cal!

These papers are also designed to market sea sanctuaries as a solution to the welfare issues they claim exists - but they do not acknowledge the significant conflict of interest that exists as Lori Marino gains a decent salary from the Whale Sanctuary Project.

Dr. Jason Bruck wrote a great summary of this - and links to papers and videos:

These are the many papers now challenging Marino review papers (that have no data to back their claims- Lori does not collect data for herself. She misrepresents what other studies say to fit her narrative).

Her paper: https://whalesanctuaryproject.org/wp-content/uploads/Chronic-stress-captive-orcas-Marino-et-al-2020.pdf

Her paper: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34534428/

Response papers:

https://www.mdpi.com/2076-2615/10/7/1118

https://www.mdpi.com/2076-2615/13/17/2707

https://escholarship.org/uc/item/6cj9473p

Hence there are no data to back up her claims and there is quite a bit of literature pointing out that not only are marine mammals starting to outlive their wild counterparts dramatically.

https://royalsocietypublishing.org/rspb/article/290/2009/20231895/104384/Survival-improvements-of-marine-mammals-in

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/mms.12601

But that they actively anticipate participating in training sessions.

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/zoo.21400

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0168159118300352

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6688123/

And that not allowing calving has negative welfare implications for the whole group…especially older animals.

https://www.animalbehaviorandcognition.org/uploads/journals/7/06.Hill_etal_FINAL.pdf

Finally, not one but two peer reviewed papers have outlined how GFAS sanctuaries can be detrimental to the welfare of cetaceans.

https://www.mdpi.com/2076-2615/14/2/335

https://www.mdpi.com/2673-5636/6/1/4

As for the conservation implications of losing these animals- where do you think we ground truth and test new technologies to help protect wild animals?

Finally here is an in-depth systematic takedown of Marino’s last peer reviewed paper.

I remember when videos showed up of newly named Toa vocalising (usually a sign of stress) and her cooing and making nonsense noises at him. And the comments were like “she’s talking to him!!!”

Ingrid also insisted of making Toa interact with people despite him being a very sick baby orca who was slowly dying.

This was later confirmed by people who were there:

I remember when untrained volunteers were crowding this stressed sick orca calf, bragging about swimming with him and bonding with him and ignoring advice to stop habituating him.

They had young kids in with him that didn’t know better and were told by Ingrid to interact with him like this. They were also laughing about how he “snored.” (Cetaceans don’t snore - anything that sounds like snoring is respiratory distress).

(Funny how waterwork is only okay when they do it with the stressed and dying orca calf but not in SeaWorld.)

The pathetic attempt to rehabilitate this dying calf by treating him like a pet, putting him in a tub of freshwater that quickly became toxic with ammonia. Signing off feeds with belly rubs and formulas changed behind the backs of the actual experts from Wellington Zoo and the experts consulted overseas who actually have successfully rehabbed calves.

How Whale Rescue (Ingrid’s organisation) lied again and again about Toa’s health and chances to be rehabilitated and released. How they misrepresented information about habituation when rehabbing whales and how Ingrid wanted to “train” Toa, despite plans to release him. How they demonised SeaWorld and claimed they weren’t involved despite records showing that SeaWorld and Loro Parque vets had provided their formula recipes and calf rearing protocols.

None of this is true - Ingrid has never rehabilitated any whale from a marine park. All the information she was getting was from DOC and the advisory group team

I could go on but I hit my image limit.