Vancouver Courier,
By Sandra Thomas-Staff writer

Sea Lions not displayed for entertainment, says researcher

The scientist in charge of a UBC sea lion research project at the Vancouver Aquarium and Marine Science Centre says the three stellar sea lions on display are strictly for research, not entertainment.

Andrew Trites, who heads a team researching declining Steller sea lion populations, admitted the research permit used to collect the pups does not allow them to be used for entertainment. But because of overcrowding in the research pools at the north end of the aquarium, he said, a decision was made to display several pups at a time on a rotating basis.

"The Aquarium has given us a space to use, but it's not quite big enough. There's this large tank just on the other side of the fence from the research area and we have the opportunity to use it."

But a scientist who worked with Trites on the Steller sea lion project in the mid-1990s told the Courier in an e-mail that even in the beginning of the project, display took priority over science.

"In fact, the Aquarium moved the first batch of Stellars into public display in the middle of a series of baseline metabolic studies I was performing," said Peter Watts, who has a PhD in zoology from UBC specializing in marine mammals. "This threw all those baselines out of whack and put the research itself on hiatus for a number of weeks. In my opinion, the entire experimental sequence was compromised, but my opinion wasn't sought when the decision was made."

Watts, who said he resigned his position after just a year because he disagreed with the direction the research was taking, believes the Steller project existed only to give public legitimacy to marine mammal displays.

Watts, who now lives in Ontario and is a successful science fiction novelist, also said he didn't like the way his research was being interpreted, arguing figures were taken out of context and presented with none of the caveats he had attached.

At the time he was hired by UBC to work with Trites, he said the Steller work was funded almost entirely by the U.S. commercial fishing industry. Watts said while he had been assured the industry wouldn't put pressure on him, his suggestion that the fishing industry played a role in the Steller decline was greeted with a "let's take this slow" attitude from Trites.

He said explanations for the decline that didn't involve fishing, such as a sexually transmitted disease and killer whales preying on the population, were taken more seriously.

"There was a promise that there would be no political interference with the science, that we would follow the data wherever it led. It didn't work out that way."

But Trites called Watts' accusations "sheer nonsense," and questioned his validity as a scientist.

"Peter is a bright guy and a great science fiction writer, but as far as I know, he hasn't practised any science for years. He was never under any kind of pressure to do anything except his job."

Trites said as far as he's concerned, Watts left his position because of a conflict of personalities. "If he was so concerned, why didn't he publish [any of his research]?"

In August, six 10-week-old Steller sea lion pups were captured off the north coast of Vancouver Island. One died shortly afterwards, while the rest became part of the research project, bringing the total number of female sea lions at the Aquarium to 12.

The pups are the fourth group collected by the Aquarium in the past decade. In March 2002, despite protests from local environmentalists, the former parks board gave the Aquarium permission to expand the sea lion research pool to include new in-ground pools and larger decks. That expansion was approved in principle in 1993 as part of a long-term lease with the Aquarium. That same year, the Aquarium began working with a consortium of universities, including UBC, to study Steller sea lion diet and growth patterns in an effort to find out why their numbers are dwindling to the point that they're now considered endangered in Alaska.

Trites said the sea lion research at the Aquarium includes measuring how much food sea lions need to maintain their energy, studying the difference declining fish stocks are making to their diet and health, and coming up with new techniques to research the mammals in the wild, including examining the animals' droppings.

Trites hopes putting some of the sea lions on display will raise public awareness of the work being done to save them.

Annelise Sorg, director of the Coalition for No Whales in Captivity, said she knew it would only be a matter of time before the sea-lion pups were put on display.

"I am never surprised at the lack of concern the Aquarium has shown for the marine mammals they capture," she said. "That's what the Aquarium does-uses animals to make money."

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR editor@vancourier.com