A baby dolphin born at Sea World Australia is dead, and despite his hugely celebrated birth, it seems no one, aside from staff at the Gold Coast park, has even noticed that the little calf is gone.
Dusty arrived on December 7th 2016, the first male dolphin calf born at Sea World in nine years. His birth was joyously announced and widely broadcast in the media at the time, and then at just two weeks of age, the little calf was placed on public display.
Although not officially announced by the park, Sea World also had two more expectant dolphin mothers at that time, with Gemma and Sunnie both due to give birth mid 2017.
Graphic: Peta Wilson
Dusty was barely one month old when Village Roadshow Ltd, the parent company of Sea World, moved its spectacular month-long Carnivale event from its Movie World theme park to the marine animal-based Sea World facility. Black Cove questioned this move, and raised concerns about the impact the event would have on the animals at the park. Carnivale is a high frequency and dazzling night time laser light event incorporating roving performers, live music, illuminated rides, jam packed crowds and extended working hours for the animals in Sea Worlds exhibits. So it seemed astounding that Sea World would agree to subject its animals to the additional stressors and risks of the event, and especially with two expectant dolphin mothers and a new born dolphin calf in its care.
Despite the obvious animal welfare concerns raised at the time, and in 2018, and again this year, Sea World continue to host Carnivale, and now astoundingly it seems, plan to introduce even more evening events at the park.
A ‘Carnivale’ at the expense of animals?
In a recent Gold Coast Bulletin article, Village Roadshow Chief Operating Officer Bikash Randhawa said “the success of Carnivale has firmly cemented the night event for SeaWorld now and we’re certainly looking at doing more, given the proximity of the park to Surfers Paradise.” And a Sea World performer, quoted in that same article, described Carnivale to be, ‘just one more chance to do the job she loves’. “You get to dance all night in awesome costumes…”
Image: Village Roadshow Theme Parks
But another performer who has worked Carnivale at both the Movie World and Sea World sites, looks a little deeper than simply focusing on what the event presents for the humans who benefit from it.
Asher, who is also an animal advocate says, “I love my job and being able to wear costumes and perform too, but not at the expense of captive animals who have no ability to escape from their pens. Holding Carnivale, or any night time event at Sea World, is unethical in my opinion and flies in the face of everything Sea World is supposed to stand for.”
“Ive experienced it first hand.” she says. “Carnivale is purely for the public’s entertainment and to make money for an amusement park company. No one buying a ticket seems to even consider the poor marine animals who are subjected to unnatural blinding night time laser lighting, deafening music blasted across the dolphin pools, spontaneous bangs and bursts of fire, massive night time crowds, and all this after they have already been exposed to visitors all day long. Likewise, I don’t understand how Sea World’s mantra of ‘conservation’ and ‘environmental education’ fits into this spectacle of pure public indulgence – and what about the poor rescued animals?” Asher adds.
“I’ve spoken with Sea World,” says Asher “and I questioned why they continue to host Carnivale at the marine park rather than at one of Village Roadshow’s other venues, where there are no animals. I’ve raised concerns about the dolphins in particular who are acoustic animals, and if in the wild would have the freedom to flee such a ruckus, but at Sea World the animals don’t have that freedom or choice.”
“It’s clear to me, that Sea World have done little to assess the physical or mental impact to its dolphins. They’ve made a few video’s, recorded a few random decibel measurements and effectively told everyone, ‘we know our animals and they looked ok.’ “I don’t believe that’s good enough,” says Asher.
Sea World are the experts, so who’s going to argue?
Animal Biosecurity and Welfare within the Queensland Government’s Department of Agriculture and Fisheries (DAF), is responsible for ensuring Sea World complies with Welfare Acts and Legislation, which includes ‘preventing or minimising any adverse effects on the animals’ it displays. However when animal welfare advocates raised concerns about the Carnivale event with the Department in both 2017 and 2018 it appeared that they were led by and simply relied on Sea World’s expertise rather than conducting any robust and independent assessments in these matters.
At the request of concerned members of the public, Animal Biosecurity did dispatch an officer to Sea World during the 2018 Carnivale event. The resultant response seemed anything but satisfactory as it simply stated that the officer was “shown around the park” and that “no adverse effects from the show were noted.”
After the event, Trevor Long, Sea World’s Director of Marine Science stated, “a veterinarian, that specialised in animal welfare came down for the whole night and we walked around looked at the animals, watched the show.” His statement raised further questions about the reliability of Biosecurity’s evaluation and Sea World’s answers to the general public, with respect to how the animals are “monitored” in order to determine their state of welfare. Biosecurity’s assessment of ‘wellbeing’ appears odd, given its officer simply “walked around”, accompanied by Sea World staff, and “looked at the animals.” It also seems inexplicable as to how any kind of determination could be made if, as Mr Long states, the officer was watching the show rather than the animals he was there to assess. The effectiveness of Animal Biosecurity to ensure Sea World’s compliance with welfare acts and progressive welfare science appears to be murky at best.
Animal Welfare refers to what an animal itself experiences such as joy, happiness, discomfort, anxiety, fear, frustration, helplessness and depression. So is simply monitoring observable behaviours, or having Sea World staff take some layman decibel readings at the Dockside Tavern and surrounds, able to provide a clear indication as to the state of welfare of its animals? And should DAF, the authority to whom Sea World ‘must report’, be reliant on Sea World themselves for the answers?
The Five Domains of Animal Welfare model, adopted by the Zoos and Aquarium Association of Australia
Sea World says it conducts its observations based on what they know about “their” animals; dolphins are no different to a dog staff say. However research has shown that noisy environments disturb dolphins and in turn this can affect their health. The ‘absence of visual disturbance observed by staff’ does not take into account the ability of dolphins to mask symptoms of pain and disease, it is a survival adaptation – a fact Trevor Long himself recognises to be true.
Further, Sea World claims to educate visitors about the threats to dolphins in the wild and yet often uses those threats as examples to publicly justify the need for zoos to keep animals in human care where they are “safe.” Noise is one of those threats, yet Sea World itself subjects its dolphins to the pandemonium of Carnivale. One wonders, if they truly prioritise their animals, why they would even consider such an event?
So What Happened To Dusty?
Dusty, the new baby dolphin, was hugely popular in the Australian media and was excitedly visited by thousands of Sea World patrons, yet he mysteriously disappeared not long after the Carnivale event of 2017. Sea World stopped promoting the little calf, and it seems the public and media never noticed or questioned why.
Gemma, Jinx and Dusty February 2017
Black Cove discovered that Dusty, the ‘ambassador’ calf, sadly died sometime after February 2017, presumably before his first birthday. But no public announcement of his death, nor its cause (sources say from a bacterial infection) was made by Sea World, and the public seem oblivious to the fact that he is dead. Gemma and Sunnie’s pregnancies must also have failed, as no new dolphin additions to the Sea World ‘family’ were joyously announced by the park that year.
*Update – Black Cove learned in October 2019 that a dolphin calf was indeed born at the park mid 2017 and Sunnie is believed to be his mother. Named ‘Dougy’, this calf’s birth, just like Dusty’s death, was never publicly announced and he was quietly indoctrinated into Sea Worlds Affinity presentations.
With neither Dusty’s death nor Dougy’s birth announced by Sea World, one cannot help but to suspect a deliberate concealment, a sleight of hand when keeping this information from its paying public.
Has Dougy simply been palmed off as Dusty? After all how many of us can tell dolphins apart… right?
Why didn’t we notice Dusty’s disappearance at the time?
One wonders why the public (or media for that matter) haven’t asked after Dusty or looked to celebrate his milestones? Perhaps, the fact no one has noticed that Dusty has vanished, demonstrates the true nature of the public’s attendance at these entertainment facilities. People simply go to Sea World, the ‘family’ park, for an entertaining day out. They see and pet some animals, a short lived thrill that ticks off that bucket-list item and then they simply go home. Patrons don’t seem to consider the animals that remain in the pools, those bred or rescued into the never-ending merry-go-round existence of working to provide humans a few hours of self-indulgent fun. People saw the cute new baby dolphin Dusty, and then they simply forgot all about him.
But maybe it’s not entirely the public’s fault that they didn’t question what happened to Dusty, after all Sea World is a well-oiled entertainment marketing machine; it manages the publics perception of what happens at the park very well. Perhaps they were just conveniently distracted, when four months after celebrating Dusty’s birth, a new cute fluffy bear cub arrived.
The next baby animal attraction.
Polar Bear Liya gave birth to twin cubs in April 2017. One cub died shortly after the twins arrival, but surviving cub ‘Mishka’ went on to become the parks new animal ‘ambassador’ and star of the show. The death of Mishka’s twin, followed by the continuous media promotion of the little Polar Bear’s milestones at the park, perhaps helped us to forget all about poor little Dusty the dolphin who sadly, had no milestones celebrated at all.
There is no doubt that Sea World’s staff care for the animals they manage, they have to, their business and jobs rely on it, and a death in ‘their family’ or failed pregnancies would, of course, be awful for all those involved. But at the end of the day the show must go on. Village Roadshow, its parks’ and employee’s are answerable to shareholders and the longevity and viability of its theme park business is reliant on the public having a good time. So that is what Sea World sells. The public are conditioned to expect a ‘Carnivale,’ a fun filled day out, and that’s what they get. And it seems as well, without any real accountability when it comes to the wellbeing of its assets – the animals.
“Carnivale is a different experience..it’s about revenue absolutely, but I don’t have a problem with revenue, I don’t really have a problem, I think revenue is a wonderful thing, we need revenue for everything, to keep us employed.” ~ Trevor Long, Director Marine Science, Sea World Gold Coast Australia
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