Comments by "Jonathan Stephens" (@JonathanStephens84) on "KPBS Public Media" channel.

  1. Blackfish - another example of hateful propaganda in the modern world, exploiting viewers with a combination of falsehoods, half-truths (or gross simplifications) and emotional trickery. Everybody whose seen Blackfish or heard of SeaWorld in a bad light, needs to do their research, and look at all the angles! PETA who sponsor the Anti-SeaWorld campaign can be considered in the same light as terrorists (world powers or religious groups), because they are extreme and polarised in their views. They present a simple view of life, but life can never be simple! Support SeaWorld because they deserve it!
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  2. Sam Richie lol, are you serious!? Did you actually think about the relevance of the dates of the research papers? That was old practices, common around the world, which have now been eliminated, at least by Sea World.
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  3. Yes I do. They publish research papers just like any reputable university would do. There are research areas such as physiology where research of captive whales can be applied to those in the wild. I would recommend reading the research papers they produce. For the record, I don't have any connection to Sea World; I have a heart, a passion for animals and conservation, and am a parent who cares about teaching children the rights and wrongs of life. However, the more I read and research every tenet of the anti-SeaWorld lobby, which I have started doing recently, the more I disagree with it, due to lack of evidence. But the reason I posted my original comments was and still is that I detest the use of propaganda methods (or unprofessional shoddy, heavily biased journalism at best) such as those used in BlackFish. Moreover I find it really sad that we live in an age where people believe what they are told without question. I'm far more motivated in destroying the credibility of that stupid movie which seems to have influenced so many people, rather than defending Sea World. I really think the anti-SeaWorld campaign is a distraction. There are more worthwhile persistent cases of human-induced cruelty to be found in the wild.
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  4. The argument that they have killed more than they have saved is a misleading one, as it's easier to make with respect to history rather than the current day (with better ethical standards and welfare knowledge). I think we should judge Sea World on the world of today not yesterday.
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  5. A quick Google indicates they do not capture belugas. It is illegal to do so btw. They have actually tried to import Belugas captured in other countries, which is a very different matter.
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  6. M Brk sorry, your response is just unbelievable. There are more than two options. What about those who believe they are anything between happy (ecstatic if you are using torture at the other end) or sad (what you refer to as torture). The third path/choice leads to desire to improve the conditions in captivity, not do nothing or eliminate whale captivity. Your response is not logical itself.
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  7. Kaylin Williams Kaylin - you need to read my post again, as well as the post I was replying to for context. I'm merely exposing the trickery behind AntiCap people arguing through asking people such black/white questions.
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  8. M Brk​ Lol, thats how quickly the logical debate you were keen on opening up sinks down into gutter level personal attacks. I don't know if they need bigger tanks or if their existing tanks are adequate, but at least I can admit that. May I ask what qualifications and experience you have in this field? I have none, I have just listened to, and reasoned, the arguments of both sides to come to my position, which is more an anti-activist position rather than a pro sea world position. You guys shoot yourselves in the foot attacking everyone that disagrees with you, a common theme amongst the posts. Do you really think I am bothered that Kaylin misinterpreted my comments? It's easily done, and the post she misinterpreted was easy to do so without reading the context of our wider conversation. It's far funnier to see the Anti Captivity peeps lambasting their own when one of the more intelligent ones criticises Black Fish and the arm chair campaigners who take their cues from it.
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  9. *****​​​, M Brk​​​, Megan Loves Animals​​​. Thedodo reference is hardly an objective one. If you actually analyse the evidence the site always refers to (a court paper), its actually pretty weak. For example, in that court case they provided a statement they use psycho-active drugs (not a big deal if given for right reasons), yet the statement did not say they gave the drugs frequently. In reality, psychoactive drugs are common in any zoo or marine centre. Claiming they give such drugs on a regular basis is spurious, not representative of zoological realities, and an example of being brain washed. Thedodo is PETA propaganda; it's not a neutral site/blog.
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  10. AnimalLeftist For heavens' sake. It's not that anything has changed since then. Blackfish has always been from the start a work of propaganda more than a documentary. There's no way any reasonable person can call it a documentary! Maybe previous posts referred to it being 'outdated' in the context it has been widely debunked, and has no credibility amongst people with intelligence and reasoning capabilities.
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  11. Lol, pot, kettle, black! Your comments continue to reinforce how polarised and subjective your views are. "Sea World never debunked any of BF" - you haven't been looking very hard if you think that. At least bother searching the web for SeaWorld's response, or would you like me to Google it for you? I own zero stuffies. I just moved to San Diego from the UK. The difference between how informed we both are boils down to the matter that I question everything I see, whether it's BF or Sea World marketing, research the subject matter and compare claims of each according to the evidence available. BF is so weak you should be embarrassed to support it. It's managed to reach the lows of those crazy Michael Moore 'documentaries'. You continue to hurl more insults, although it's normal practice for anti-SW people, so it was expected. All these discussions do is motivate me to campaign for general education to be it's own subject in schools, in order to teach people the skills of critical analysis.
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  12. Sam Richie​ Sorry Sam, I didn't make it clear who my reply was aimed at. It definitely wasn't you, it was Animal leftist. I have much less of a problem with your comments as you demonstrate that you have thought about the issue and formed your opinion over more than just watching BF or PETA rubbish. In fact, I agree with your first paragraph. Regarding what I question: of course I question the pro SW arguments too. Of course I question the suitability of the containment space and other aspects of their provided environment. I do however balance a lot of factors when forming an opinion. My biggest (but not only) factor is that I believe the activists will have to think about the value of the arguments if the wild population become extinct. I think the experts who praise BF are praising the message and reach of engagement as opposed to the content and the way the poor quality documentary was put together, which I believe was done with lack of, or very little journalistic integrity.
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  13. I didn't actually say SW has integrity. You seem to reason everything through inference alone, which probably explains what you mean by common sense. Your insult count has yet again risen to a new high. Years don't automatically equal experience, particularly if you filter everything through one way of seeing things. You seem to want to throw people's own deaths around to support your view point, without a common sense view to risk, i.e. working with wild animals. What about Steve Irwin's death for example?
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  14. AnimalLeftist Lol, nice to see your at it again, hurling the same insults to other people. Why change the habit of a lifetime, heh?
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  15. Sam Richie Why do you refuse to accept risk is ever present when working with wild animals just as it is with anything else in life? The probability associated with a risk goes up depending on a number of factors, but you are focussing purely on one. Why don't you explore the risk factors with Tilikum a little more, who had a difficult history before being transferred to Sea World? Of course no-one has ever been seriously injured by a wild orca, because very few people swim with them in the wild (not to mention it being a legal offence in many parts of the world). The question we should be asking is with respect to the data, and if it is really valid or large enough to support your hypothesis? Tilikum, who accounts for three deaths, should be excluded from the sample size, as he was not kept in Sea World's captivity across his full life span and suffered from traumatic bullying from other captive whale which could and should have been prevented by separation from them. Also to be excluded from the sample size are whales which were separated from their mothers due to capture in the wild, which is no longer relevant to the current world situation. I am only interested in data drawn from a sample set consisting of those born in captivity in Sea World's care and remaining in Sea World's care. If you are using wider data, to support an argument against Sea World, you are not being fair to Sea World. This is objective reasoning, and anyone arguing against it is doing so to further their own agenda. Anyone care to generate the deaths and injuries per human contact hour now, and compare it to this probability of a zoo/safari keeper being killed by a lion/tiger, or a driver being killed on his/her daily commute, based on the above restrictions on data use?
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  16. M Brk​ Your comparisons of deaths attributed to snakes, scorpions, hippos and jellyfish is quite misleading. Firstly these are land animals where their populations are a lot larger (many orders of magnitude larger) and the probability of human interaction or proximity is much higher. Even comparing sharks would be misleading as small sharks are able to swim into relatively shallow water near beaches, etc. Further in the open water where you will find whales, you are likely to be in a boat. There have been recorded cases of whales damaging boats (likely to be accidental, or deliberate play). I don't disagree with your second paragraph. Your third paragraph is wrong where you say they do not contribute to research which has usefulness to wild orcas. It may be true that their research output, related to wild orcas, is low. There are some mitigating reasons for this, which I won't go into here. I read the blog, but it is a blog, which has naturally has a degree of subjectivity in it, and this one is certainly biased to the extent they are not acknowledging any positives at all. I'll edit this comment to include a link to backup the above research related sentences later today.
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  17. Did I say I thought they see us as prey? That was not my point. My point was that the risk to human life was not comparable. Maybe I misinterpreted your original comment. There's still ongoing research in the area of orca reproduction. I disagree with the metric of the number of research papers being relevant to the research argument. In such a specific field it's the quality of research papers and the direction of travel thats important.
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  18. I would like to use several expletives towards your response as I am so frustrated with how you are turning my comments out of context. You haven't grasped the point I was trying to make about was about human risk to life, not whether killer whales are predatory to humans which they are obviously not. I haven't undone myself at all, but it seems it's almost impossible to debate anything with you as you seem to like cherry picking people's words to further your own agenda of putting yourself on a platform of perceived intellectual superiority.
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  19. Also congrats on spotting the error in my comments regarding jellyfish!
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  20. Your response implies you haven't done enough research. The 'experts' used in the movie have definite biases and their opinions are not objective. I'm not really interested in critiquing or defending the business practices of Sea World; it's a corporation like any other. The point is that allegations that captivity is wrong and causes so much suffering are simplified falsehoods. Yes - I would like them to have bigger tanks, but so called animal welfare campaigners don't call for them. Instead they call for either using sea pens or releasing the killer whales. Neither option is better than bigger tanks. If people don't believe this, it's most likely they haven't put in hours of reading and objective analysis, but have allowed their thoughts to be directed by this type of propaganda.
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  21. David Keenan I understand where you're coming from, although I don't think I will ever share that idea. For me, I can't consider a species in captivity, directly against a species in the wild. For captive species, who's to say that they don't enjoy their very different life in captivity? If they've never lived in the wild, how can they miss it? They do not know any alternatives. For me comparing the experiences of captive species to wild species will always be an 'apples to oranges' type comparison. How can you be sure that the whales don't enjoy their captive lives? I know blackish tried to show they are distressed but as I've said earlier, they use a lot of misleading media tricks to do this. On a different note it's also worth remembering that a lot of people in the wider society don't watch good objective documentaries such as those on National Geo, and wouldn't learn about these animals without a trip to Sea World. I remember my own learning experience as a child, which, especially at kid's age, is a far more effective and enjoyable learning format than watching documentaries, for most kids.
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  22. Your comment seems to be born from the emotional propaganda and misconceptions from part of Blackfish. You are re-iterating the implied assertion that Sea World commits acts of cruelty with regularity over time. I don't deny that bad practices existed in the past (not just limited to Sea World), and I certainly don't approve of them, but it's not representative of today's practices which effectively source new whales from captive breeding programs, including the use of artificial insemination. These are shifts which Sea World did of their own accord, which you could see alternatively as leadership in the prevention of cruelty. If you want to argue I'm wrong, please feel free to do so, but please provide some evidence. For a start, refer to Wikipedia captive orca list.
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  23. Again sounds like your assertions are borne out of Blackfish/PETA propaganda, without substantiation from a reasonable burden of evidence. What are your sources of evidence? They feed them regardless of whether or not they perform tricks. What they get for performing is 'bonus' food over and above their dietary requirements. Do a bit of objective reading and you'll see the evidence for yourself. If you have dogs or cats how do you incentivise good behaviour? You give them treats right? But you never deprive them of food they require to fulfil their basic daily dietary needs. These are not acts of cruelty. I think I better go and chuck Fido's steak flavoured biscuits in the bin! It's a shame, his star jumps and Gangnam style dancing were coming along nicely! Disclaimer: The author believes knowledge cannot be found in movies and biased lobbying groups. Both sides defences must be heard and their arguments tested evaluating all available evidence.
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  24. Wow - What a mature response! You really come across as an objective minded person without any bias at all! No chips on your shoulder!
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  25. Of course I could be hired from Sea World, but you may also be hired by PETA? Conspiracy theories run both ways!
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  26. I definitely contend your first point. There are major differences between orcas in captivity and orcas in the wild. This is the most important point, as so many lower level arguments lose their relevance if you don't accept the parallel. I don't contend all your points. You've made a lot of points, although some of them are irrelevant to the debate around animal cruelty or ethics. For instance, what have collapsed dorsal find got to do with animal ethics. It doesn't impair them in any way. Yes these are highly intelligent animals, which is one of the reasons they can adapt to very different and incomparable lives in captivity.
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  27. You clearly didn't read what I said. I said 'I could argue' your reeearch is preceded by BF or PeTA. The reason I said that was because you said to another poster that their research is preceded by SeaWorld. Your posts seem to be focused on providing insults rather than anything else. Therefore I highly doubt your IQ is any higher than mine, and even whether you have truly 'researched' the subject. I feel sorry you feel the need to insult people.
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  28. M Brk​ 'I understood your point but didn't agree with it. I don't make comparisons between life in the wild and life in captivity, as captive born populations have never experienced the wild. This affects how I treat your other points in the paras below. Separation from life partners' is surely only appropriate when considering wild Orcas, which are no longer captured. Regarding Sea World disinformation, I'm not here to defend SeaWorld, I'm hear to question the logic and understanding of so many armchair activists who simply watch the Blackfish mockumentary and think they are experts. How can you be so sure a captive animal needs to hunt? If your argument is that they enjoy hunting, why can't they substitute it for playing with toys, for example? If captive Orcas have never lived in the wild they can't miss it. Should we free all domesticated dogs by the same logic, or argue keeping dogs is wrong. I so somewhat agree with your comment on restricted tanks, and am all for increasing the size of the tanks. My different opinions on these issues are predicated on the main issue, that we differ in our willingness to compare captive animals (never having lived in the wild) to wild animals. I'm puzzled by the endless deaths and aggression. Where did you get the numbers from, and how recent is the data?
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  29. M Brk Its interesting; you have no evidence that orcas can't find human interaction and play activities as rewarding as hunting. I'm not saying they are, I'm just saying how can you be so sure they are not?
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  30. Hmmm, great answer! The force is strong in this one!
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  31. There you go, yet another gutter level insult from the anti-SW idiot mob! For accuracy, I am going to roll back an inch from my quoted statement: I can't prove that the whales are happy or not happy, just like you can't. Therefore I should have said "these are simplified, unfounded assertions". Are you happy now?
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  32. Yeah yeah, ditto to you. Saying I have no idea just reiterates your lack of intelligence to argue points through the lens of objectivity. Feel free to continue your ill thought out barrage of comments all day long!
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  33. Lol
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  34. Of course not. Do you dispute the fact the earth is round?
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  35. Lol, if you think my comments are eloquent, I think it's because you have difficulty communicating in anything other than four letter swear words. Good luck in learning how to communicate! One other point, if your reading skills are also not up to scratch, all my previous comments are actually just highlighting biases and flaws in the comments of others. Actually there are some people with opposing views to me on this subject who I do respect, because they have demonstrated a good degree of reasoning, as opposed to people like you who just hurl insults and assertions all day long!
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  36. Not sure what you're smoking, but I'm reciving your question for the first time. I agree dolphins are highly intelligent creatures. Ergo ... ? By the way, the comments here are in reference to killer whales, not dolphins. One last thing, I'm not a sea world apologist, the only reason I comment here was due to a hatred of the propaganda and spin used in the blackfish movie. However, those who aren't armchair activists spawned from the movie do raise pertinent points about their welfare and it's always good and right to ask questions. I always listen to the points raised however I haven't heard anything yet to convince me their captivity is wrong. The same issue I see is the bias generated by the comparison of wild orcas to captive orcas. Do you think you are having a debate? Really? Debates require respect and balanced discussion, including backing up arguments with rationale and reasoning!
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  37. Kathleen Kavanagh​, you truly are the dumbass, as I really don't think you understand my position on this subject, and you obviously don't have much of an IQ to post the above comments. Please exclude yourself from the debate until you develop a brain and manners!
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  38. M Brk Wait for a reply later today. I do not have loads of time on my hands to reply to everyone every 5 minutes.
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  39. M Brk Before you ease into rude attacks too, please read the original comment which Kathleen Kavanagh posted. I feel I have every right to respond with an equal response, although normally I try not to. There are a number of posts which I need to reply to today, so please wait and I will find the comments you are talking about. Certainly, in terms of rudeness, I now think the same about you though as it didn't take too long for you to show your true colours!
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  40. I'm someone who also has the right to form an individual opinion and express it. I started off as a total neutral person in this debate, but without any effort by Sea World, many of the comments here, illogical and abusive, have actually pushed me into the pro-SW part of the spectrum. After reading around the web and observing the comments being posted here, I'm convinced much of the anti-SW campaign is based on subjective viewpoints reinforced by a huge dose of propaganda. It is the propaganda I hate, not campaigners. Websites like 'The Dodo' who lie and portray a certain angle, come up first on google whenever you search for any evidence behind points of debate. These websites along with Blackfish skew the views of people who have a tendency to develop a viewpoint quickly without questioning the evidence.
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  41. Kathleen Kavanagh​Go cut some hair, you would do us all a favour! Tim Allen​, I will respond to your comments, just give me some time. I have very little time to post comments here, and there are several people I have to reply to.
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  42. Kathleen Kavanagh I also think you are a loser.
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  43. Kathleen Kavanagh​ You see how childish calling someone a loser is? Where does it get anyone? Think about this please.
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  44. Kathleen Kavanagh​ Got all of those, thanks. Any more stupid comments?
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  45. Kathleen Kavanagh​ Ah, so you're homophobic too. My six year old son is more mature than you.
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  46. Kathleen Kavanagh​ So you were not making an inference that gay people are losers? I think that's how most people would read your comment, despite your arguments it's just an inference, and that's not what you meant. Or, you're just incredibly childish. I think its the latter.
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  47. Kathleen Kavanagh​ Me too, bye bye.
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  48. Ranting aside - They deserve what?
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  49. AnimalLeftist One could argue that your research is preceded with either "Black Fish" or "PETA"! I've done a fair bit of research on this subject and have come to a very different conclusion to you despite coming from a very neutral position. Full disclosure: I just moved to San Diego from the UK. SW is not training people to think their domesticated; people can arrive at that position without SeaWorld's help. The common problem between people like you and people like me is that we can't agree about whether these animals are suitable for captivity. Obviously your comparison to a cat or dog is at the extreme end of domestication; what about pet snakes or pet fish - they are kept in very small tanks, should we free all goldfish? Suitability of Orcas for captivity is not a 'black or white' issue. Your comment that people who have different opinions to you, have 'programmed' brains is shameful.
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  50. 'Pets' is a loose term. I can see where you're going, trying to give me two extreme choices (pet or wild animal). I choose neither. I see a highly intelligent animal capable of, and fulfilled by more than one way of life. The latter is more appropriate for captive borns. Regarding research, I'm not the one making the arguments. In courts of law it's up to the prosecution to show a weight of evidence to prove guilt beyond reasonable doubt. I never see any 'evidence' from the Anti-Caps. My comments about my own research was in response to an Anti-Cap telling another commenter to do some research, yet there was no articulation of their own research.
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