THE DEATH of tke baby Orcirus Orca at the Vancouver Aquarium should come as absolutely no surprise to anyone. The truly grotesque part is that it was utterly inevitable. I guess you can say it was the best thing that could happen for the whale, really. What kind of life would it enjoy anyway? Shert and deprived. The baby whale’s death is yet more proof, if any more was need- ed, that aquaria are in it for the show-biz bucks. Any pretensions to scientific or conversationist concerns are laughable. By coincidence, « couple of days after the whale’s death from malnutrition, I happened to be looking at a National Geographic vides titled The Great Whales. th a prison like the Vancouver aquarium, cut off Jrom the rest of their families, the untutored whales are virtually helpless. They literally do not know what to do except maintain a death watch as the infant slowly expires before their eyes.’’ It contained footage shot some 15 years ago when another baby Orca was born at the aquarium in Victoria. The parallels in the two cases were nothing short of astounding — and painful. 1n that earlier situation, the in- fant cetacean suffered exactly the same fate: a lingering death from malnutrition. It is as though aquaria staffs have learned nothing at all in the intervening decade and a half. And they haven’t. Obviously. Yet they continue to try to breed whales in captivity. So far as I am concerned, it is a criminal undertaking, since all it does is doom the infant to death, to say nothing of traumatizing the adults. The fact is that whales are communal animals. Much of their behavior is learned. This is the problem with us mammals with higher brain functions. Things aren’t quite as instinctive as they are with the dumber beasts, birds, fishes and insects. In nature, an Orca mother is taught by other Orca mothers how te cope with the newborn calf. This doesn’t apply to just Orcas, incidentally. Among all the great whalcs, the pattern is that at least one other adult female is detailed to coach the mother and offspring alike. Thus, the mothers of infant whales are always shadowed by a ‘‘nan- ny’’ whale who serves as a nursing instructor. In a prison like the Vancouver aquarium, cut off from the rest of their families, the untutored whales are virtually helpless. They literally do not know what to do except maintain a death watch as the infant slowly expires before their eyes. Another sure factor in the small whale’s death is the bacteria in the water at the aquarium. Compared with the fresh saltchuck where whales naturally live, any aquarium is a relatively filthy sep- tic tank where the whales are forc- ed to swim in their own excretia. Of course the water is recycled, but compared with nature, it is anything but fresh. No currents. No tides. Just the slow swirl of water in the wake of the restlessly circling whales, endlessly seeking a way out. To me the most pathetic part of the whole tragedy was the footage of the baby whale banging its head against the wall of the aquarium — trying undoubtedly to escape. Tame establishment whale ‘‘ex- perts’’ — the same hacks who are always trucked out when whales die to justify anything the aquarium does — have announced that something like 60 per cit of whales die during birth in nature. And so, therefore, this is no big deal. Don’t blame the poor aquarium staff — they’re doing their best. What tripe! Who knows what happens out there in nature? - Where does that kind of statistic come from? How many live whale births has anyone observed? I don’t believe this kind of cooked-up statistic for a moment. If the aquarium’s staff had any sincere empathy for the whales whose fate they control, they would be working diligently on rehabilitation programs, whereby captive whales would be rotated back in the wilds after a set limit of time in a sensory deprivation tank where humans get to gawk at them. No, the aquarium staff are sole- ly interested in attracting crowds so that everyone on staff, starting with the director, can be paid handsomely. In fact, anybody hired by the aquarium who shows a trace of anything more than a purely commercial interest in the whales is promptly given the boot. The whale show is terrific in liv- ing flesh, pure and simple, a form of exploitation that future genera- tions will come to look back upon with revulsion. Shut the place down. 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The committee will be assigned a representative from municipal staff to act as recording secretary and liaison with other municipal staff members. The committee will advise coun- cil on matters related to heritage preservation, and make recom- mendations to council respecting heritage resources, including dem- olition, preservation, alteration or renovation of such resources. Reynoids told the News later she was unhappy with the require- ments for membership on the committee. “It’s too narrow a definition. a North Vancouver, Anyone interested should be able with a background in heritage to present herself, not just those preservation,’’ she added. IMPAIRED DRIVING Ardagh Hunter Turner Barristers & Solicitors #300-1401 Lonsdale Ave., North Vancouver 986-4366 Free [nitial Consultation Last minute Christmas Shopping? 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