The park board ventured into unchartered waters last week with the decision to formally ban whales, dolphins and porpoises kept at the Vancouver Aquarium from having sex with each other.
The facility’s track record hasn’t been great when it comes to keeping their resident cetaceans’ offspring alive, and preventing them from breeding in the future seems a compromise on the emotionally charged issue of keeping intelligent creatures in indefinite captivity inside tiny swimming pools.
How the park board plans to enforce the new policy is, of course, another matter altogether.
Vancouver Aquarium CEO and Jack Layton lookalike John Nightingale told the Courier last week that it won’t be easy. It’s not like they’re dogs and you can simply turn the hose on them. They might even enjoy it more if you did and keeping them in separate pools seems even crueler than keeping them in captivity in the first place.
“For the park board to stop whales and dolphins from doing what comes naturally is like telling park board commissioners not to have sex, ever,” said Nightingale. “It’s unnatural.”
For now at least, the problem remains academic. The dolphins and belugas who call the facility home away from their natural home are all females, although the male belugas currently off on stud loan in the U.S. are expected to return after the aquarium’s $45 million expansion is complete. But the more pressing problem is posed by Jack and Daisy, two porpoises rescued as babies three years apart after being found stranded. Jack is now getting to the age when he will soon be thinking of Daisy as more than just a friend. There may be other fish in the sea but they’re no longer in the sea and the two porpoises will likely soon discover a new purpose in life if left unsupervised.
Like the Vision Vancouver park board commissioners who voted for the ban, we aren’t marine biologists here at Team K&K and are equally unqualified to weigh in on how best to manage the sexuality of members of a different species. (It should probably also be noted that the board’s two NPA commissioners were conspicuous in their absence from the vote.) We do, however, know a thing or two about unwanted celibacy and have a few humble suggestions aquarium staff may want to take into consideration.
Broadcasting park board meetings: We can say from personal experience that there are few experiences in life quite as libido-draining as attending Vancouver park board meetings. Broadcasting video or audio streams, courtesy of a giant TV and speakers set up by the pool, could help nip cetacean desire in the bud.
Encouraging self-love as a healthy alternative: It may seem hypocritical for the Vision Vancouver-dominated board, none of whom are seeking re-election in the fall, to endorse the benefits of masturbation over mating given that the party’s own park board candidate, Trish Kelly, was recently forced out for essentially having done the same, but then who said politics was about consistency.
Putting a pair of “Daisy Dukes” on Daisy as a makeshift denim chastity belt: As an added bonus, there'd be the possibility of selling aquarium-branded jean shorts and added entertainment value as audiences watch Jack “play tag” with Daisy while chasing her around the pool trying to remove them.
Introducing apex predators: Toss a few sharks, pythons and crocodiles into the pool and surely the adorable sea mammals will be too distracted to even think about "freeing willy."
Adopting an official transgender policy: The Vancouver school board met fierce opposition from some conservative parents worried their kids might somehow become gay or something after they brought in policies intended to make life easier for transgender kids. While this may seem ignorant and hateful, it’s possible they're on to something after all and there’s a slim chance that teaching sea creatures about trans issues will somehow make them more attracted to their own gender instead of wanting to reproduce. Hopefully they won’t suddenly start asking about adoption rights afterward.
Introducing males to watching sports: As the world’s wives and girlfriends can attest, guys often prefer watching sports to being romantic. Twenty-four hour broadcasts, via the same TV and speakers mentioned above, of TSN and Team 1040 combined with a subscription to the Province and a cooler of Coors could pretty much seal Jack’s fate. Or rather, poor Daisy’s.
