comments can be of a human relation to an animal relation. They are all true! Captivity is holding a being against their will, removing the freedom they were born with and allowing them to have a slow painful suffering death. Captivity comes in many flavours depending on which part of the world you are in with jails, prisons, zoos, marineland/seaworld parks, swim with dolphins, roadside zoos/circuses, traveling circuses, and aquariums of any size. All of these flavours house beings against their will.

Now you may already be thinking that jails and prisons are not captivity and are much needed. Yes, I agree and yes they are a form of captivity and they are held against their will but the difference from these to the ones holding animals is that they were convicted of a violent crime. The animals in captivity have not been convicted of a crime yet they are removed from their "Natural" habitat and confined into a space that destroys them mentally and physically.

In Miami, about 40 people came to push the message about captivity in front of a marine prison called the Seaquarium. This property houses about 154 marine animals including one very lonely orca named Lolita. There are also many other animals here against their will like different species of birds and even alligators. Now I came from Canada and people have excuses like "We don't live near an ocean" or "May never get the chance to see them in the wild". Here I am in Florida - surrounded by the ocean - and people are going into this marine park to watch dolphins, the lonely orca, and seals, etc.. I have an issue with this when the Ocean that does surround the Seaquarium has resident dolphins that you can easily locate! I have been to 4 different areas of Florida in the past 2 months and seen dolphins at every spot from both coastlines - Atlantic and the Gulf of Mexico.

We had two - Yes Two - X- Marine Animal Trainers at the protest in Miami that came out to support the message that "Captivity Kills"! The Seattle protest had about Six Cove Guardians in attendance supporting these words with a 10 year old boy named Trevor who is founder of "LLL - Let Lolita Live".

Ric O'barry of SaveJapanDolphins.org was right at the front entrance of the Seaquarium when I arrived. Ric has been going around the world saving dolphins ever since he had worked at the Miami Seaquarium over 35 years ago. I have known Ric for over a year now but only just met him a few short months ago in person in Taiji Japan. Ric was there to meet some Japanese folks to discuss the matter of the slaughtering of dolphins and the exporting of certain dolphins for marine parks around the world. I interviewed Ric in Japan and one thing he said was we don't need to save the dolphins - we need to Protect the Dolphins. The video I took of my interview with Ric will be on the next blog.

Russ Rector was the other trainer now runs MiamiSeaPrison.com. Russ worked at the Fort Lauderdale's Ocean World and now is the founder and president of  the Dolphin Freedom Foundation. Russ has done plenty for dolphins and other marine animals since he left Ocean World. One thing Russ does stress about shutting down parks like this is to get them on infractions from the inside. Russ had the Miami Seaquarium shutdown due to safety infractions which you can read here Seaquarium .

There were other cities around the world that took part in this day of April 3rd - 2011 to stress unity in the message against Captivity. A few of these locations were Melbourne - AUS, Toronto - CAN, Seattle - USA, San Diego - USA, and San Francisco - USA to state a few. This is a message that needs to be taught in our schools of all ages. The time is now! The radical changed needs to start where we do not think this is right anymore but seriously WRONG! All animals confined in any manner for any reason needs to end! I even consider farm animals as a confinement when they are horrifically used as if they are a car on an assembly line.

CAPTIVITY KILLS. PERIOD.