Dozens of beluga whales are sold to China: the sad fate of precious animals

2024 Author: Seth Attwood | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 15:55

Private companies catch beluga whales, as it were, for educational purposes, and instead sell them to China at a price of $ 70,000 to $ 120,000 per animal, taking the profits into their pockets. The authorities cannot be unaware of this. How do they connect one with the other?

What generally happens to marine animals - killer whales, dolphins, seals - in our country? Who makes money with them and how?

In the summer of 1983, I really wanted to go to the sea. But there was no money, and I got a job as a cook on the expedition of the biology department of Moscow State University. The expedition was based on the Maly Utrish Peninsula - between Anapa and Novorossiysk. There was the sea. Biologists have studied dolphins and fur seals.

Sometimes I was allowed to feed not only people, but also dolphins. They were kept in a cage of nets - about a hundred meters from the shore. You had to go there in a boat with a cardboard box of store-bought frozen fish - and then throw this fish to them.

The dolphins did not want to eat it. We got used to living. And they will grab the ice cream and spit it out.

The fur seals were also not in five-star conditions. They were caught on the Commander Islands and brought here, just when I arrived. Scientists implanted electrodes in their brains and put them in pools-puddles with islands in the middle.

The cats sat on the islets and screamed terribly day and night, and from the back of their heads thick wires were drawn, connected to some kind of sensors.

I even remember their names - Seryozha and Katya. Quite still cubs, torn from their mothers.

On the expedition, biologists investigated the sleep of marine mammals. It was led by Lev Mukhametov. He made a big discovery: he proved that the cerebral hemispheres of dolphins sleep in turn. When the right is asleep, the left is awake, and vice versa. Now his discovery was being tested on fur seals: what if they also have hemispheric sleep?

Dolphins were no longer studied. They were kept in the cage for other purposes. As the ordinary members of the expedition explained, Mukhametov planned to open a dolphinarium on the basis of the expedition. Train dolphins, perform shows and earn money.

At the end of October my shift ended. On Utrish, the storm season began, and the dolphins from the cage were dragged into the salt pond to the left of the camp. Before there was a small bay, then the isthmus rose - and the bay was cut off from the sea. The pond was larger than the cage, but shallow and with muddy, whitish water. Of course, there was no fish there. The dolphins were still fed frozen fish.

The next year, stands were built near the pond, and the first dolphinarium in our country was opened on Utrish. I myself did not go there anymore, and saw the performance of dolphins only twenty years later. And not even here, but in California.

The American company SeaWorld owns a network of oceanariums and has been developing this business since the late 60s. Its aquariums are huge "sea zoos". But most of all visitors are attracted by the performances. I just got on it.

I was shocked by a killer whale. Dolphins and seals were lovely too. But the killer whale was fascinating.

It was really huge - ten meters in length. At the same time, she performed very difficult tricks. It seemed incredible that such Mighty Splendor could be taught all of this.

***

Olga Filatova, Doctor of Biological Sciences, senior researcher at the Department of Vertebrate Zoology at the Biological Faculty of Moscow State University, considers killer whales to be one of the most intelligent animals in nature. Their high intelligence is evidenced, for example, by the fact that they recognize themselves in the mirror.

Very few animals understand: I am in the mirror.

The killer whales understand. Moreover, they note disorder in their appearance.

The mark test was carried out with the killer whale. They put paint on her chin. She looked in the mirror, saw something unusual and began to erase the mark on the side of the pool. In the same way that people erase a speck of dirt when they see it on their face.

“Every killer whale has a family. Families are based on maternal kinship,”says Olga Filatova on the Scientific Russia portal. - Killer whales have matriarchy. All the children of the female, sons and daughters, go with their mother all their lives. And each such family has its own dialect - a set of sounds that they can call each other from afar, communicate something important. Families often gather in large aggregations and travel several kilometers to mingle with other families. At the same time, they scream all the time. A killer whale, for example, Anya from the Belov family, communicates, for example, with Masha Chernova, and at the same time she hears where all the other Belovs are, ten kilometers or five kilometers away, what they are doing, what they are thinking about.

Killer whales know each other well, all families and communities. In summer, they form huge agglomerations - sometimes up to a hundred animals. Females meet males from other families, get to know each other, look closely at each other, and they mate.

Their dialects are also interesting because their sounds, unlike most mammals, are not genetically transmitted. If, say, a kitten grows up among dogs, it will still meow, not bark. Only in humans and in several other species is vocal training. If a Russian child ends up in an English family, he will not speak Russian, but English. Killer whales do the same. Sounds are learned from the mother and other family members. Since they are similar in transmission to human languages, our cultural evolution is similar. This is the evolution of traits that have been transmitted through training."

Olga Filatova studies killer whales in their natural habitat. "In captivity on killer whales in general, very little research is carried out," she explained to MK, "because they are very expensive and they try to keep scientists away from them, you never know what."

***

A killer whale costs between five and fifteen million dollars.

Tilikum, a male killer whale, was caught off the coast of Iceland in 1983 when he was about 2 years old. He died in 2017. Almost all of his life was spent in American aquariums. At different times, he killed three people - two trainers and one visitor, who for some reason climbed into the pool to him.

At large, killer whales do not attack people. But in captivity, as the biologists explain, they "go crazy." While young, they are easy to train. With age, the psyche deteriorates, because they have to live in unnatural conditions.

Killer whales swim more than a hundred kilometers a day. No matter how deep the aquarium is, for them it is a cramped barrel.

They feel bad in captivity also because they are social animals. They need a family, communication. They are attached to their relatives no less than people. And in the aquarium they have no relatives. They are slaves. They are starved to teach them tricks.

A trainer who miraculously escaped from an angry killer whale explained in a TV show why she attacked him. Her cub was swimming in a nearby pool. During the performance, he began to scream. She needed to see him. And the trainer forced her to perform.

After another such attack, the Americans shot the film "Black Fin". The killer whale catcher tells how the capture takes place.

The flock is hunted down from the plane and driven by nets. Someone dies in them. Someone breaks free. Someone remains.

Catchers themselves do not take adult killer whales. We need children and adolescents: it is easier to transport them, to accustom them to frozen fish, to train them. But, seeing that the kids remained in captivity, the family of killer whales does not leave. They circle in despair around the ship, not knowing how to free them, what to do.

“I've seen a lot of horror in my life,” a participant in such a hunt tells in the film. "But this picture is my most difficult memory."

Killer whales reach 10 meters in length and weigh up to 8-9 tons. Males live for about 50 years, females for 80–90 years. Puberty occurs by the age of 12-14. Females give birth to 40 years. They have 5-6 births in their entire life.

The relationship of killer whales is very friendly. The healthy take care of the old, the sick, and the crippled.

***

In American aquariums, from which the fashion for the presentation of marine animals has gone, now only those killer whales that were born in captivity perform. The same rule applies to other cetaceans and pinnipeds "artists" - dolphins, belugas, grinds, and seals.

The entertainment business is winding down with them all over the world. An epiphany comes: it is impossible to keep them in slavery. They are born free and must live free. In Canada, Israel, Brazil, Hungary, Slovenia, Switzerland and other countries, it is forbidden to keep them in captivity. In the UK, aquariums are being redesigned to display fish and invertebrates.

Society is fighting to ban the keeping of marine mammals in any kind of aquariums and dolphinariums and exploit them as circus animals. This is a trend in the modern world.

This is not the case with us. When everyone is already going back, we, on the contrary, go there.

Our dolphinariums-oceanariums grow like mushrooms. There is a dolphinarium in almost every resort town. Plus there are also mobile ones. There, artists are taken to performances in cisterns or baths - technical containers lined with tarpaulins.

The Black Sea bottlenose dolphins are listed in the Red Book as an endangered species. You cannot catch them. Nevertheless, they can be seen in every dolphinarium.

Where do they come from? From the sea. They are caught, despite the ban, in the most barbaric way. All, of course, have documents that they were born in the dolphinarium - in animals caught many years ago, when the capture was allowed.

Killer whales and beluga whales are also listed in the Red Book, but they are allowed to be caught according to the quotas of the Federal Agency for Fishery for research and control, educational and cultural and educational purposes.

The annual quota in Russia in recent years is ten individuals. Rosrybolovstvo distributes them between dolphinariums and scientific centers. An institution that has received a quota orders the capture of the corresponding number of animals to a commercial LLC or individual entrepreneur.

Killer whales and belugas are caught in the Sea of Okhotsk. Animal rights activists are sure that as many animals die as they are caught, because the most barbaric methods are used, and there is no control.

The caught animals are kept for some time in specialized cages, if necessary, they can be placed in a pool on the coastline. They teach them to eat frozen fish. Then they sell it.

From 2012 to 2014, three killer whales were caught for the new Moskvarium aquarium on Prospekt Mira, owned by Arkady Rotenberg. There was a big scandal around them in 2014. Animal rights activists discovered that the animals were being kept in an inflatable hangar at VDNKh in unacceptable conditions, and turned to the police.

After that, in order to overexpose and adapt the animals of the Moskvarium, a swimming pool was built in Gerasimikha, a village not far from Khotkovo, away from animal rights activists. But they also found out about him. At the request of Sofya Belyaeva, the author of the petition banning the production and keeping of marine mammals in captivity, in August 2016 Gerasimikha was checked by the prosecutor's office. At that time, there were two sea lions, two dolphins and two grinds there, and there were no accompanying documents for the grind.

Where are these animals now, have they survived "adaptation" and who is currently swimming in Gerasimikha? Grind - like in the "Moskvarium", nothing is known about the rest. Private property is strictly guarded.

Animals caught under quotas are sold, resold, shuffled like a deck of cards. Many are bought by the Chinese: they also have aquariums in vogue.

The proceeds formally remain with the dolphinariums and research centers, which have been allocated a quota. However, sources of "MK" in law enforcement agencies are sure: most of it goes to the officials of the Federal Agency for Fishery, who allocated a quota. Officials of the Rosselkhoznadzor and Rosprirodnadzor give their consent to the sale of animals abroad, they also do not go to waste. Well, the owners of the dolphinariums have something left.

On the aquatic biological resources, which are state property, huge personal fortunes are made according to this scheme.

The cynical flayer business is booming.

There is no law that permits it. But there is no law that prohibits it either.

***

At the end of 2016, the Accounts Chamber published a report on the inspection of the Federal State Budgetary Scientific Institution "TINRO-Center" (Pacific Research Fisheries Center). The audit established that as of January 1, 2015, there were 13 beluga whales behind him. 4 were caught in 2012 according to a quota for scientific purposes and 9 - for educational and cultural and educational purposes.

In August 2015, a killer whale caught according to a scientific quota, and a beluga whale according to an educational quota were added to them.

TINRO used beluga whales caught for scientific purposes not for science, but "for paid display within the framework of income-generating activities." And ten belugas caught for educational activities were sold to China.

TINRO Center is a non-profit organization. She has no right to trade quota-caught animals and spend the profits on her operating expenses. However, "legislation on fishing and conservation of aquatic biological resources actually allows institutions carrying out educational and cultural activities, at the expense of quotas for cultural and educational purposes, to catch aquatic biological resources in order to supply them for a fee to third parties," the Accounts Chamber notes.

Therefore, it is impossible to hold TINRO-Center responsible for the sale of 10 beluga whales to China. Although it should be.

The piquancy of the situation with belugas is that since 2009 the presidential program “Belukha - White Whale” has been implemented. An entire section is devoted to her on the Kremlin's website. "The objective of the program is, first of all, to study the distribution, seasonal migrations and numbers of beluga whales in the Russian seas, as well as to clarify the current status of its various populations throughout the Russian range, to study the characteristics of the habitat, nutrition, and relationships with other species."

Belukha is patronized by President Putin. On the same website, there is a photo where Putin attaches a sensor to a beluga whale and is released into the sea. He feeds other belugas with fish and strokes on the head.

President Putin seems to be for the beluga whales, and not for those who profit from them. For pure science, not for dirty money.

But why, then, animals caught for science are often not studied, but sold abroad or forced to perform in a big top? Why is the lawlessness continuing, which both the Accounts Chamber and law enforcement agencies are well aware of?

Sergei Ivanov, the president's special envoy for environmental protection, recently demanded tougher legislation "in relation to various traveling circuses, dolphinariums and zoos, where animals are often kept in unbearable conditions, as well as against citizens who use animals to make money."

The authorities are aware of the problem. And the government has all the levers to close the holes in the legislation that allow the use of marine mammals for commercial purposes. But no, the authorities do not close them.

The State Duma has not passed the law on cruelty to animals for six years.

The law, which establishes the rules for keeping marine animals, has been prepared, but it is not even submitted to the Duma, it is stuck at the authorities.

"Livestock catching" is carried out in the absence of quantitative data on animals. No one counted killer whales in the Sea of Okhotsk, there is no money for that. And there are probably few killer whales. Olga Filatova believes that such an intensive trapping, as it is now, can undermine the population in a few years.

***

The Belukha - White Whale program is headed by Lev Mukhametov, who opened the first dolphinarium on Maly Utrish.

Now he already owns a network of dolphinariums, receives quotas from the Federal Agency for Fishery, and sells beluga whales abroad.“Our company has successfully transported beluga whales over long distances - to Argentina, Japan, Taiwan, Thailand and other closer locations,” he says in a 2013 interview.

Mukhametov in the scientific community is considered a specialist in the field of keeping marine animals. But they also perish with him. Because captive conditions are not suitable for cetaceans and pinnipeds.

Two other large marine animal specialists are currently on criminal charges. These are the director of the TINRO-center Lev Bocharov and his first deputy Yuri Blinov. In their possession, two illegally caught killer whales were discovered. They were first caught, and then the TINRO Center announced an auction for the catch. In this regard, Bocharov and Blinov are accused of abuse of office. But since they, according to the local press, “have done a lot for science,” they will most likely be forgiven.

Animal defenders are the only ones who desperately fight for cetaceans and pinnipeds. Biological scientists are philosophical about their capture. It is a pity, inhumane, but what to do, there is science and there is demand, it is useless to fight the state machine.

In such a situation, only humans can save marine animals.

People just need to stop going to shows at dolphinariums and aquariums. Because this is the same as going to concerts in a Nazi concentration camp and applauding somersaults of tortured prisoners.

Here's a story.

When I was feeding hungry dolphins on Utrish with ice, and at night I woke up from the fact that the seals Seryozha and Katya were crying, I could not even imagine what it would lead to in 30 years.

Although one could have guessed even then.

P. S. Sofya Belyaeva shared with MK the data on the number of caught animals, which she received in response to her inquiries from various departments.

“The number of caught belugas is controversial. According to incomplete data, since 2004, 479 beluga whales have been harvested.

In total, all companies killed 26 orcas, some were later released into their natural habitat. Of these, 13 killer whales are now caught in China, 3 - in Moscow, 2 (as far as I know, they have not yet been exported) - in the Srednyaya Bay of Primorsky Krai.

Little is known about the sale of pinnipeds, as well as about bottlenose dolphins. But there is a pipe. Everything is very bad."