Phil Demers, a former Marineland trainer, quit in 2012 after discovering his walrus "daughter" Smushy was starving due to stress and forced drugging, sparking a $1.5M lawsuit against him and activists—now dragging six years. He fought to pass Canada’s Bill S203, banning whale/dolphin captivity, despite Senator Don Plett’s obstruction tied to Marineland’s leadership. With the park liquidating animals (two belugas exported to Spain, more permits pending), Demers warns of welfare risks and geopolitical exploitation, like Russia selling whales to China. His refusal to settle exposes systemic abuse, framing captivity as modern-day slavery, while the Whale Sanctuary Project in Nova Scotia offers a legal lifeline—proving activism can force ethical change despite corporate resistance. [Automatically generated summary]
Living this lawsuit life for six years, trapped in a lawsuit with a gigantic corporation with incredible amounts of money that's been trying to crush them.
So, back in 2012, I was forced to make a very difficult decision.
I elected to speak out against the conditions of which Marineland's animals were living in.
I did so knowing the risks, knowing that Marineland was a litigious company, but I did so on account of the fact that the animals were suffering incredibly.
Before quitting, I had an agreement with Marineland that, look, I'm leaving.
This is long before I'd spoken out.
I'm leaving, but we have to establish that I can maintain this relationship with the walrus because I imprinted on her.
It's important to stress that, that she thinks I'm her mom.
She was a baby when she came in, so she was wild caught, and you can imagine, probably witnessed her mother get slaughtered.
That's the method of collecting babies by the captors in Russia.
And so she comes in traumatic at the age of, we estimate about 18 months of age, which is pretty old in fact.
In our experience, at Marine Land's experience of acquiring these wild-caught baby walruses, and through a sort of traumatic experience with her that I was there with her, this anomalous thing happened where her brain circuitry opened up, and much like in the wild where, in the case of herd animals, the babies become familiar with the mother's sound, sense, look, everything.
All the senses are acute.
They're aware of where they are so that they can...
You know, find each other amidst these thousands of animals.
Well, this happened to her.
So the brain circuitry opens, suddenly I'm imprinted on her.
I wasn't prepared to leave Marineland unless it was of the understanding that I can continue to help her because historically my relationship with her, you know, had everything to do with her health and wellbeing.
For that month, I can't say, but she was certainly not eating.
She was super skinny.
They had her, of course, on a bunch of drugs, which include psychotics, Valium, antidepressants.
When I saw her, my jaw hit the floor.
It's important to note that during this...
Some newspapers had been calling.
They wanted to know why I quit.
If we back up a little bit, it should be noted that in 2007, my relationship with Smushy sort of took off in the early sort of internet viral days and whatnot.
We made front page of like CNN and Jimmy Kimmel did a piece.
So there was sort of that backstory of the, I guess you would call it a fluff celebrity type thing.
But nonetheless, my having left, people started to ask questions.
I started fielding calls from this newspaper who was keen on doing an investigation of marine land.
So I wasn't going to participate.
I had no interest, again, stressing Marineland's litigious history.
And also, look, I've got this relationship with a walrus that I sort of have to maintain.
I have to keep this relationship with Marineland healthy enough.
Once I'd realized they weren't holding onto that end of the bargain, you know, the panic sets in.
I'm a first-time mom.
I should be stressed.
So I basically called the newspapers and I said, you put my face, my name, it doesn't matter.
You just print it.
Let's go.
Let's get the story out.
Story gets out.
Well, Marine Land, as expected, starts their lawsuit.
I wrote a piece a long time ago on my blog, and I talked about it in one of my comedy specials, that I had a crazy experience with dolphins once, when I was really, really high.
And I had this, I mean, it sounds silly to even talk about, but I almost feel like I kind of understood that they're like us, but they just don't alter their environment.
Well, I realized, like, when they were playing with us, when they were jumping by the boat, and they were looking at you.
They were looking at you while they were jumping around with the boat.
And I was like, they're playing, and they're looking at you like a person would, like a water person.
When you get to see that they're expressing themselves in interest in you and whatnot and scoping you.
When you get really close and establish a relationship with these animals, that's when things start getting real squirrely because you start to find that happy medium language.
And now all of a sudden you are starting to sort of speak, so to say.
Their emotional intelligence is the mystery and it appears that it's far beyond anything we ourselves can understand.
Same as orcas.
They've got that They've got another part of the brain in the front, which is its function in the front of the cerebral cortex.
That function is for communication and it enhances their emotional capacity to a point where we don't really know the depth of which they are, the power of their emotion.
But we know that they stay with their families for their lifetimes.
The males born from the mothers will rarely leave the mother's side.
Quite literally, the distance of an orca itself.
The only time that male will go on is when it's matured and it will go to procreate and then back to the mother.
And it will live its entire life as such.
And the sad fact about that is, in my experience working with male orcas, one of which caught from the wild, a big bull orca is...
He was a mama's boy.
You can see something was missing.
He was traumatized from something.
And of course, even myself as a regarded whale expert in the capacity of working at a fricking place like Marineland, even I would have never known this information when I started this.
This is not information that was available to us back in, I started in 2000. It makes sense now.
This animal is traumatized from birth.
His will to live is just gone.
It appears to me and in my experience, the male sex of Well, I've worked with seals, I've worked with sea lions, I've worked with walruses, dolphins, belugas, and orcas.
All of them die younger.
The males die younger.
And I think, well, definitely in the orcas and the dolphins' cases is they just don't have that will to live without that strong...
I do not know if they were doing that into dolphins, but I do know that they did some experiments with LSD and that John Lilly, who is one of my personal heroes, he's the creator of the flotation tank.
This is all John Lilly stuff.
He was a pioneer in interspecies communication.
He would take acid and think that he was communicating with dolphins.
The experience I had in his tank versus the one that I... There's a local place from where I'm from was hands down a different experience because he really isolates you there.
Whereas this was like a pod that they bought and installed in a room.
It's hard to appreciate, but when he first started making tanks like that, which, again, I think I bought one of his tanks in 2005, I think, somewhere around then.
Dude, there was no one making anything like that.
He was making these super high-end, crazy fucking double-wall insulated tanks.
And you get in there and it's just nothing.
Just nothing and you just You just get taken into the This and it's a good place to think about the subject that we're talking about today We've got to stop doing that with dolphins and orcas.
It's going to be thought of the same way we think about slavery today.
That it's horrific, we can't understand it, and we can't believe that compassionate human beings would be willing to isolate members of a super social, highly intelligent animal species.
What's sad here is, you know, we're years removed from the documentary Blackfish.
And, you know, that was really impactful.
I mean, arguably responsible for the paradigm shift that we're experiencing here in North America and other places, of course.
But maybe it's time for people to revisit it.
I know SeaWorld, their stock and their value is sort of going up.
Now, granted, they change their numbers.
They skew it.
They have free beer day.
They pump the numbers up.
They have all these different promotions, whatever.
I mean, everything that comes out of these facilities, Assume it to be all bullshit, by the way.
It's all bullshit, but not enough people question them on it.
But as we speak, while we're amidst sort of a paradigm shift here, and I mean, I can speak to it because, I mean, I'm very happy to say that we have very effectively decimated marine land and we'll talk more about that.
But over in China, this is now a burgeoning business.
And we discussed this a year and a half ago, and it's tenfold now.
It's happening very quickly.
And I'm sure you're familiar with the whale jail situation in Russia.
Those are essentially sold and ready to go to China.
But on account of the fact that the activists got this and created a real worldwide stink, all the negative press that came of it, they've now resolved that they want to try to, well, they've hard considered releases.
The governor in the area signed an intent-to-release agreement with the Whale Sanctuary Project, who sent a team to assess the animal's health and whatnot.
And this was all of like three weeks ago.
It was not a long time ago.
And they assessed that all these animals should be released.
There's a couple of issues.
There's a couple of things that are becoming conflicting.
A, it's going to require a lot of cost if it's done responsibly.
B, it appears...
Okay, so what's happened is, as we know, Russia's not exactly a democratic environment.
Only one person makes the decisions.
On account of what becomes of these whales, whereas there was some PR stunts to say, hey, we want to release them, we want to do this to sort of mitigate the global outrage, the captors have propagandized this entire effort to free these whales as a means for the West to undermine Russia's economy, so the whale trade economy.
Here's where Marineland comes into play, in a theory at this point, but it has these very intense implications.
What we know about what Marineland is doing currently in their transition from Brilliantly successful business to virtually decimated, thank you, is they're shipping their whales out.
We know two are going out.
If it's not this week, it'll be very soon.
I'll be shocked if they're not out.
I'm in LA, so I can't say that it's happening right now.
I think it may very well be happening this week.
They're going to Spain.
We know that five other permits have been requested to send these animals now to the states.
Because again, the captors of propaganda is that the West wants to cripple Russia's economy, their wild whale sale economy.
So if Marineland is selling whales to China from Canada, Then suddenly the captors have a point.
They'll say to Putin, look, they're selling whales.
Why is it such an outrage that Russia's doing it when Marineland's doing it?
So there's that concern.
The other one, and this just came up within the last 20 hours, is it appears rather than go the most responsible route, which we know is going to be a costly endeavor, but we're game and we're ready.
Is they're now considering just dropping the nets and saying, see you later.
They're going to let the orcas go because they were captured illegally.
There's some gray area as to whether the beluga whales have been captured illegally or not.
So I think it'll probably start with the orcas.
Rather than move them to where they were at the same time of year when they were captured so that they can be next to their transient pods or their pods, they just want to drop this net and say, see you later.
Would it be accurate to say that maybe what these groups are doing right now is recognizing that there's probably going to be some radical changes in the way these things are permitted, what's legal, what's not legal, and what people are tolerating is just not the same as it was 10 years ago?
Yeah, just get out while you can, because it might come a point in time when not only could they not sell it, but they might be responsible for doing exactly what you said and bringing it back to the area where its family would be, which would be an incredible cost.
So let's back up to, as you know, for well over four and a half years, five years now, I've been advocating for Bill S203, which is a national Canada-wide ban against whale and dolphin and porpoise captivity, so that would include no more breeding, no more import, no more export, any of that, okay?
This, by the way, is going down as the longest bill ever researched in Canadian history because there's been a lot of issues from opposition.
One senator in particular, in fact, if I can have a moment to just give Senator Don Plett a big ol' I win, you piece of shit.
This is the senator that has put every possible block in front of the passage of this bill.
He's tried to kill it silently forever.
I mean, this is an epic, epic story.
We've had to, as activists and the community at large, and again, I have to stress how much you've had a hand in this, is...
I've had to have these campaigns where we literally flood the Senate servers to the point of crashing it on a couple of instances where they were going to kill the bill very silently through a sort of procedure.
His role is called the Senate Whip.
So he actually yields a lot of influence and power.
He creates the committees where people do the studies and everything.
He sets the dates for the committees.
I mean, he had this thing studied for like 17 straight months.
It was absurd...
Again, the longest tenure in Canadian legislative history, it appears.
He's one of these guys who looks at this bill and he sees it as a activist, sort of left-wing, liberal, sort of fluff bill.
He doesn't see that it's necessary.
He went to Marineland as an invited guest.
He's very publicly declared his friendships for John Holder.
I don't want to speculate as to whether there's been any money exchanges, but I know he's certainly very interested in killing this bill.
And by virtue alone of activists pressuring and exposing all of his efforts, we actually saved this bill on a number of occasions.
The most notable of which was just a few weeks ago where in the House of Commons, it appeared this bill was going to die.
And literally at the 11th hour, I packed up.
We drove to Ottawa.
I had a tweet storm set up.
We put pressure on it.
I tweeted individual senators or rather individual members of parliament.
And I promised them.
And this is a sensitive time in Canadian politics for Justin Trudeau, the leader of the Liberal Party.
I promised them if this bill dies on account of the fact that what was happening was the liberals were going to propose amendments to the bill at the last second, that would send it back to the Senate for further review, at which point we know Don Plett was waiting in line to kill it.
There was nothing we could do at this point.
This was going to be his to kill.
The fact that this was being facilitated by liberals was really an infuriating thing.
But nonetheless, we applied an incredible amount of pressure.
I drove my ass down there.
I got there and I stood in front of every which one of them and I looked them all in the eyes.
I'm just like, I'm going to make you famous.
I'm going to make you famous, and I'm going to make you famous, and I'm going to make you famous.
And I don't want to speculate if that's what saved the day, although it was mentioned in the House of Commons that special interests pressured them at the last second, but in a last...
I think people are understanding what dolphin captivity really is.
What orca captivity really is.
I think they're understanding that now.
And I think it's just one of those things that exists because it's always existed.
But if it didn't exist now, there's no fucking way anybody would ever let you do it.
If there was no captive dolphins and orcas, if someone just went around and kidnapped them with what scientists know now about their social structure and their community...
What's crazy in all this is here this bill is passing.
Now we know it's going to pass.
It should get royal assent come second week of June.
Shy of some catastrophe, this thing will become law.
That's why Marineland is trying to get rid of these whales as quickly as they can.
They got to get them out of here.
Because at least now they can just...
Well, it sounds like two export permits have been approved.
So two beluga whales are going to Spain.
Now, granted, that's being facilitated through the Vancouver Aquarium.
This becomes an ugly mess here because...
When it comes to zoos, they're all part of these associations, okay?
And these are industry voices.
Anytime you're told, well, this is an AZA accredited facility, you know, most schools, for instance, or general people would say, oh, well, it's accredited.
It's a good place.
No, no, no, no, no.
What that means is these places facilitate animal transfers and whatnot to other member facilities.
It's really just a club.
And this club protects animals.
The interests of these parks and keeps any type of oversight.
They're lobby groups basically.
So what's happened is now through the Vancouver Aquarium, Marineland is sending these whales to Spain, but they're claiming them to be Vancouver Aquarium.
Uh, whales, which is not true.
They were never on these animals inventory or rather this facility's inventory list.
There's never been any knowledge of any of this, but what's happened is because Vancouver Aquarium is accredited and has an affiliation with the AZA. So in Canada, we call it CASA, the Canadian Association of Zoos and Aquarium and Marine Land is in fact not, uh, they no longer have their accreditation.
They did, they didn't have the best of relationships shortly after all of our revelations.
Um, it's all just right now.
It's just the industry as a whole is breaking all of its own rules to facilitate getting these beluga whales.
Marine land has 51 of them.
Okay.
There's five born every year, but they always have 51 and they don't, they haven't shipped an orca out in nearly a decade at this point.
Um, I mean, you do the math that what's going on exactly.
They always have 51. They don't ship them anywhere else.
I can attest that.
Yes.
Uh, when I was there and in my experience, and you don't have to watch my words because I know Marine Land's lawyer, Andrew Burns is listening.
Hi, Andrew.
I'll see you next week.
Um, in my experience, uh, yeah, you're for as many animals are born, you're just about losing as many.
So you'll lose two old ones.
You'll lose three young ones.
Not all the ones that are born are going to be successful.
Just about half are.
So what's happening now is the industry wants that bloodline.
There's 51 captive orcas, whereas there's a lot of controversy in importing animals from other places.
The states can't, in fact.
They can't bring them in from Russia without a public consult period.
It might still be the case with Canada.
So actually, the public might actually be consulted about the import of these five belugas that Marineland is seeking permit for to export.
So that's something that certainly, as an activist level, I'll be helping to guide towards the proper resolution.
But Yeah, that's all happening.
It is a race right now to get rid of Marineland's animals.
It is a wild time.
It's a wild time to be inside the doors at Marineland, as I can imagine, in the fences.
And it's a most wild time for me to be on the outside because I've never in the last six and a half years of litigation and just of my advocacy and being sort of, you know, basically being engaged in war with Marineland, I've never seen them work harder to suppress me and to try to silence me than they are now.
As breaking news just today, Marineland had built this fence, aptly named Phil's Fence, around the park.
And just today we found out they blacked it all out with tarps.
Because come this Saturday, May 18th, and certainly I'm inviting everyone to come join me.
I'll be joining as a guest, a big demonstration outside of Marineland, and we're going to protest it.
As they're anticipating, because on account of my coming on this show, they worked very hard to try to keep me from A, coming, B, speaking of anything, C, certainly not promoting this event.
So I certainly hope that this event is a well-attended...
So back when Marineland's owner was still alive, I put forth a huge campaign to try to get him to be examined legally by my lawyer, much like I've had to sort of submit myself to.
But as these lawsuits and as litigation continues to reveal itself as just the perfect method of abuse, you know that they're just...
The only resolve these things appear to serve is to exhaust both parties and have them come together with a resolution.
So after six and a half years, Uh, Marineland seems intent on a resolution.
They don't want to go to examinations.
So while we were in, so while I was there to be examined a couple of weeks ago, my lawyer said, take a walk.
And the two lawyers began their talks.
We put off the examination because we believed there could be some good faith that could be shown between parties.
Um, it became quite evident that it was not the case.
And when we were to resume our examinations, which was to be last week, Marineland, on account of the fact that I was coming on this show, threw an absolute tirade and said, we are not doing this.
Now, bear in mind, this is a court-ordered examination date.
I've got a trial coordinator who is trying to nudge this thing forward because, I mean, that's a motion I had to win in the litigation itself, is to try to get someone to look at this thing so that it can actually move forward.
Like, let's get someone to manage it.
So we're in case management.
So that case management judge has issued a very aggressive schedule.
Back in February, we had a court date of which, thank you very much, I won handedly.
Marieland had to pick up just a little more than $12,000 of my legal bill, which is really...
On this particular motion in this event, kind of a drop in the pan, but nonetheless, a sound victory in court.
You know, we have a case conference call next week now.
I don't know where this stands because now Marineland has breached the court's order.
So we went, they didn't show up to the examination.
I got a fourth, what's called a certificate of non-attendance.
It means the person that was supposed to be examined that day didn't show up.
Marineland's owner, John Holder, who's now passed away, didn't show up to two of his examinations, knowing full well that I'd have to pick up the $1,700 just to be there to get the certificate, and he's just not going to show up, no big deal.
There doesn't seem to be any punitive damage at their end.
I mean, we're almost seven years into this thing, and they're still brutalizing me.
But we're at a point where they're actually in a very uncomfortable position of having to keep this thing.
If you don't want this litigation to be on the public record and transcripts and evidence and everything, you have to stop it.
Seems to me the courts appear to facilitate resolutions of that sort.
If you go to savesmooshy.com, S-A-V-E-S-M-O-O-S-H-I.com, you can go there.
There's a small documentary.
It's a little dated now, but on account of the fact that legislation, nothing's really moved forward in the lawsuit, and the legislation is only just wrapping up.
It's still very current, so please spend the 14 minutes to sort of appreciate the story more.
I guess you'll get a better, more context to it.
There's You know, some footage in there, some backstage stuff.
Yes, but not without layers and layers and layers of compromise.
But bear in mind, Not in the capacity that I see it.
More of a, yeah, maybe.
Maybe we won't send her to China.
How's that?
Maybe we'll send her somewhere and not deter that facility from you visiting.
Maybe we could do that for you.
That's what, I mean, it's really bad faith to negotiate.
The problem with, the thing that I have a hard time dealing with is, look, we're in litigation.
In litigation, you have to exercise a certain amount of decorum.
And it's not exactly my strong point.
It's just not.
I find decorum to be just a thick layer of bullshit.
I just do.
You want to hope that there's going to be some type of good faith negotiation.
I want that.
Marineland negotiates with additional hostilities and threats.
It's not worked for them in six and a half years.
What makes you think it's going to work now?
So here I think we're going down a path of possibly good faith negotiations.
The owner, the villain of the story is gone.
He's out of the picture.
The new president who is the widow, the wife is a wonderful woman.
I mean, listen, I honestly and truly believe if the lawyer himself wasn't the controlling mind of the business now, sort of facilitating this transfer of, Of the business as it was to just being sold off, pieced off and distribute the wealth to the remaining family members.
I think that we could, I think the story ends on a good note.
I mean, I have no hostilities.
I have every reason in the world to despise the man who sued me.
And I don't.
I don't even think about him.
It was never about that.
They made every case in the world, every argument that this was personal.
There's video, in fact, that's on that documentary.
You'll see these.
They send some tough guys.
I mean, they were sending people at 6am harassing my girlfriend while she's taking the garbage out.
I mean, it really got pretty intense.
But we stood our ground.
I was like, this is not going to go down like this.
It's like, you're fucking with the wrong guy, dude.
Like, listen, I come from a place called Welland, Ontario.
I don't know that you're familiar with it.
I'm going to assume not.
Probably few people are, unless you're an avid hockey fan, because we have produced some pretty amazing NHL talent.
But, you know, there's a population of like 50,000.
I'm a Wellander.
I don't know any other...
And I'm a Frenchman.
I mean, it's probably another thing to stress, but I don't know any other way to deal with things other than sort of fight it out.
You know?
You don't cower and run.
You don't...
You know, you stare at the threat, especially when you're on the right side of things.
I'm not going to sit there and take shit.
I'm not going to...
It's not going to work for them to continuously try to threaten me because, dude, I'm invested.
And I'm not talking money.
I mean, it's like a hostage situation.
It's how it started.
My only interest is ending the hostage situation.
Not my only interest.
I shouldn't say that.
Of course not.
I have interest in...
I've been advocating for bills and obviously advocating letting people know they're sort of taking the veil off the bullshit that the industry purports to be.
Well, then I want the trial because I need to show that.
I need that on my record.
I want that.
I want the truth.
They fucked up the wrong guy.
I hate to say it.
Of all the lawsuits they've launched, they've launched in excess of like 12 and threatened – and it's important to note I've been threatened and I'm constantly under threat of additional litigation.
I'm the only one left.
I'm the only lawsuit that's – I'm the only person who hasn't had to compromise their free expression.
And if you put this up to the general public and have them look at what the actual facts are and have them look at what these people, what their business is, what they're actually doing.
It's game over.
It's game over.
It's a real problem for them.
The real problem is it's an indefensible activity.
Having those animals in swimming pools for people's enjoyment.
I like to operate in full sort of transparency because, look, I guess I'm sort of sponsored by the public, so I feel like a level of transparency in all this.
But, you know, I had a little bit of money.
I'd won a TV show called Wipeout and I had 50,000 Canadian dollars tax-free in the bank, which I sat on because I didn't know precisely what it is I was going to do with it.
And I felt like there was a potential of a rainy day around the corner.
It took that in the first six months to hire lawyers for everybody.
Everyone that was getting sued, I was cutting $5,000 retainers for going, there's a purpose for this money.
I only have it because I got on the show because of my relationship with the Walrus.
So I'm in for a good chunk of change here.
It's crazy.
The lengths of which and the ability corporations have to destroy individuals.
The fact that the court is there to facilitate it is precisely why I want to go to trial.
I've been told the figures are and please don't quote me and I'd love the facts, but I've been told that something in the area of like 90% of lawsuits get settled without going to discovery.
I want to be the 10% or less.
I want a resolution by the judge.
I can sleep at night if the judge says, okay, it ends with this.
Phil, you get $50,000 of your, at this point, in excess of $200,000 in legal bills and Marine Land, you lost.
So, you know, you got to eat the shame and walk away.
I would assume be more comfortable with that than if Marine Land said, here's $100,000.
Don't talk about the...
I mean, let's say in the best scenario they said, here's a chunk of change.
Let's just use $100,000 and said, just don't talk about the terms of the settlement.
But other than that, you have no impeded speech.
You can just be free.
I would be more comfortable with the judge's decision than that $100,000 because then at least I know exactly what it is that I went through.
The world can find out what function these courts have and what their version of justice is.
I mean, I'm just still – I'm trying not to be jaded because obviously it's a heavy load to carry in your day-to-day.
I've been on the cusp of crazy.
I'm thankful for plant medicine for sort of keeping me grounded and keeping me with the proper perspective.
And for someone new, I guess you'd probably be in, is conservation a category?
Or wildlife or something like that?
You know, you would launch pretty quickly.
And it would be fascinating for people to...
Have you ever heard, like, one of the really well-produced NPR podcasts, like The Dropout?
Did NPR do The Dropout?
The one on Elizabeth Holmes and the Theranos controversy, the blood scanning stuff?
Anyway, it's an amazing multi-part series that describes how these people made this phony blood testing technology and sold it and made millions of dollars and they were valued at billions and now they're literally virtually worth nothing.
So it's by ABC Radio.
That's who did it.
Nightline, that's what it was.
ABC News Nightline.
But something like that, if someone wanted to follow this and document it from the beginning in a podcast form, this is something that really could be like six one-hour episodes.
If you were talking about your history...
With training orcas, what you thought it was when you first got in.
We went into that in several of the other episodes.
Again, with the looming litigation, I do get a little bit sort of tongue shy because this is just going to be...
I'll be sued again, man.
It kind of freaks me out.
It's the same premise of writing a book.
It's like, great, write a book, but it's like, I can't do anything with it because I'll be sued.
It's a virtual guarantee.
Now, the bright side is it seems to me like Marineland is not going to be around for a terribly long time.
Once they're dissolved, oh, you bet your ass I got lots to talk about.
I mean, I would love if I could speak of everything without having to sort of watch...
You know, I really do have to keep from saying a lot of stuff, not on account of it being illegal, but just on account of the fact that it will virtually guarantee me additional...
I think that what they do in terms of that business, for their own sake, they should stop.
For everyone that's profiting off that, you've got to find an exit strategy.
And I don't just mean Marineland.
I mean, anyone who understands my language, that's hearing my words, you should stop.
This is not the future.
You can't do that anymore.
This is going to look horrible just a few years from now, where people who've seen blackfish, people who do understand what those things are, the more we find out about dolphins and orcas, The more we understand them, it's going to be more and more.
It's not like, oh, wait a minute, we just did some tests.
They're like crabs, bro.
They're dumb as fuck.
You can just eat them.
That's not going to happen, man.
We're more and more impressed with them the more we study them.
I am more than happy to negotiate with Marineland that rather than signing any type of non-disparagement, because I don't want my speech virtually locked in a legal document, I'm a forgiving person.
I don't need...
I'm only responding in kind to their hostilities.
They come at me with war.
I bring it back.
I don't want to.
I have to.
I take it right back up to where they bring it.
Then they do this.
I got to do this.
Then they do this.
I'm like, what are you fucking thinking?
It's like, if they would just dial it back, I can be a happy, smiley, not chirping, marine land guy.
I don't have to be...
I don't have to do that.
I've done what I've had to to be where I am.
The man who created this scenario is gone.
We don't need the hostilities anymore.
So what is the lawyer's motives exactly?
I don't know.
But I can assure you, now that they've blacked out the fence, they're doing everything they can to suppress our information, they've bought up all the available billboards in Niagara Falls so that they've got Marineland signs because we have put up, as activists, activists have put up billboards, one of which was right at the entrance of Marineland last year.
It was a thing of beauty.
So they bought all these things up.
They really don't want bad PR right now.
My guess is trying to get rid of the animals, mitigate the PR losses, because there's already a sound foundation of it, of bad PR, and sell the property, get rid of it all.
And I think, you know, they're trying to fast track an accreditation so that they can facilitate animal movements and whatnot.
My greatest weapon right now, unfortunately, is that I can assure them a great deal of financial risk.
I have, and I certainly can and am right now.
They need to take that into consideration.
When you consider the price of a walrus, and let's just use the number 100,000, which is a grossly inflated number for a walrus, and let's say Marineland were to say, hypothetically, well, why would we give you a $100,000 asset when it's going to cost us less than that just to finish this litigation, and we'll owe you 25K at the end of some shit?
Why would we do that?
It doesn't make sense.
And I say to them, it's because I'm going to make that walrus cost you tens of millions.
Well, there was a bear that had been in movies and had done stunts in movies and this guy, the video was awful because the guy is literally just standing there and the bear just goes up to him and just decides to attack and rips his throat out.
To be fair in my experience of wild animals, it is with marine mammals.
So I've not worked with bears.
There are bears at Marineland.
It's a disgusting display.
It's archaic.
It looks like it's out of the 1800s even.
I mean, it really is a disgusting place.
But...
The practice was to starve them.
And what people do there is they pay like, I think it's a buck and they get like this, this little cup full of corn pops and the bears are like waving.
Historically there's been bears.
I mean, he's got, they've got like 40 or 50 bears in this little confined space.
I mean, there's nothing, there's no more, no greater abomination of nature than I can imagine than a solitary, largely solitary animal.
So they're confined to a bunch of them of the species.
And then historically, they have ripped each other apart.
On one hand, when you have children and you bring a child to the zoo, on one hand, it's really fascinating to watch this little person look at all these different animals and freak out and see how amazing it is.
But that's the only pro, is introducing human beings, like little human beings in particular, to these animals.
Everything else is a con, except for the animals that are like really endangered and they protect them and help breed them and then Sometimes they're responsible for some reintroduction efforts.
Most people just watch and think this is just maybe normal or something, right?
A lot of people, we're not...
See, because the veil is only now sort of coming off and people are sort of now getting the truth on the matters, you start to see things for what they are.
I watched a video on YouTube some weeks ago and it was Marineland in the 70s and man, was this place busy.
And the people were just – I mean they were climbing over each other to be next to the pool.
I've never seen anything like it.
I worked there 12 years.
I've never seen the amount of people that this thing had.
And when you looked in the pool, there's a bull orca who's – he spans the literal length of the pool that he's in on the side with his – We're good to go.
You're looking at exactly what you see today in terms of the animals and the conditions that they're in.
Yet here, these people, having knowing nothing about it, just in the awe, the beauty, the majesty of these animals, the majestic nature of these animals, and yet we couldn't see for ourselves whatsoever how abusive and gross this was.
It was really a weird and strange thing.
But that's, you know, Marineland's a legacy business.
They built themselves on having people come and experience the shock and awe of these animals, and they did very, very well.
It kind of feels weird because you're in their world.
Oh, yeah.
Because now you're like, oh, what?
because the series of tools that that animal has in its world that doesn't translate in captivity, for instance, is like, wait a second, that thing can spring on me, climb up, like I'm in its world now.
To me, that's the awe of the experience of witnessing animals because since the year and a half that expired from our last show, I had the gift of seeing dolphins in the wild.
I went down to...
I can't remember what beach it was, but it was while I was in California.
And that was my first experience, in fact.
Again, I'm from a small place.
And then this year, I was able to go to Washington State and see orcas in the wild.
Now, I've jumped off orcas rostrums into the air so high that you're looking down into a Dixie Cup to land.
I mean, that's pretty awesome.
But there's nothing...
Like having seen a fuckin' bull orca with an eight-foot mass on his back swimming next to his mother and all the...
Do you know anything about what's going on in the Pacific Northwest where there's a pod of orcas that exists primarily on Chinook salmon and they're starving?
So in fact, I'm glad you mentioned that because just yesterday and today, a bunch of different protections are being announced for the southern resident killer whales.
Which are in the Salish Sea.
So it's going to impede sort of vessel.
They're really focusing on doing what they can.
What's happening there is they've got this snake river dam system that needs to be...
What happens is they put this system in and the Chinook are just dying.
So it's virtually over time has been decimating these populations.
No one really knew why, but we're at the point now that we know that these orcas exclusively eat Chinook.
And there's just not enough.
And whereas they used to be massive ones, now they've got these little tiny ones.
And you know, there was a, I mean, the plight of the Southern resident killer whales is really, I'm glad that it's gotten, getting global attention.
I'm sure you're familiar with the mother who lost its calf and mourned for an excess of like 40 days and carried her on her head in the type of vigil.
I mean, this was, this captivated the world.
I mean, you can't look at an animal capable of such suffering without being acutely aware of the damage you're doing when you separate them from their family and natural environment.
I've been underwater with orcas and dolphins, and I've heard them...
Forget, I can't even tell you the sounds.
I mean, they've got a wide array of sounds.
But, you know, I could...
To the best of my abilities, I could tell you when an animal was excited based on their sounds they were making.
Like when our orca, Neosha, was pushing me underwater to do a rocket ride, which is when you jump off into the air and you do this big majestic jump, you I knew it was going to be a good one.
When she let out this squawk at the bottom of the pool before pumping her tail and launching, you just knew it, man.
She was on.
She was on fire.
And then there was other times where you just knew she wasn't into it.
And I could know by the sounds.
You could really determine underwater sound alone.
You could really get to know your animal.
Again, I was there 12 years.
I mean, I really got to experience a lot of things other people could never really truly understand, which is really why it's really important that I'm able to speak to these things because, I mean, even when it comes to the legislation that is passing.
I've had my name mentioned in the House of Commons.
I mean, this is a national stage.
I've had it mentioned in the Senate.
I mean, people care about what is coming up.
Just a few days ago, a Niagara MP. Actually, this would be a great video if you could pull it up.
It'll be on my Twitter.
It's one of the things I retweeted.
But the MP, the local MP, he bashes Marineland.
I mean, that is a thing of absolute beauty.
I'm glad that I'm able to talk and explain to people what it is that my experience has shown me and the things that I know.
Yeah, he's, I mean, this is a member of parliament.
This is on the, you know, this is the big stage right here, and he's finally, and it took a long time for people, anyone in public policy to ever wade into this subject.
Now we've got people outright saying, like, this place is a hole.
I mean, wow, how far we've come in the last six and a half years.
Maybe you guys expanded on it with someone else, but no, that is the basis of this project.
The good news is the Whale Sanctuary Project, this thing is going to happen.
It is the future.
They're They're well into the process of finding a site.
Considerations are being made for a Washington State site, a Vancouver site, but it appears as though they're settled on maybe Nova Scotia.
The community there at large is looking to work with them.
That's wonderful news.
And I'll tell you something, Joe.
Once this law gets royal ascension, becomes law, what happens is Marineland is not able to export the animals unless the minister of the DFO, the Department of Fisheries and Oceans, concurs that it's in the animals' best interests.
Well, if such a site exists and Marineland is keen on getting rid of their animals, we'll have a place for them.
I told you last time I was here that my dream is to save whales.
This might happen.
Additionally, if there's a real concerted effort, a real effort to rescue those animals in Russia, I may very well be a part of that team.
So where six and a half years ago I was speaking of a crazy dream where there was no blueprint, there was no foundation, I just sort of threw myself into the universe and said, I'm just going to hang my hat on a dream.
This thing that we were talking about with the Pacific Northwest, it's the resident population that has an issue because they only eat Chinook salmon, but then isn't there...
It's a rare occasion, but there's something called a super pod where it's actually a congregation of all the different families of orcas into this event where they all congregate and it's a big social event.
And there's a conference that happens every two years in Washington State called Super Pod, which is organized by a good friend of mine, Jeff Ventry.
It's an amazing event.
I look forward to being there again and speaking.
I get to...
Another place for me to speak and roam about with experts and whatnot and learn a great deal of things.
But we were on the cusp of that almost happening because the boats are radioing to each other.
Like, okay, well, we've got a family going this, we've got a family going this.
It's like, wait a sec, there's three families going in the same direction.
It's like there's going to be a crossing of paths.
And this is where the boaters get real excited, either at the prospect of a super pod of sorts or...
When you see their mouths wide open and see their teeth, you're like, what the fuck are you?
Why don't they start eating mammals?
And I wonder if anybody's ever studied the difference in the behavior between the transient pods that eat the marine mammals versus the behavior of the ones that only exist on salmon.
Oh, dude, you've changed the landscape of all of this, by the way.
I know you don't.
Look, I get it.
I can do this all day.
The first shout-out is to you, the last one's to you, the one in the middle's to you, every one of them.
You've changed my world personally, but you've really changed the landscape of this entire thing.
Whitney said it best today, she goes, you know, Joe really is the guy to move the needle on this thing, and I'm like, you're damn right.
So, like, a couple of fucksy worlds out there as often as you can, and just...
Keep this stuff up because you've had a heavy hand in all this.
Along with, for instance, Senator Wilfred Moore, who's the person who tabled this piece of legislation, Murray Sinclair.
I got to extend a thanks to the leader of the Green Party, Elizabeth May, who's really taken this thing, it's her baby, and processed this thing through.
And yeah, if you didn't hear me shout out your name, sorry.
There's some very satisfying things about having a podcast and one of the really satisfying things is being able to let people know about something that for them is very important.
There's many people that are listening to this, there's many people that are hearing this that are trying to understand with your busy life, with your bills and your relationships and your work and You're also living in a world where something is happening that most likely would be thought of as a horrendous act.
Just a decade or two decades and then we're gonna be looking back saying how the fuck did we let this slide?
How did we do this?
And I think guys like you if it's not for your sacrifice many Millions of people don't understand this as well.
And that's real.
That's you.
That's a hundred percent you Your sacrifice your ability to describe it so eloquently and your courage to keep fighting this is This is very important.