Plastics contribute a staggering 8 million tons of rubbish dumped into our oceans every year, and it is estimated by 2050 there may be more plastic in the Ocean than fish. In Queensland Australia it was reported that in 2018 more than 1.75 tonnes of rubbish was pulled from Gold Coast Seaway alone.
The Gold Coast is home to Australia’s Sea World, and its director of marine sciences, Trevor Long, says he finds pollution infuriating. “The average person just doesn’t appreciate the amount of rubbish down there. People don’t have the same empathy with marine wildlife as other fauna,” he says. However, Mr Long also boasts that Sea World has been educating and instilling that very empathy for marine wildlife, in the millions of people who have visited his sea-themed park for over 40 years. He claims Sea World’s display of captive animal ‘ambassadors’ and educational presentations inspire the public to protect species and their marine environments. Yet here we are after 4 decades of inspirational education, pulling 2 tonnes of trash out of the waterway from Sea Worlds very own backyard.
Sea World, Not Leading By Example.
Mr Long and other Sea World staffer’s are increasingly in the media “blasting those who litter” and commenting on the impact plastics and other rubbish have on our marine environment. Sea World’s own social media gloats about its stellar work, it conducts beach cleans and provides grants to others working to conserve the marine environment. Yet at Sea World’s marine themed “edutainment” park, food items and toys can still be found packaged in plastic and sold to the masses of people who pass through the gates. Guests attending special events, such as corporate functions and the ethically questionable “Carnivale,” continue to be supplied with single use plastic item’s such as bottled water and even swizzle sticks.
Plastics at Sea World Gold Coast, ImageCollage: Sea World Social Media & Supplied
Rather than leading on plastic reduction, which it is perfectly placed to do, Sea World is slowly bowing to pressure from other organisations and businesses. It has switched out some of its regular food containers, plastic cutlery and straws and did announce that it would phase out the use of plastic bags in 2018. Disappointingly, however, when it opened its new Sea Jelly exhibition in September 2018, Sea World introduced brand new plastic packaged show-bags as well as plastic wrapped plush toys to sell in its gift shops.
Plastic packaging aside, it’s also not difficult, if one looks beyond the regularly swept pathways and tropical lagoon facade, to see a fair amount of rubbish lying around the Sea World grounds. Some of this trash can even be seen blowing from Sea World’s back of house areas directly into the adjacent Broadwater.
Perhaps it might pay the ‘educated’ Mr Long and Sea World staff, to look in their own back yard before chastising the ‘uneducated’ public who their theme park business relies on to survive.
Discarded rubbish in the grounds of Sea World adjacent to Gold Coast waterways. Image:Supplied
Trevor Long says, “plastics in the marine environment is an enormous issue, …we’re trying to minimise plastics and we’re trying to do more education in the community.”
Bikash Randhawa, the parks chief operating officer was also recently quoted in the media stating, “Our marine environment is greatly impacted by human involvement, and with zoos and aquariums in Australasia attracting over 18 million people each year, this is the perfect opportunity to promote conservation and education. What we refer to as “Edutainment” is a platform which allows us to communicate these educational and conservation messages to large groups of people while also highlighting the threats facing animals in the wild.” But is Sea World, either by its example or through its shows, communicating information that truly educates or inspires any real behaviour change?
Sea World Education Presentations
Sea World’s ‘Affinity’ dolphin show, despite its archaic use of captive trained animals to entertain paying customers, does indeed provide an opportunity to educate and inspire a large number of people. However when analysing the show, which has changed little in the past two decades, the scripted educational content delivered to the public appears to be a massive fail.
Image: Parkz.com.au
During the 20 minute presentation, amidst the flashy dolphin tricks and cleverly choreographed emotive music, presenters spend a whopping 30 seconds on what could loosely be termed ‘education.’
The show briefly mentions the Australian Humpback and Snubfin dolphin’s stating “Sadly they both face extinction, due to illegal feeding and pollution like discarded fishing gear. But there is still hope if we all work together.” ** However the presenters don’t elaborate on what actions we should take.
In a pre-recorded voice over during the show, Mr Long himself can be heard telling the public, what a great job Sea World do, “working to understand, protect and conserve Australian marine life.” His Sea World-serving dialogue ends with the statement, “If we act to benefit the environment we can continue, as a community, to make a better future for all marine life and generations to come.” But what the recording fails to tell the ‘captive’ audience is – how do they act, what must they do?
Later in the presentation the public are inspired; told they should, “Help reduce harmful, human impact on dolphins by properly disposing of fishing gear and rubbish, and never feeding animals in the wild,” – whilst staff throw dead fish at the dolphins they say you shouldn’t feed…in the wild.
It seems when communicating the important message about ocean pollution to the 5000 people that sit in its Dolphin Beach stadium every day, Sea World, a ‘global community leader in education’, owned by the billion dollar company Village Roadshow Ltd, is literally only telling the public to put their rubbish in the bin, and when it comes to the animals, it’s a case of do as we say not as we do.
An Evolving, More Educational Sea World?
Sea World also presents “Our World of the Dolphin,” a new ‘evolved’ show; therefore one you would expect should provide more relevant, up-to-date environmental messaging, and it does – well, sort of.
When talking about one of their rescued animals the presenters (dolphin trainers) tell the audience “the majority of rescues that we attend are due to human induced issues to their natural environment. For example Howie here was found entangled in fishing line that had cut deep into his fins..”
Image Supplied
The presentation script later asks the audience “what can we all do to help protect the ocean environment?” The answer, given by Sea World’s animal trainers, is that, “Climate change and marine debris are the most critical areas for improvement,” suggesting “making changes in our own home like thinking about where your power comes from and how much you need to use” and “Turning your appliances off at the wall can save up to 10% off household electricity bills too.”
Trainers then pick a child at random and ask “Can someone tell me something that could be a threat to dolphins in the wild?” This question to children is great, and could potentially lead to behaviour changing discussions about plastics and marine litter, but instead the child’s response is prompted by the trainers when they add, “Think about how some of our rescue dolphins were injured.” Self-servingly the expected answer is also scripted; manipulated so that the answering child will likely respond with ‘fishing line,’ after all they have just been told about Howie, his fishing line entanglement, and are sitting in front of a great big billboard of Howie’s, fishing line entanglement story.
The presentation finally gives the audience a useful piece of information, “A large amount rubbish found in the ocean comes from the land. Not 20, not 50 but 80%. That means if we can reduce our rubbish we are helping dolphins, turtles and other animals in the ocean.” – perfect! But disappointingly rather than elaborating on how that rubbish finds its way into the ocean or educating the public about ways to reduce their plastic and single use, throw-away mentality, the message communicated to the captive audience is once again, “So where do we put our rubbish? – In the bin.”
Seal Guardians To The Rescue?
Early in 2018, Sea World launched its revamped ‘Seal Guardians’ show which Village Roadshow’s CEO Clark Kirby described as, “educating people about the impact plastic pollution is having on our oceans and what we can do to prevent further damage,”
Image: Village Roadshow Theme Parks
Despite Mr Kirby’s announcement and the new seal show having a ‘marine debris’ theme, once again this show also fails dismally in its educational messaging. It’s a comedy show, at the expense of rescued seals, that doesn’t educate the public about just how devastating plastics and discarded fishing gear are to marine life. Although demonstrating debris stuck around a playful seals neck, the only communicated take-home message to an audience of thousands is once again, put your rubbish in the bin – although this time, to their credit, trainers do talk about, the ‘right’ bin.
Keep It Simple For The People.
For over 40 years Sea World claims to have educated and inspired the protection of marine species and marine habitat conservation, yet our oceans are increasingly in a polluted mess. Sea World themselves now even use this ocean degradation as justification for keeping and breeding its animals; the wild is a terrible place and not safe for animals anymore, they tell us.
Sea World says it’s tricky to educate the public given the range of expectations from a huge diversity of people of varied ages groups and from many different cultural backgrounds, and that may be true. But it’s difficult to understand Sea World’s defeatist mentality and why the information they communicate is so limited and simplistic. You would expect a company the size of Village Roadshow Theme Parks, with all of its resources, would be at the forefront of ocean protection education; in our faces and with the loudest voice. However instead, Sea World defends its own poor messaging by blaming its audiences inability to change their own behaviour, even if they were told what to do.
It begs the question, has Sea World ever conducted any expert cognitive research to establish if it is effectively communicating any real message that translates into genuine public behaviour change, or that inspires any real desire in their patrons to take action after their visit? Is it fair that Sea World expect their audience to change their behaviour when it doesn’t lead them by example and only provides 30 seconds of vaguely educational content in its presentations?
Mr Long’s attitude somewhat explains why he thinks its difficult to educate the public when he disrespectfully describes his audience as “people who haven’t grown up watching Attenborough”, people who are “switched off” and “grew up on Xbox. “People at Logan don’t watch David Attenborough right – they’re watching video games,” he says.
So do Sea World simply choose to present ‘dumbed down’ information because they think they have an uneducated audience, unable to absorb any real information? Or is it that the entertainment facility is well aware that its audience is not visiting the park to be educated about the marine environment nor to learn how their choices impact on it? After all Sea World sells fun and adventure, not education right?
Sea World’s patrons have been peddled for decades, to expect a day of fun filled entertainment, to have some animal adventures, go on a few rides, eat some food and leave with a plastic packaged show-bag, and Sea World gives the people what they want; so thats what people expect – its purposeless. Sea World appears to see no value in truly changing public behaviour or peoples expectations. Perhaps maintaining the publics ignorance, the status quo, not raising the awareness bar is what Sea World’s business longevity relies on? If the public get too educated they might actually see through the facade, they may wake up and see the education, conservation and marine protection rhetoric they are being sold is a farce.
Sea World’s level of education, like its plastic removal efforts, regardless of how willing its ‘average’ audience may be to learn, is actually very uninspiring and ethically questionable. Whilst Sea World remain an entertainment facility who pander to the ‘average-Xbox-playing’ persons expectations, perhaps no genuine message will ever get through.
Sea World should genuinely work to inspire true appreciation and respect for animals, send a clear message that species don’t belong in zoos and aquariums and that these facilities should be a last resort option for rescued-animal sanctuary; not exploited for our entertainment. Sea world must educate children that animals belong in nature; teach them to protect habitats so all animals can remain where they belong, in the wild, safe and free. If they don’t truly educate, then it’s the marine environment (and the captive ‘ambassador’ animals at Sea World) that will continue to suffer, and then, in the end, we all lose.
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**Threats to the Australian humpback and Snubfin dolphins include habitat loss and degradation from development, poor water quality, noise pollution, boating activities, unregulated feeding, incidental capture in fisheries and incidental capture by the Shark Control Program. Entanglement and ingestion of recreational fishing gear (hooks and line) or marine debris may also pose a threat. Humpback dolphins are exposed to pollution that is amplified up the food chain, and may cause them to be more susceptible to disease. https://environment.des.qld.gov.au/wildlife/animalsaz/indopacific_humpback_dolphin.html https://environment.des.qld.gov.au/wildlife/animals-az/australian_snubfin_dolphin.html
Learn about Marine Debris and what you can do with these great ‘waste free’ fact sheets from Tangaroa Blue: https://www.tangaroablue.org/resources/fact-sheets/category/31-waste-free-fact-sheets.html and for more ways to get involved: https://www.tangaroablue.org/about-us/get-involved.html
References:
“More than 1.75 tonnes of rubbish pulled from Gold Coast Seaway this year,”- The Gold Coast Bulletin
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