As I mentioned in my last blog, after a 37 year hiatus, not ever wanting to return because I had been so disturbed by the terrible care animals were receiving during my first visit, I finally made my second visit to Marineland, and the horror of the place remains for me. I had been lured by advertisements for “Aviary Safari,” a new attraction featuring 100 acres of “free-roaming” birds. I’m a bird expert; I should take a look. But it was false advertising. The attraction does not exist.
Rob Laidlaw and I were there on July 5, the last day of a brutal, record-breaking heat wave filled with government-issued heat warnings, so not surprisingly our first stop was in the cool confines of an indoor exhibit featuring harbor seals. The seals, as reported previously, all had their eyes tightly shut due to the chlorine in their tank.
Then, we went in search of the aviary that did not exist. After being told by an employee that there was no such display (for which, given how animals are cared for in Marineland, I’m grateful), we wandered off in search of other animal displays in what is, to my eyes, just a grubby theme park that happens to be located in Niagara Falls, Ontario, near Horseshoe Falls, a world-famous tourist attraction.
What we were horrified to find huge pens with no trees and very little, if any, shade, housing various hoofed ungulates, such as bison, red deer, and the closely related American wapiti. There were some improvements over the last 37 years. There were fewer bears and they were in a larger, cleaner compound, and I was pleased that the petting compound, filled with fallow deer, was not open, presumably because of the intense heat. The animals were forced to huddle in a few square feet of shade cast by the fencing.
But, what I saw in the other compounds left me sick with sorrow for the animals. Above are two photos taken of the bison compound. It was just an open, sun-blasted expanse, with but a single source of water, about the size of a pail. I’ve included a photo of a bison calf, about the size of a cow calf, so you can see the size of this water source. No place for the herd to drink; no place for them to wallow in the mud; no shade for them to cool off.
Please don’t tell me to complain. Animal protectionists have been complaining, for decades, and The Ontario SPCA once laid charges, but somehow missed what to my eyes – and those of various experts who have written reports on what they found – are the most concerning situations. And, for our troubles we are labeled, of course, as extremists. Here are the photos. Judge for yourself.
Keep Wildlife in the Wild,
Barry