Just like the situation in regular zoos, ocean parks are the target too of animal rights group. The groups, such as the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), insist that animals are not meant to be placed in cages but in the wild which is their natural habitat.
PETA’s counterpart for sea animals is the China Cetacean Alliance (CCA), which claim the sea creatures placed in giant aquariums or parks made to mimic their habitat are stressed. A new report released by CCA, a coalition of international animal rights protection groups, just raised the alarm over the construction of so many ocean parks across China.
China has 39 ocean theme parks, and 16 more are under construction. Chimelong Ocean Kingdom, the largest in the country, attracted about 80,000 daily visitors in 2015, reported The Washington Post. It said that most of the sea animals – 279 bottlenose dolphins, 114 belugas and nine orcas – were caught in the waters of Solomon Islands, Japan and Russia, using methods that stress the marine animals.
CCA said the signs of distress include frequent back and forth pacing of polar bears in their cages while its heads are lolling. But reports of negative impact of keeping these intelligent animals into captivity has cause attendance to go down in recent days.
The CCA report blamed the captivity of these animals for disrupting the normal social groups of the marine creatures and contributing to its species’ population decline. Belugas, known to be intensely social animals, swim up to 100 miles a day and could dive up to 1,000 feet in arctic and subarctic waters. But it could only swim back and forth in shallow waters when in captivity.
CCA chided the ocean parks for portraying the animals as performers, presenting shows purely for entertainment value and not teaching watchers about the need to engage in some action toward preserving the oceans.
One ocean park in China that is the subject of scrutiny is the Grandview Aquarium found inside a mall in Guangzhou Province. The Dodo cites a white wolf curled alone in one corner of the park, a polar-brown bear hybrid standing on its legs in front of the glass display and a grouper which seems dead laying on its side in an aquarium as proofs of the horrifying conditions in the tourist attraction, said an Animals Asia report.