British broadcaster Jonny Meah assumes an attitude of natural curiosity as he takes a close look at the question of whether killer whales should be kept in tanks for public display.
In a video he produced and edited, Meah visits Marineland of Antibes in the French Riviera, where he lays out the best case possible for each side of the argument. “Inside the Tanks” is Meah’s first-ever documentary production, and he is not afraid to put himself in the middle of the debate, expressing his own feelings as he weighs each side.
“I was inspired to make this documentary and tackle this debate, despite it’s enormity, because I believe one way or another something needs to be done,” Meah told the Bellingham-based Lemonade magazine. “I truly believe that, in many cases, the issue has become less about animals and more about personal hatred, whether that’s towards an organization or a particular person; that goes for both sides, too…
“I think previous pieces on the topic have been really, really interesting, but I personally felt that there was a gap, and a need in one of these pieces for a view from someone in support of captivity as well. So that is where ‘Inside The Tanks’ comes in.”
In an opinion piece written for HuffPost, Matthew Spiegl, an advocate for whales and dolphins, admires Meah’s approach at revealing his personal transformation as he goes about discovering some common ground between “activist” and “keeper.”
Spiegl also credits Jon Kershaw, zoological director at Marineland Antibes. for his openness when commenting about the realities of running a marine park.
“When Meah asks Mr. Kershaw a question about an unusual crease in the dolphins’ necks (as pointed out by biologist Ingred Visser), he acknowledges he had never thought about it being due to the dolphins always looking up at the trainers and agrees that it is the dolphin’s posture which likely causes the crease and that such a posture is not something that would be seen in the wild.”
In March 2016, SeaWorld announced that it would no longer perform captive breeding of killer whales, following an agreement with the Humane Society of the U.S. (See Water Ways, March 17, 2016). Six months later, California outlawed the captive breeding of orcas. Last month, shortly after “Inside the Tanks” was completed, the French government followed suit by banning captive breeding. (The documentary makes a footnote at the end, including a further comment from Kershaw.)
Meah says he looks forward to his first encounter with killer whales in the wild, though he is not sure when that will happen, and he hopes to continue his journalistic endeavors on the subject.
