Congratulations! Dear Vancouver Park Board Commissioners, On behalf of No Whales In Captivity, I would like to thank you for the amazing job you did at the March 8th and 9th Whale Hearings. We were most impressed by how prepared commissioners were and the tough questions you asked. COPE might have had more in-camera meetings, but you certainly were more prepared than they ever were! LOL As you know, this is the second time in the history of the Park Board that commissioners unanimously vote to restrict cetacean imports into Stanley Park. The first time this happened was 21 years ago, on September 16th, 1996. However, it took the Vancouver Aquarium's lawyers only two months to successfully lobby the commissioners to insert those four clauses into the wording, which rendered the bylaw useless. Now you are faced, no doubt, with the same pressure coming from the Aquarium. You know the drill, they will want to keep the clause allowing rescue and will want to add research to the loopholes. Please don't do that. We are really hoping that future Park Boards will also not do that... but that's a battle for another day, as contrary to popular belief, the war on whales has not been won yet. In regards to the Aquarium's latest red herring tossed out to the public, claiming that they will no longer be able to rescue cetaceans - it is so incredibly misleading of them to use the term "marine mammals" in order to add the 100+ rescued pinnipeds (seals and sea lions) to the argument. Not only does the proposed amendments to the bylaw not affect pinnipeds, but it doesn't restrict the Aquarium from rescuing cetaceans either. The rescue center is not located in a city park and therefore it is not under the Park Board's jurisdiction, nor can it be regulated by park bylaws. Obviously, the Aquarium is trying to get public sympathy by falsely claiming that they will no longer be able to continue rescuing cetaceans off our coast. That is absurd! All rescued cetaceans always go to the rescue center first. What the Aquarium will not be able to do anymore is to place those unfortunate animals in a show tank to perform for their food, right after being rehabilitated. We hope that the restrictions in Stanley Park will push the rescuers to consider supervised releases instead. However, chances are that any infant cetacean rescued by the Aquarium will end up being sold to the highest bidder abroad. That is the nature of the whale business. We also wanted to mention that the Canadian Senate recently heard from Fisheries and Oceans Canada (DFO) in regards to Bill S-203 to end whale captivity in Canada - and we were surprised to find out that in the last 10 years, DFO has only issued one (1) permit to rescue one (1) cetacean in Canada, and that was Chester, the false killer whale currently performing at the Vancouver Aquarium. We were surprised because if the only DFO rescue permit issued in the past decade was for Chester (2014), why did the Aquarium claim that it also had permits to rescue three Harbour porpoises named Levi (2013), Jack (2011) and Daisy (2008)? Here's an excerpt from the Senate hearings: SENATOR: How many licenses have been issued for cetacean rescue? DFO: 1 license in the past 10 years issued for a false killer whale captured by the Vancouver Aquarium. SENATOR: That doesn't seem like many. Any live releases? DFO: NO. http://www.cpac.ca/en/digital-archives/?search=S-203 This completely contradicts Vancouver Aquarium claims that DFO was involved in all aspects of these rescues. It also raises questions about the only release that the Aquarium has ever conducted with the porpoise named Levi, as they obviously did not obtain a DFO permit to release him either. This 10 year old Harbour porpoise was taken into the rescue center in 2013, rehabilitated for 5 months and unceremoniously dumped back into the ocean, not even where he was found stranded. Thankfully, Levi was too old to be of any use in a show tank, so back he went into the ocean, and it turns out, without a permit! Many more questions should be raised, but this reminds us of the time that the Aquarium spent (according to John Nightingale) $300,000 (see attached file) to purchase and import a "rescued" Pacific white-sided dolphin named Spinnaker from Japan in 2001. The import was conducted without first obtaining the Park Board's approval, nor CITES Canada's for that matter (see attached Georgia Straight news article). At that time, the Park Board received a letter from the Aquarium on a Wednesday, stating that they were going to bring a dolphin. The Park Board sent a letter back on Friday saying to hold off until they could figure things out, but by Sunday morning there was a new performing Japanese dolphin swimming in the show tank. The Aquarium suffered no consequences for breaking the bylaw, which brings us to our next point: the current bylaw has no penalties in place to keep the Aquarium from pulling another fast one. Please consider including in the bylaw's amendments strong penalties against the Aquarium for violating the law. At the Senate hearings, DFO was also asked about monitoring captive cetaceans. DFO answered that the province is in charge of monitoring animals on land, and that DFO has no role in ensuring cetaceans are kept humanely. However, what DFO didn't tell the Senators is that the provincial government has no jurisdiction over marine mammals in captivity either, as cetacean and pinniped species do not live on provincial land and are therefore not listed under the protection of any provincial legislation. This is the reason why my group has worked on enacting municipal and federal legislation for the past 25 years. We would also like to see wild marine mammals taken away from the DFO's jurisdiction and instead be regulated by Environment Canada, but that concerns you not. The DFO mentioned one concern that they did have with Bill S-203, and that was the possibility of imposing restrictions on the trade in cetacean parts, as in Narwhal whale ivory tusks ($400,000 industry), as well as restrictions on research samples taken from dead cetaceans shipped across the border back and forth to research labs. Of course, this Senate bill focuses on banning only the trade in "live" cetaceans, so there should be no problem there. The Senators asked the DFO whether the bill would impact any ongoing research on captive cetaceans in Canada. DFO explained that all federally-funded research on cetaceans was conducted in the wild, and no studies have been or are currently conducted in the two facilities keeping performing cetaceans in Canada. In regards to our concerns with amending this bylaw, we don't have to tell you that they include the possibility that the Aquarium will try to get supporters elected as commissioners in 2018 - and if successful, the next board will either amend the bylaw again to suit the Aquarium's plans, or simply discard it altogether. We are disappointed that a decision to hold a whale referendum was not made at the March 9th meeting and we would like to explain why. However, we want to make it clear that we are not urging you at this time to take any action, per se. We would just like you to keep a cetacean plebiscite in mind, as you have until September 2018 to make such a decision, especially if things go wrong with the bylaw's wording, or if you are threatened with another Aquarium lawsuit. The main reason why my group continues to believe that a whale referendum would help, and have promoted the idea of holding one for 8 elections in a row now, is because once a majority of Vancouverites get a chance to vote to ban whale captivity, it would make it so much more difficult for any Aquarium apologists elected to the new board to amend or discard the bylaw. It would also make it difficult for the Aquarium to sue the Park Board for just following Vancouverites wishes. Even if this Park Board manages to plug the loopholes and amend the bylaw to totally ban captive cetaceans from city parks, it is only strong public support that will keep the Aquarium and future Park Boards in check. The Aquarium understands this very well, and that is why they have always done everything in their power to block the city from holding a whale referendum. After all, according to former Aquarium director Murray Newman's book "Life in a fishbowl" - the Aquarium actually lost the one and only whale referendum ever held (1960's) asking Vancouverites if the city should spend $100,000 in building whale tanks. According to Newman, the Aquarium lost the vote, but a crooked city clerk decided to count the spoiled ballots in favour of the Aquarium, and that's how it passed. Do you still wonder if 5 decades later Vancouverites would support banning whale captivity in Stanley Park? We hope not. Public support was evident back then and it is overwhelming today, no matter how much money the Aquarium spends trying to make everyone believe otherwise. We wish you good luck in your work trying to make the bylaw's amendments Aquarium-proof, and we really hope it sticks this time! Thanks again for all your efforts and congratulations on a whale of a job! Best wishes, Annelise Sorg President No Whales In Captivity info@nowhalesincaptivity.org 604-736-9514 https://www.facebook.com/NoWhalesinCaptivityBC PHOTO: Chester spends most of his time stuck to one spot under a fender.