#swims act

Little me wrote my representative, and I even got a response assuring me that they would support the bill. It ended up passing, and yay we saved the horsies!

Then I grew up and got a job in vet medicine, and was told by an experienced equine vet how because of that bill, horses whose owners either can’t or won’t have them euthanized will be sold to slaughter operations in Canada or Mexico, necessitating them to be transported sometimes hundreds of miles by trailer instead of being granted a swift, merciful death—which they often desperately need. One they would have if humane slaughter of horses was still legal in the United States.

One of these days, I’d love to be able to look at pictures of beautiful wild whales without the caption waxing on about the evils of captivity.

If you’re a United States citizen, write your state representative and senators. Urge them to dismiss the bill or vote against it should it come to that. Explain the importance of zoos and aquariums to conservation and public education (be sure to mention your state’s AZA facilities as examples, even if they don’t house cetaceans. They’re all partners). Tell them exactly what you told me… how it’s wrong and unfair that documentaries have swayed the public’s opinion against the vital work these organizations do. Point them toward the Chicago Zoological Society’s Cetacean Welfare Study and the AZA accreditation guidelines for evidence of the superior care these animals receive.

And finally, ask them to focus on the real issues and protect our wild whales from the actual threats against them.

I always recommend the Cetacean Welfare Study (which is actually a collection of studies) as a starting place. It mainly focuses on bottlenose dolphins, since they’re obviously the most well-represented in aquaria, but includes belugas and Pacific white-sided dolphins as well. The SWIMS Act doesn’t target bottlenose or lags (in this iteration at least), so only belugas would really be affected by it.

SeaWorld is the only facility that still has orcas, and they already ended their own breeding program, and pilot whales and pseudorcas are not bred (in fact, there aren’t any pseudorcas left in North American aquariums). So the bill is just… stupid. Performative. It does absolutely nothing to address the issues actually impacting whales in the wild. But it does interfere with the efforts of accredited aquariums like Mystic, Georgia, and Shedd to provide research that will aid endangered wild beluga populations.

No wild captures of whales have occurred in American waters in over 30 years, and the only pilot and false killer whales currently housed in the country are non-releasable rescues. SeaWorld owns the only orcas (besides Tokitae) in the USA and already ended their breeding program due to activist pressure, never mind the fact that reproductive and calf-rearing behavior are important components of their welfare. And beluga whale breeding occurs under the AZA’s Species Survival Plan.