A Canadian Senate bill introduced today seeks to put a ban on owning or otherwise using cetaceans for human profit or benefit.
The progressive bill, introduced by Senator Wilfred Moore, seeks amendments within existing Canadian law in a bid to phase out cetacean captivity for good.
Most notable are the amendments to the Criminal Code, which seeks to make owning, controlling, moving and breeding a cetacean a punishable offence, with such activities carrying potential prison and financial ramifications.
"We applaud Senator Moore for initiating this bill, as it reflects the growing public understanding that intelligent cetaceans have the right to exist freely in their natural habitat and to not be used for profit or any human benefit,” says International Marine Mammal Project's Laura Bridgeman, who helped to advise on the bill.
The bill represents an important step along humanity’s evolving understanding that these being should be completely beyond use of human beings, which no animal currently is. “In a way, this bill is an implicit acknowledgement that cetaceans are nonhuman persons: that they have dignity, not a price, just like we humans do,” says Bridgeman.
In 2013, India made the decision to ban cetacean captivity from within its borders and declared that cetaceans should be considered nonhuman persons. The bill also builds on the recent Ontario ban of orca captivity. The conditions could be ripe for Canada to take a major pro-cetacean, anti-captivity stance.
For more information on dolphin and whale nonhuman personhood advocacy, see Sonar: Cetacean Rights.