In this episode, I sit down with my brother, Phil, to discuss the disappearance of Smushy, a wild walrus that was taken from Marineland in 2012, and the events leading up to her disappearance. Phil talks about what happened to her, why he left, and how he managed to save her. He also talks about his relationship with her, and what it was like to care for her when she was in captivity. This episode is brought to you by The Orca Project, a non-profit organization dedicated to saving wild walruses and other marine mammals in need of a safe and secure habitat. To find a list of our sponsors and show-related promo codes, go to gimlet.fm/sponsorships/OurAdvertisers or call 1-800-273-8255 and enter the discount code: CRIMINALS at the toll-free hotline at 1-888-373-7888 to get 10% off your first purchase of $10,000 or more, and get 20% off the entire retail price of $99.99 plus shipping, plus free shipping on all orders over $99, including shipping and handling. Thanks to all the sponsorships, and shout out to my good friend Joe for sponsoring this episode! Thank you Joe for being a hero, Joe, you're a rockstar! Thanks also to my friend, Whitney, for being brave, and for being my rockstar, and being my brother! Cheers, Joe! -Eugene and Whitney, and Joe, for helping me out here at Marineland, for coming out here to help me find a wild baby walrus, Smushie. - Thank you, and I appreciate you, Joe. I'm so much, thank you, I really appreciate it, I can t wait to have you, so much thank you so much for being here, I love you, much love, bye! -Your support is so much more than I can't wait to see you, bye, bye. -Elliott, Cheers! -P.S. -Joe, Joe & Whitney, Thank you for being there, Joe - and I'll see you soon! -Eliot and Whitney - XOXO - - EJ, EJ & EJ -PSYCHO -SORRY, JUICY -ROBBIE
00:01:27.000Living 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.
00:01:43.000Give me your perspective on how it all went down.
00:01:47.000So, back in 2012, I was forced to make a very difficult decision.
00:01:51.000I elected to speak out against the conditions of which Marineland's animals were living in.
00:01:59.000I 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.
00:02:10.000Before quitting, I had an agreement with Marineland that, look, I'm leaving.
00:02:27.000She was a baby when she came in, so she was wild caught, and you can imagine, probably witnessed her mother get slaughtered.
00:02:32.000That's the method of collecting babies by the captors in Russia.
00:02:39.000And so she comes in traumatic at the age of, we estimate about 18 months of age, which is pretty old in fact.
00:02:46.000In 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,
00:03:02.000in the case of herd animals, the babies become familiar with the mother's sound, sense, look, everything.
00:03:15.000So the brain circuitry opens, suddenly I'm imprinted on her.
00:03:20.000I 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.
00:03:33.000I quit with the understanding with Marineland.
00:04:01.000My having been gone a month was the longest she and I have ever actually been physically apart.
00:04:06.000I'd been trying to wean my presence off of her so that other trainers could be able to maintain a healthy diet for her, a healthy lifestyle.
00:04:15.000So she was emaciated because she wasn't eating?
00:04:39.000If 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.
00:04:47.000We made front page of like CNN and Jimmy Kimmel did a piece.
00:04:52.000So there was sort of that backstory of the, I guess you would call it a fluff celebrity type thing.
00:04:57.000But nonetheless, my having left, people started to ask questions.
00:05:00.000I started fielding calls from this newspaper who was keen on doing an investigation of marine land.
00:07:13.000I 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,
00:07:30.000And 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.
00:07:42.000Well, I realized, like, when they were playing with us, when they were jumping by the boat, and they were looking at you.
00:07:47.000They were looking at you while they were jumping around with the boat.
00:07:50.000And I was like, they're playing, and they're looking at you like a person would, like a water person.
00:07:56.000There's almost a language at this point.
00:07:57.000There's some level of bridged gap in these.
00:08:00.000When you get to see that they're expressing themselves in interest in you and whatnot and scoping you.
00:08:06.000When 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.
00:08:13.000And now all of a sudden you are starting to sort of speak, so to say.
00:09:19.000They'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.
00:09:27.000That 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.
00:09:39.000But we know that they stay with their families for their lifetimes.
00:09:42.000The males born from the mothers will rarely leave the mother's side.
00:09:48.000Quite literally, the distance of an orca itself.
00:09:50.000The only time that male will go on is when it's matured and it will go to procreate and then back to the mother.
00:09:56.000And it will live its entire life as such.
00:09:58.000And 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...
00:10:11.000And 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.
00:10:23.000This is not information that was available to us back in, I started in 2000. It makes sense now.
00:10:28.000This animal is traumatized from birth.
00:10:32.000It 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,
00:11:40.000A language that is, especially with orcas and dolphins, they have a language that's so complex, we haven't been able to really decipher it.
00:12:38.000I think they were also injecting ketamine into the dolphins or something as well.
00:12:42.000I 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.
00:14:39.000And then my friend who was a tank technician, there's actually tank technicians, he said, listen, you've got to check out this guy in Venice.
00:14:48.000Some mad scientist down there in Venice was just making these super over-engineered float tanks.
00:14:52.000And he goes, they look like walk-in meat lockers.
00:15:38.000The 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.
00:15:47.000Whereas this was like a pod that they bought and installed in a room.
00:15:59.000Yeah, he's got a serious complex there.
00:16:02.000It'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.
00:16:11.000Dude, there was no one making anything like that.
00:16:14.000He was making these super high-end, crazy fucking double-wall insulated tanks.
00:16:20.000And you get in there and it's just nothing.
00:16:31.000It's a good place to think about the subject that we're talking about today.
00:16:35.000We've got to stop doing that with dolphins and orcas.
00:16:38.000It's going to be thought of the same way we think about slavery today.
00:16:41.000That 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.
00:17:25.000They have all these different promotions, whatever.
00:17:27.000I mean, everything that comes out of these facilities, Assume it to be all bullshit, by the way.
00:17:33.000It's all bullshit, but not enough people question them on it.
00:17:35.000But 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.
00:17:46.000But over in China, this is now a burgeoning business.
00:17:50.000And we discussed this a year and a half ago, and it's tenfold now.
00:18:33.000Those are essentially sold and ready to go to China.
00:18:37.000But 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.
00:18:53.000The 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.
00:19:03.000And this was all of like three weeks ago.
00:19:29.000On 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,
00:19:52.000Here's where Marineland comes into play, in a theory at this point, but it has these very intense implications.
00:20:00.000What 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.
00:21:24.000The 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.
00:21:38.000Is they're now considering just dropping the nets and saying, see you later.
00:21:47.000They're going to let the orcas go because they were captured illegally.
00:21:51.000There's some gray area as to whether the beluga whales have been captured illegally or not.
00:21:55.000So I think it'll probably start with the orcas.
00:21:59.000Rather 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.
00:22:14.000Well, that's as irresponsible as it can get.
00:22:32.000There's a great team of activists over there.
00:22:35.000Would 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?
00:22:54.000Catch them and sell them as fast as you can.
00:22:55.000Yeah, 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.
00:23:56.000I mean, that's not like something you could just keep in a cage.
00:24:00.000So 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,
00:24:19.000This, 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.
00:24:28.000One 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.
00:24:55.000We'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...
00:25:00.000I'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.
00:26:38.000And this is a sensitive time in Canadian politics for Justin Trudeau, the leader of the Liberal Party.
00:26:44.000I 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.
00:26:57.000There was nothing we could do at this point.
00:27:07.000I got there and I stood in front of every which one of them and I looked them all in the eyes.
00:27:10.000I'm just like, I'm going to make you famous.
00:27:12.000I'm going to make you famous, and I'm going to make you famous, and I'm going to make you famous.
00:27:18.000And 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...
00:30:11.000I think they're understanding that now.
00:30:12.000And I think it's just one of those things that exists because it's always existed.
00:30:17.000But if it didn't exist now, there's no fucking way anybody would ever let you do it.
00:30:21.000If 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...
00:32:26.000Anytime 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.
00:32:52.000So 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.
00:33:04.000They were never on these animals inventory or rather this facility's inventory list.
00:33:08.000There'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.
00:33:23.000They did, they didn't have the best of relationships shortly after all of our revelations.
00:33:56.000Uh, 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.
00:34:28.000They can't bring them in from Russia without a public consult period.
00:34:30.000It might still be the case with Canada.
00:34:32.000So actually, the public might actually be consulted about the import of these five belugas that Marineland is seeking permit for to export.
00:34:40.000So that's something that certainly, as an activist level, I'll be helping to guide towards the proper resolution.
00:34:57.000It's a wild time to be inside the doors at Marineland, as I can imagine, in the fences.
00:35:02.000And 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.
00:35:24.000As breaking news just today, Marineland had built this fence, aptly named Phil's Fence, around the park.
00:35:31.000And just today we found out they blacked it all out with tarps.
00:35:35.000Because come this Saturday, May 18th, and certainly I'm inviting everyone to come join me.
00:35:42.000I'll be joining as a guest, a big demonstration outside of Marineland, and we're going to protest it.
00:35:50.000As 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.
00:36:02.000So I certainly hope that this event is a well-attended...
00:37:01.000So 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.
00:37:12.000But as these lawsuits and as litigation continues to reveal itself as just the perfect method of abuse, you know that they're just...
00:37:22.000The only resolve these things appear to serve is to exhaust both parties and have them come together with a resolution.
00:37:31.000So after six and a half years, Uh, Marineland seems intent on a resolution.
00:37:36.000They don't want to go to examinations.
00:37:39.000So while we were in, so while I was there to be examined a couple of weeks ago, my lawyer said, take a walk.
00:37:44.000And the two lawyers began their talks.
00:37:46.000We put off the examination because we believed there could be some good faith that could be shown between parties.
00:37:53.000Um, it became quite evident that it was not the case.
00:37:58.000And 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.
00:38:09.000Now, bear in mind, this is a court-ordered examination date.
00:38:12.000I'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.
00:38:27.000So that case management judge has issued a very aggressive schedule.
00:38:31.000Back in February, we had a court date of which, thank you very much, I won handedly.
00:38:36.000Marieland had to pick up just a little more than $12,000 of my legal bill, which is really...
00:38:42.000On this particular motion in this event, kind of a drop in the pan, but nonetheless, a sound victory in court.
00:38:53.000You know, we have a case conference call next week now.
00:38:57.000I don't know where this stands because now Marineland has breached the court's order.
00:39:03.000So we went, they didn't show up to the examination.
00:39:04.000I got a fourth, what's called a certificate of non-attendance.
00:39:10.000It means the person that was supposed to be examined that day didn't show up.
00:39:13.000Marineland'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.
00:39:25.000There doesn't seem to be any punitive damage at their end.
00:39:27.000I mean, we're almost seven years into this thing, and they're still brutalizing me.
00:39:33.000But we're at a point where they're actually in a very uncomfortable position of having to keep this thing.
00:39:39.000If you don't want this litigation to be on the public record and transcripts and evidence and everything, you have to stop it.
00:39:45.000Seems to me the courts appear to facilitate resolutions of that sort.
00:41:25.000It'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.
00:41:32.000It's still very current, so please spend the 14 minutes to sort of appreciate the story more.
00:41:38.000I guess you'll get a better, more context to it.
00:41:40.000There's You know, some footage in there, some backstage stuff.
00:41:45.000You know, it tells the tale quite well.
00:44:56.000The new president who is the widow, the wife is a wonderful woman.
00:45:01.000I 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.
00:45:18.000I think that we could, I think the story ends on a good note.
00:47:45.000I'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.
00:47:53.000Do you feel like you're negotiating for a hostage in smooshing?
00:49:00.000Of 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.
00:50:07.000No, there's nothing good on their side.
00:50:09.000For what they try to do to you, for what the business is, it's all bad.
00:50:13.000I 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.
00:50:21.000But, you know, I had a little bit of money.
00:50:23.000I'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.
00:50:32.000And I felt like there was a potential of a rainy day around the corner.
00:50:36.000It took that in the first six months to hire lawyers for everybody.
00:50:42.000Everyone that was getting sued, I was cutting $5,000 retainers for going, there's a purpose for this money.
00:50:46.000I only have it because I got on the show because of my relationship with the Walrus.
00:50:51.000So I'm in for a good chunk of change here.
00:50:59.000The lengths of which and the ability corporations have to destroy individuals.
00:51:04.000The fact that the court is there to facilitate it is precisely why I want to go to trial.
00:51:11.000I'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.
00:51:59.000I 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.
00:52:07.000The world can find out what function these courts have and what their version of justice is.
00:52:12.000I 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.
00:54:51.000The one on Elizabeth Holmes and the Theranos controversy, the blood scanning stuff?
00:54:57.000Anyway, 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.
00:55:21.000But 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.
00:55:34.000If you were talking about your history...
00:55:37.000With training orcas, what you thought it was when you first got in.
00:55:40.000We went into that in several of the other episodes.
00:56:42.000Now, the bright side is it seems to me like Marineland is not going to be around for a terribly long time.
00:56:53.000Once they're dissolved, oh, you bet your ass I got lots to talk about.
00:56:57.000I mean, I would love if I could speak of everything without having to sort of watch...
00:57:03.000You 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...
00:58:08.000She probably doesn't want to be a part of this.
00:58:10.000She's never really had a heavy hand in it.
00:58:12.000I mean, she sort of took care of the cash business aspect of it.
00:58:15.000She had her role in it, but it wasn't like a management position making decisions on animals' health, importing, exporting, things like this.
01:00:05.000This 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.
01:00:20.000It's not like, oh, wait a minute, we just did some tests.
01:00:29.000We're more and more impressed with them the more we study them.
01:00:33.000I 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.
01:01:21.000But 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,
01:01:36.000one of which was right at the entrance of Marineland last year.
01:01:42.000They really don't want bad PR right now.
01:01:45.000My 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.
01:01:56.000And I think, you know, they're trying to fast track an accreditation so that they can facilitate animal movements and whatnot.
01:02:04.000My greatest weapon right now, unfortunately, is that I can assure them a great deal of financial risk.
01:02:13.000I have, and I certainly can and am right now.
01:02:18.000They need to take that into consideration.
01:02:20.000When 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?
01:06:38.000I think he's been in a few movies with Will Ferrell where he was playing basketball and he wrestled him in the middle of the basketball game.
01:06:46.000Well, 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.
01:07:32.000The people that are trying to have you interact with these animals like that, they're relying on the animal's shock factor, the shock and awe.
01:07:40.000They're bringing these animals in close proximity to scare you.
01:11:25.000And 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.
01:12:20.000On 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.
01:12:35.000But that's the only pro, is introducing human beings, like little human beings in particular, to these animals.
01:12:43.000Everything 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.
01:12:56.000But other than that, it's an animal prison, man.
01:13:28.000See, 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.
01:13:35.000I watched a video on YouTube some weeks ago and it was Marineland in the 70s and man, was this place busy.
01:13:41.000And the people were just – I mean they were climbing over each other to be next to the pool.
01:13:48.000I've never seen the amount of people that this thing had.
01:13:50.000And 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.
01:14:17.000You're looking at exactly what you see today in terms of the animals and the conditions that they're in.
01:14:21.000Yet 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.
01:14:34.000It was really a weird and strange thing.
01:14:37.000But that's, you know, Marineland's a legacy business.
01:14:40.000They built themselves on having people come and experience the shock and awe of these animals, and they did very, very well.
01:15:25.000We don't have much experience with real animals.
01:15:29.000And even the animals that you have experience with, they're urbanized.
01:15:32.000You know, like pigeons that you can feed, or squirrels that take peanuts from you.
01:15:37.000You get out into the world, and the world of the wild, of forests and mountains, and you see actual real animals, and it's almost psychedelic.
01:15:48.000There's like a weird paradigm shift that goes through when you see a wild animal.
01:15:54.000In the actual wild, like, oh, this is where it's supposed to be.
01:15:57.000It kind of feels weird because you're in their world.
01:17:04.000Do 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?
01:17:12.000So 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.
01:17:50.000And whereas they used to be massive ones, now they've got these little tiny ones.
01:17:54.000And 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.
01:18:01.000I'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.
01:18:09.000I mean, this was, this captivated the world.
01:18:12.000I 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.
01:19:18.000To the best of my abilities, I could tell you when an animal was excited based on their sounds they were making.
01:19:24.000Like 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.
01:19:33.000When she let out this squawk at the bottom of the pool before pumping her tail and launching, you just knew it, man.
01:19:50.000I 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.
01:20:02.000I've had my name mentioned in the House of Commons.
01:21:22.000Yeah, he's, I mean, this is a member of parliament.
01:21:24.000This 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.
01:21:35.000Now we've got people outright saying, like, this place is a hole.
01:21:38.000I mean, wow, how far we've come in the last six and a half years.
01:23:20.000They're They're well into the process of finding a site.
01:23:25.000Considerations are being made for a Washington State site, a Vancouver site, but it appears as though they're settled on maybe Nova Scotia.
01:23:32.000The community there at large is looking to work with them.
01:23:40.000Once 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.
01:23:55.000Well, if such a site exists and Marineland is keen on getting rid of their animals, we'll have a place for them.
01:24:04.000I told you last time I was here that my dream is to save whales.
01:24:14.000Additionally, 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.
01:24:23.000So 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.
01:24:38.000I'm watching in real time as it's materializing.
01:24:47.000This 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...
01:25:42.000It'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.
01:25:54.000And 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.
01:26:57.000And 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.
01:31:56.000The first shout-out is to you, the last one's to you, the one in the middle's to you, every one of them.
01:32:00.000You've changed my world personally, but you've really changed the landscape of this entire thing.
01:32:04.000Whitney 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.
01:32:09.000So, like, a couple of fucksy worlds out there as often as you can, and just...
01:32:12.000Keep this stuff up because you've had a heavy hand in all this.
01:32:16.000Along with, for instance, Senator Wilfred Moore, who's the person who tabled this piece of legislation, Murray Sinclair.
01:32:24.000I 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.
01:32:35.000And yeah, if you didn't hear me shout out your name, sorry.
01:32:43.000There'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.
01:32:55.000There'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.
01:33:15.000Just a decade or two decades and then we're gonna be looking back saying how the fuck did we let this slide?
01:33:32.000That'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.
01:33:43.000It's very important for the human race.
01:33:45.000I've had faith through and through and it's not failed me.