Cetaceans: to display or not to display

I'm thinking about Josh's request that we sign a petition to ban the display of cetaceans.

I'm sure he's right that they're poorly treated.

I'm sure he's right that my desire to see them displayed is wrong, in view of the suffering they go through to get to be displayed.

Still, I do want to be able to see them.

Let me pose throw out some other ideas.

For instance, if there were not such displays, how would the general public come to know that cetaceans are especially worthy of protection?

Some years ago, there was a big to do over dolphins being killed in nets that were intended to catch tuna. I wonder if Josh is old enough to remember those events.  There was a huge nation wide campaign to boycott tuna, because of dolphin deaths. School children all over the country helped organize this campaign.

Ultimately, the campaign was successful. The tuna industry was forced to change its fishing practices. Tuna caught with the new dolphin safe procedures was marked dolphin safe on the label.

In order to capture broad public attention like that, you have to have a sound byte, something over simplified that unsophisticated people can grasp. In this case the sound byte was "They're killing Flipper. "

Again, I don't know if Josh is old enough to remember Flipper.  Flipper was a domesticated dolphin, featured in a television show. I suppose the real dolphin playing Flipper was abused, much the way contemporary ones are, maybe worse.

Yet, the slavery of this one dolphin was the motivating factor in saving the entire species from decimation in tuna nets.  I'm sure the display of dolphins in places like Sea World had an influence as well.

Of course any displayed animals are being abused, as compared with their natural state.  Still, given the prevalence of habitat destruction, there are species that can no longer survive in the wild, or whose wild populations are being replenished by breeding captives.

Again, how many less people would care about the well bring of animals if there were no zoos?  There is amazing footage of Josh, himself, starting with rapt fascination into an aquarium in his music video for "If I Walk Away."  I'm sure that whatever sea creature he was starting at would have been happier in the wild.

One justification for allowing hunting in Africa is that the income from hunting tourists motivates the local people to create game parks, without which many of the hunted animals would go extinct.  Many people feel that hunting is immoral, and, yet, without it, the game parks might not exist.

Then there's the whole discussion of whether people should be vegetarians rather than eating meat, which seems related.

I'm not saying not to sign this petition. I don't know. Still I'm not sure I'm going to sign.

I'm also still eating meat and wearing leather shoes.

Curiously, though, I’m still a Quaker and a religious pacifist.  Meanwhile, I believe that not all vegans are pacifists.

Ethics is a funny domain.