Phil Demers

00:00It's legit. I don't sit on wallets. I don't play with wallets. Fuck no You ready? Oh I wasn't sure you got up to move cameras around Phil show me is you have a it's a mini fanny pack. It's very small It's like you can carry everything I need and a small phone. You can't carry a modern phone That's like pre-modern the six fits in there the six plus would be a problem. Maybe bang against your dick I gotta tighten her up. So what's going on man? So for everybody who hasn't seen you on the podcast before Let's give them a brief synopsis You were a trainer at one time at marine land and you uh, you're known as the walrus whisperer That's your your handle on uh, twitter, which I didn't select by the way You didn't know how'd you get it? I was on a tv show called wipeout and it was grassroots as hell in canada

00:53So basically what they do is they fly you out to argentina they they they sort of uh, you rent the the course So and then they instead of it being you know Wipe out whatever country this time it's canada. So it was really grassrootsy and so they told us If you guys can like help advertise so get on your twitters get on your this get on your that They called me walrus whisperer. It just made sense to put it. Otherwise. Oh, I see. I don't particularly love it So it was like for a show it was for but let's explain You worked for marine land you got fired you were you were taking care of this walrus and it became like a big cause Because a lot of people were concerned about the animal safety there and since then they've been sighted like what what has happened with marine land? Okay, well, so I'll give you a quick rundown. So, um I worked at marine land. I was killer whale trainer

01:41I was the guy jumping off the killer whales doing the right flips off dolphins everything else Um, I wasn't fired. I quit amidst Some duress a difficult period where and i'll elaborate but basically a water disinfection unit broke down and the resolve wasn't so much to fix it It was to pump it with more and more chlorine basically Uh, the way water is disinfected at marine land. They use an ozone generator So they use ozone in conjunction with the chlorine to sort of mitigate the chlorine use They elected instead Or rather the sole controlling mind elected to put off actually fixing it and let's just At night they're pumping it with chlorine Well, you can just imagine the effects and i'm not talking about a little bit of chlorine. So this was this was a tough time So so I actually quit and I actually quit on imagine the effect so it hurt the animals. Oh

02:27And you yeah, we talked about this on the earlier shows people want to go back in time a few years to when you first appeared on the show Um, there was like some serious issues health issues with dolphins, right? Yeah, their skin's peeling off there. They've got ulcers. I mean the sea lions are losing Fur and patches bleeding out. I mean, uh This case is at least one animal died and things started getting real bad and of course My walrus in in in all of this is there and she's in the water as well So this only compounds the issue and the thing about the walrus is it's and I use the word a lot It's anomalous my relationship with she thinks i'm her mom. It was like a scientific thing that happened Her brain circuitry opens I imprint on her. So my smelled everything I look like or you know Because you were there when she was a baby

03:11Well, she was actually two years old when it happened. That's what makes it kind of that's not a baby That's not a baby. No, how old is that in the walrus world? Like is it dog years? No, she's still young. I mean, you know how you have dog years? She's babyish. Yeah It's not but she's fairly young and you were a caretaker So she imprinted that you were her parent Well, there was sort of a traumatic thing that happened We uh, we were drawing blood from them because back then, you know, they're not trained to to to Accept the pain of drawing blood And so, uh, she wasn't conditioned for this. They were young. We had to get blood So we were actually doing a job on another walrus and she was sort of loose running out And we were wrestling her down And and smooshy come over she's climbing hectic and crazy and uh, you know, she's still

03:55Almost 300 pounds at that point, you know, you gotta move her if she's if she's climbing all over you It's it's a big obstruction So I sort of put my hands in front of her face and that's what happened. I'm telling you You could it was like a magical moment all of a sudden something happened and she just looked at me Her eyes changed I changed I was now a different person. I'm now her mom She was following me so I walked down away from the scene She was following me and from that moment on she never stopped and that's just sort of became the basis of our relationship Is that I've sort of raised her so dude you'd put like the touch on her I put the touch on her yeah with these two hands right here right in front of her face and what is that a normal thing with animals? Like I said it it almost never happens you hear of animals imprinting on humans a lot of times

04:33Not usually at at her age. That was a bit advanced for that to happen Usually it happens when they're very young right if it's gonna happen Yeah, it does it does happen when people raise bears and a lot of weird animals that you wouldn't ordinarily think as pets But I don't know if it would be an actual imprint like the imprint is different. There's one thing of familiarizing How do you differentiate? Well, it's just it's natural. Oh She's protective of me. She will not leave my side I mean, I could walk to the edge of the earth with her. She'll be beside me. You can't do that with she's still in marine land right now I Yes, I haven't seen any updated photos in some time, so I can't be absolutely sure but yeah I'm fairly sure but she's hidden they won't they do not bring her on display. She's not on display. You're not gonna find her why

05:14They hide they hide the pinnipeds basically seal sea lions and walruses They bring in her case. She doesn't perform anymore when she comes out. She's not reliable You can't get her to do anything. All she does is goes out on stage and she looks for me frantically So she's not reliable so they bring her up between shows occasionally so she can see the Sun and that's it And so, you know I've got to have people in there with video cameras ready and I mean, it's tough, but we get the videos we I Get the information I need so what's going on with you and them now because there's been a series of lawsuits and This is one of the reasons why you wanted to come in here and talk right so they've so they sued me of course Frivolously they they sued me with Plotting to steal a walrus is the is the their allegation this was in 2000. This is actually

06:00Five-year anniversary comes up on on Valentine's plotting to steal walrus. Did you try to get her out of there? No If I tried to get her out of there. I'd have her today. No, I wouldn't I have nowhere to put a walrus Well, that's not true I do have a river in the front yard, but I I have no interest in in releasing her into the nag river and then watch her go over the falls It's I have no interest right So no nothing like that. I don't have a beachfront arctic home to carry her to but Yeah, so they started uh suing the shit out of anyone who spoke anyone who spoke on the record was getting sued So it wasn't just me. It was a number of people And uh, yeah, so we just elected to try to fight as long as we could try to sustain This legal battle because you know in lawsuits You've got to reveal a lot of information a lawsuit. It's not fun like this

06:43I mean relance had everything from my phone to like the I mean not physically but i've given what do you mean by everything like your phone? All communications. I have everything. Yeah, wait a minute So if they sue you for trying to take a walrus that you didn't actually try to take they can get access to your phone records They can ruin your life. Yeah, but that doesn't mean anything they can get access to your phone or why would they have access to your phone records? They have they have I have a legal obligation of giving them anything that is relevant to their claim. So be it Communications be it Yeah, but what does that mean does that mean they can read all your text messages read all your emails read all they got it all Yeah, they know who you've called everything. Yeah. Wow. It's crazy

07:23And I have zero from them after five years because they're using the system as a means to just simply abuse me and acting the fool as their As relance legal team does exceptionally well Proves prove very effective in you know Abusing a guy like me whereas a corporation with endless amounts of money just sue the shit out of me So they're basically just suing you to punish you and to try to keep other people from doing the same thing and talking out about them They've sued media. They've sued a student 18 year old kid from california who didn't eat it was a yet to be released uh Project movie. He made almost like a cartoon he It was in the uh in the key of marine lands Canada's last remaining orca kiska and uh Marine land caught wind of that and they sued him for a million bucks Of course, I assume that's settled now. I don't know

08:13There's no way of knowing because I haven't heard anything of it, but and what was their lawsuit based on? They and at least in what I I think I just scanned the documents, but they alleged that I can't remember did how does that work when they sue someone from california does he have to go to canada? That's interesting. I don't know actually I and that's that's what was so confusing about I was like Now you're you're suing americans and stuff like I don't know if that works. They sued another writer in fact as well an american writer um They don't give a shit. They'll just sue you didn't they get they get fined recently So didn't something happen along those lines? Yeah, they got charged with 11 counts of animal cruelty a little over a year ago um I was in court of course marine land sues ospca for 21 million alleges agency wanted to destroy the theme park So that's where we're going. So basically

09:08Down the road over the course of okay, I got to get into this Okay, so the charges they have 11 charges of animal cruelty first They were five or five or six and then an additional five or six now There's a total of 11 Charges for animal cruelty that marine land has to go to the criminal courts defend against okay They drag it on as always i'm in court every freaking day. You can bet your ass um even even one time there was a uh It was a confidential meeting. In fact, it was not for public I mean a a local writer knock on the door cut sort of walk in and the lawyers are looking at us like the fuck you doing here But we're like hey like can we sit in on Anyways, I don't know what you just said There was a and there was during the negotiations right between the the the crown and the ospca for the crown

09:49Yeah, the crown that's the one who would be laying the charges the uh, the animal cruelty charges. So you get charged Okay, what is the crown? What are they the crown is like the is the justice? He's like the essentially the judge. So you're before the judge. Canadian talk. Yes. Oh, sorry We don't know what the fuck that means the crown this could get confused crown He doesn't wear one but okay, so so it's like crown land. I know crown land is public land. Yeah, so right So I imagine that's probably in some capacity Why it's called crown. I don't know i'm not i'm not a legal expert, but nonetheless so they're in there negotiating and basically The way animal cruelty charges Uh, are pursued is they have to meet two thresholds number one You have to have a reasonable uh Chance of conviction Number two it has to be in the public's interest to pursue

10:36A series of the first charges were immediately dropped because And this is It's just been driving me crazy for years that this has been going on and it continues But if I for instance if I make a complaint to the ospc and I provide a photo of an animal which of course I did That is clearly damaged and fucked up If they don't physically have evidence of who it is that's actually harming the animal There's no cruelty. They can't do anything So in that case they dropped a lot of the charges against marine land because the evidence didn't actually point to anyone specifically It was just evidence of damaged animals. Okay, so they threw a bunch out. Okay But then there was a bunch that were that they did have a A good chance at a conviction and this is where marine land promised the crown that this was going to be a very expensive process

11:19Long and drawn out process and the crown agreed that it didn't meet the threshold It exceed the threshold of being in the public public's interest in spending a lot of of of public dollars Pursuing these charges and so they dropped the rest of them marine land turns around and sues the ospca for 21 million dollars claiming that It was malicious prosecution that of course they named they didn't name me specifically But i'm always the unnamed marine land employee in that and they allege that I threatened to defund them and all They think i'm this kaiser soze like character, which I don't mind playing up a little bit But they think i'm i'm pulling strings all over the place and that I half exist half don't I think there's employees there that think that i'm like I don't know So they they get brought up on 11 charges of animal cruelty The charges get dropped and they turn around and sue the government

12:0521 million dollars the same government that let them off for years the ospca has been complacent or complicit in in in Sorting allowing marine land to operate as they have unimpeded for you know 50 50 years They've had a good relationship marine land in fact donated the land of which the uh, niagara falls humane society is Is built on which is where the ospca operates out of there was a plaque on the wall until you know After 2012 when we sort of spoke out that honored marine lands owner john holer for his generosity Wow, yeah, you sort of get red pill is that red pills at the right pill pretty quickly when you that's the wake up pill So that was my weight. What moment? Holy fuck like uh, things things started to change pretty fast for me once I'd realized the depth of which marine land was sort of in with

12:49All levels of government really all levels of government and so they you know, they continue to sort of Allow for them to do these things, but but they're suing the government Yeah, and you can't possibly be in bed with the government and suing him Or the canadian association of zoos and aquarium which used to accredit all the zoos in canada or still does they accredit them So they try to they try to say oh, this is a good zoo. It's accredited Marine land I believe Also threatened them because they were not going to renew their uh, their uh Their agreement this year and so marine land claimed to have Left them and they said you know, we're we're in the phase of development right now We're gonna just leave this canadian association of zoos and aquarium. It's absolute bullshit They were not they were so yeah marine lands basically has they're they're out of friends. That's for sure finally

13:37But it took a lot of eating shit to get finally get that to get to that So but the real issue in your mind is the way they treat the animals the way they run their business right is that well, I would say that i've expanded now into just Arguing that those animals should not be in a in marine land's possession be altogether the whales and pools is done It should be done done. It should be done And I think after blackfish mean before you came on or when you came on it was before blackfish had been released And then once people saw what actually happens to these Super intelligent animals when you lock them up in swimming pools They they're starting to realize it and sea world's attendance is down and people are down on the whole idea Especially killer whales. I mean god, they're just these giant majestic animals. It seems so fucked up

14:24To put them in these tanks and to separate them from families. I mean the emotional distress they go through I I'm a firm believer that emotionally We don't even have the slightest sense of how complex they can be right because they don't have an ability to express themselves to us and other than eating us Occasionally and then which killer whales only do in captivity. Yeah, there's no there's no records of uh killer whale attacks in the wild Yeah, they fuck people up in captivity though. They're like Enough. Oh, i've been in the pool with a pissed off killer whale. Have you? Oh, yeah I jumped in one time. I was i'm I mean, I was a stubborn. I was a bit of a cowboy as a young guy too and like adrenaline junkie I like to have fun. I like to jump off the killer. I like to hurt throw me up high

15:00So I was having a show with her basically the way the shows where she throw you their tail or on the end of her rostrum right on The end of her nose. She don't you it's called a rocket ride You get on the front of the whale As such at the top of the water and then she starts to pump her tail and then you dive down with her She'll follow you everywhere. She everywhere you go and then uh, it's like flying a plane man It's amazing and then you just arc up and then she just takes it to the moon and she's screaming underwater when she's having a good time Or rather when she's expressing herself that she's gonna toss you This particular time when I when I was when I probably shouldn't have gone in the water Why? Well, she was pissed. I could see in her eyes. How could you tell that she's pissed? You know, the animals like it

15:33I mean, that's the whole basis of being a trainer is to get to know the animals know their behavior Know everything about them. You spend a lot of time with them. What are the indications? So in this case I was so the way those the shows work I mean, they don't they don't exist anymore But back in the day was you work the animal initially to get a sense of of their demeanor So you got them jump in you got them run around you get engaged, you know You get a good sense of how they are on that particular day Uh, she just wasn't responding real quick Her eyes were a little big big. She wasn't focused on me. She's looking elsewhere. She's sort of drifting off a bit I just didn't really have her attention, but I think I don't know what maybe I had my dad in the crowd or something I wanted to jump off her

16:07So I look at the senior trainer at the time. She's like, I don't know dude like you're gonna jump in on my fucking i'm jumping in I go to jump in I get to the edge of the pool She's standing directly above me or below me. I dive over her She she lunges at me and she snaps and I see it from below me like I see under that she's jumped up and snapped at me so now I've Snapped at you like tried to bite you. Yeah, she tried to grab me So now I feel like if she really wanted to bite you she would just oh yeah Well, so so now I'm so it was a warning bite or was it a bite bite? Probably definitely a warning bite otherwise I wouldn't be here today Right she if you that's what I'm saying like it's not she would miss no She's not gonna miss so and and so what happens so it gets further so now I'm in the water and I'm now at the top of the water and

16:51And staring down at her she's now inverted upside down and she's swimming and she's circling the pool So upside down. Yeah, huh when you get frustrated they start doing these things She's upside down and she's swimming in circles. I'm looking at going. Holy shit If I if I take off out of the pool That's gonna trigger some response out of her that I don't necessarily want to know so I'm saying calm Why would that happen? I think that it if she doesn't want you out of the pool, you're not getting out If you're getting out of the pool, it's gonna be on it's gonna be her decision If I if I start trying to race out she knows I'm trying to get out She doesn't want me out. She's staying me in there. She's keep me in it. I don't want to know where that's going. That's interesting. So you knew that you had to stay in there then I'm without choice

17:28That's that's the best course of action at this point because if I'm not going to win a race out of that pool And so now I'm upright She comes to the surface and I see her dorsal fin and she's coming pretty quickly at me and I put my hands up like this I'll never forget it. She arcs her tail down Arcs her back up like stops dead at me. It's I remember this big wake happened I put my hands on her rostrum. I just sort of tap her try to calm her and then I put my feet on her pecs I sort of she takes me to the stage She dunks down she and then she picks me up puts me on the stage. I sort of back away like, well, thank you Thank you for like being nice to me I had a friend's dad one time there and uh, he's one of these guys I told him I took him on a tour I'm like, okay, just don't touch the big male sea lions I mean, they got big teeth. They want to rip your arm off. They can't they're not

18:10Typically aggressive, but just don't touch him and he's in there like this. I'm like, oh, dude I take him out to show the killer whale. I could see that this is another time of course, but I could see that she's losing patience and she did the same thing as soon as we turned our backs I said to him I go, you know what? Maybe we should just step away As soon as he turned his back to go she lunged same thing and tried to tried to grab It's crazy man, and I was just like holy shit man So they don't have killer whale shows there anymore? Well that kill that particular killer whale kiska. She's the only one left in Canada. There's no more in Canada There's not ever going to be marine lands never gonna get another one Uh, she's been sort of unresponsive for a long time. She's on a lot of medication uh

18:45Medication oh tons of medication like what kind of medication you put a killer whale on well, she's got different Uh, I mean you gauge the blood and you start putting on antibiotics antibiotics you get them on uh uh Uh Uh How do you take blood from a killer whale flip them over and they got out? They've got a In their tail. There's a series of large veins you just roll them over they let you yeah, everything's everything is Everything is everything is trained in that they're gonna provide it voluntarily So and it takes a long time to train these things But you train and sit and you just prick it You just literally grab this little needle you put it in the in the vein They don't get pissed at you they get pissed if you miss and you keep trying Don't do that Fuck yeah, i've seen It happens, but they let you take their blood

19:29If they're healthy and responsive, yeah, of course if they're not there's nothing that's going to get you to the get them to the edge of the pool But so you you take their blood and then they what do they find? They send them to the lab you want to look at cortisol levels how the stress is you want to look at white blood count See if they're fighting any infections, uh, you know, there's always uh You know in her case there's always something a lot of the animals are in fact on valley on a lot of different What yeah tons what that that is like rampant use in uh in in in the In aquariums what yeah Valium yeah marine land accused me of stealing valium in fact in the lawsuit as well, which is absolutely not true Is this is this used everywhere or is it just marine land or not just marine land sea worlds everywhere? Yeah, what yes, absolutely like dolphins dolphins are on valium all the time

20:11I'm sure I when I was when I was when I left marine land I had the agreement again I left fairly amicably Considering the the the situation, but you know, I wanted to play my cards, right? And uh marine lands owner called me back in specifically To help a dolphin and it was defeated of course the I wish that wasn't the daily mail Oh, yeah, sure Let's what's the other one the dodo is the dodo a good one buzzfeed let's go with buzzfeed Sea world puts its whales on valium like drug documents say Jesus fuck those documents are from a lawsuit between marine land and sea world where sea world sued marine land See on terrace. Yeah at sea world sued marine. Yeah, the old benzodiazepines I'm telling you wow Trainers give their orcas on also known as killer whales a psychoactive drug benzodiazepine

20:58According to the sworn affidavit filed in our Ontario superior court of justice and dispute between the park company the rival company Marineland over the transport of a prize killer whale Icaica Icaica Icaica is if you watch blackfish You've got tilicum. That's the orca that killed. Yeah, that's people that's tilicum son. We had his son Wow, we had him he was I mean in captivity right in captivity in a pool by himself for the most part Raised in cabin bread and born in captivity. Yep. Yeah, which is even more fucked up and he was turning aggressive and Sea world was like they were having none of it They wanted that killer whale back and I don't blame them. It's amazing I'm sued for millions because i'm alleging that That marine land is mistreating their animals Sea world sues marine land because

21:41They're mistreating they're not up taking appropriate care of the killer whale and actually win the lawsuit They would not put any barriers around the pool. We've got a they or marine had a large pool. Imagine this Unimpeded ability to touch a killer whale if you wanted to reach It's not a safe idea. This is absurd. In fact, especially when you're dealing with a large, you know Boisterous male orca So sea world wanted barriers around it so that people can't get close Well, the owner marine land you can't tell him what to do. He's not going to do nothing anyone tells him what to do So suddenly we're dealing with the fact that this animal started to lunge at the public Now this is an animal that if it gets a hold of someone it's over They're just gonna toy with them for a bit. We're gonna hear a lot of screaming, but the screaming will end

22:20You're not getting anyone out of it out of that killer whales mouth forget it And this is what sea world was dealing with. They're just like shit They had enough bad press even back then if I can kill someone or hurt someone or anything or dies in marine lands care It's gonna look bad on sea world. So sea was like get him the fuck out now when tillicum killed people He killed how many people one person three three or four actually in victoria Canada the first one then he went to I think it's absolutely hilarious. They kept training them and kept doing things with them. Like that was a fucking pit bull No big deal. That was a pit bull forget about it be done, but it's a killer whale almost any animal Many if they had a lion they were training, you know lions and the lion killed someone they're like that's a wrap

23:01Unless that line that's not true. There's that one grizzly bear that was a trained grizzly bear for films It was in what's that movie something 40 some football movie with a big bear. Anyway, uh the bear Kill the guy's brother or cousin The guy was just standing there. It's a horrible video. You could watch the video. I've seen it The guy just standing there and the bear just decides to tear the guy's throat apart just reaches up bites him rips his throat open The guy runs off grabbing his neck. He's dead within minutes The joys of working with animals man. I mean well that bear they kept alive and they started training him again And uh, there's some really weird footage of the guy training the bear again It was the one from the will ferrell movie that semi-pro yes semi-pro. That's the dog or the

23:49The dog that's the bear that bear fucking killed somebody look this guy's smacking this bear around look at will That bear eventually killed somebody just got tired of people it takes nothing for him. Oh so easy for him Yeah, just decided to fuck him up um, but now When tillicum was doing all this he was on valium Oh, I can't say for sure that that was the case. I don't want to be sued anymore when they start putting killer whales on valium um so in In ocean oceanariums or uh Aquariums and shit valium is often used as an appetite stimulant So when your animal is off, you know off so they don't they don't eat if they're not responding to buckets of food You're fucked you having to drop the water to get access to them because they're not interested no more They're not your friends anymore if you don't have a bucket of food forget about it

24:40And so to sort of often enough to sort of trigger that appetite you'll pump them with the valium How do they give them valium if they don't want to eat stuff it right in the fold? Oh, well then you get liquid valium you can inject as well well if necessary Oh the injections. I mean that's a process the things that i've seen and done that were normal to me and normal to anyone who's working there is insane I mean we used to drop we used to call this beluga rodeo And at marine land marine lands notorious for having like I we have I say we Uh over 50 I put to their push in 60 belugas at this point And this is why it's so important to start changing these fucking laws because this is absurd and and it creates a whole world of problems Of course socially for these animals babies get killed by males. It's it's yeah, it's gross. It's bad. It's not manageable

25:24Nonetheless what we would do is we would drop the water in one of the pools so you'd have I mean anywhere between 10 and 15 belugas flat on their stomach There's a grate at the bottom of the can't move they can't move well If they want to move they can but they're flopping around but it means they're gonna get fucked up bad like scratched up by the ground So if you've got maybe a little bit of water we we've tried different things to try to mitigate how damaged up they got there was one time I mean they get carved up we used to call it I mean it's morbid but we used to joke around we call it the Caesar water because it was blood red by the time we were done These procedures i'm telling you joe it would make you sick. It was the water was thick of blood

26:02And so one time there was a it was a beluga named peanut and she started to panic and what she did was she repeatedly slammed her tail in a panic She started to bounce around like a fucking basketball. She was getting air three feet in the air She was you know, she's probably a 3,000 pound whale 2,000 pound whale or something So you're not going to stop that we tried of course we jump on her chunks of her tail I'm not joking chunks of her tail flying off flying off If anyone goes to marine land go ask about peanut go take a look at her at her tail. There's nothing left of it She's got like a nub that's sort of like it would jag it on the bottom She was fucked up after that again lots of meds lots of recovery, but it was Foul man, so is this this benzodiazepine is this a Recent thing that they started doing to know I wouldn't say so I can't vouch for any time before

26:452,000 when I started but for sure once we were there I mean so when you go to sea world and you see those Kill whales and dolphins doing shows they're just pilled up out of their fucking minds It's a it's hardly a semblant It's merely a semblance of their wild counterpart. You're not going there and seeing a dynamic animal no more you're seeing a depressed drugged uh confused probably frustrated animal and I mean again what those what those animals go through It's difficult for people to give a shit about anything if it doesn't affect them personally If you see an animal going through this it you you you feel it you start to appreciate You know, it's weird that is like call I feel weird even calling them animals I feel like um like killer whales and dolphins in particular are so fucking intelligent It's it's hard to call them animals. I mean obviously humans are animals as well, but

27:35They are their own thing I mean those marine mammals are their own thing They have their own world and they dominated it Yeah, and in their world man, it's a fucking amazing world this They they're one of the only animals that we know of That has a really complex language and we can't even decipher it And then just last week uh marine land in france is is talking about wiki. It's a killer whale that just picked up uh She mimics she mimics human voice So they've got her saying like hello. Hi and these different things it sort of sounds like she's mimicking What if she started saying a bunch of racial shit racial slurs? Well, then let's get her But uh Canada to ban capture of dolphins yesterday. Yeah, yeah, but the capture is uh, it's already illegal in the united states, right? Well, you you you you have to go through the uh, you can get them from canada Canada gets them from being captured

28:27Canada can get them from anywhere this so basically the the department of fisheries and oceans very Strategically talked about this sweeping overhaul of the uh, of uh, or whatever this Their thing whatever it is Um, the words eluding me, but um They did this I believe anyways to sort of mitigate sort of justin trudeau went off about the uh, the kinder morgan Pipeline sort of he ran it's that it's a it's a big pipeline that that they're gonna You know run this oil in bc And there's a lot of protests when he ran on the campaign that he wouldn't do this You know, just trudeau talks about saving the world all the time and cleaning up the environment So they've made this announcement now that's a good that's a good piece of legislation Uh, it doesn't ban the breeding it doesn't address a lot of the things that we're actually uh, addressing with bill s203

29:10Which is the one that I spoke to you two years ago that marine land has managed to get this guy This senator to keep playing again acting the fool doing all these creative ways to kill this bill And that's where we're at now I mean, I I expect sometime next week to get an announcement This this bill should have been passed and brought into the house a long time ago And uh, you know not the case still dot still stalled and everything and again, it's all lobbying illegal lobbying which may or may not Turn into some problems for senator don platt Correct me if i'm wrong, but for a while some of the some of the parks in the united states would get them from some of the parks in canada Which would get them from russians and chinese who would capture them in the wild right? So so the parks in the united states would say that they don't capture whales

29:53So what they would do is marine land would capture a boatload of wild ones and then once uh, uh They would do it personally? Well, they would pay some russians to to capture the russians that they always use oh, yeah goddamn russians Oh, man, i'm not gonna cheat in the olympics. They're stealing whales So they bring the whales in wild those what those those whales have for instance, uh, you know They sire a calf that calf is now deemed uh Uh captive born and now it can be shipped to the states and so so what marine land was doing was just Breeding like crazy and then sending them to sea world I mean, that's how we got the the killer whale to begin with how we got icacos, you know big trade with belugas and And so that's we're trying to put an end to because all these loopholes, you know marine land really capitalized on this

30:33But they want a long time lobbying the government for years. I mean they've been around for for 50 plus years They've had they've they've done all the right moves a businessman would do if he wants to keep in a thriving business without Too many hands sort of keeping them from doing anything It's just so disturbing that we're willing to just accept this because we don't know what they're saying You know, we know that they have a really complex language We can't decipher it though because it's so alien in terms of like the sounds that they make It's not something you put into a box, but it's not like any other animal between dolphins and killer whales and whales in General they they make sounds in with a range of complexity that's just unrivaled in nature outside of humans and their auditory system is so Complex when you put them in a we put them in a concrete pool. Just imagine what I mean

31:18I put my ears under the water and it's loud. Yeah, the filters are going you got different sounds I mean, right Water being pushed in from this pipe and that people screaming people screaming music louder louder louder popcorn the audience. Yeah burgers fucking Yeah God damn It's I mean I look at them almost like they're kind of I mean, they're definitely not human But they're kind of people they're like a water people. It's weird if you if you put yourself in the mindset of looking at an animal and and Try to change your perception of them a little bit rather than than sort of disassociating and you look at them You start you can actually see that they're like oh, it's like they're people man like that's that's just a different meat suit Yeah, like and when you deal with killer whales and stuff I mean well, they evolved in a different environment, but they evolved to be incredibly social

32:06Highly dynamic populations. They they live in these very intimate groups. They stay together for life a male killer whale will never leave its mother's side Over its lifetime. It'll stay within about a body's length its entire life unless the pod starts beating on it Then it'll just stay out on the outside of the pod for a while At least they have that luxury of escape whereas in captivity males get the shit kicked out of them They're big puppy dogs big male orcas. I mean yeah, okay. They're murderous They're killing people, but they're actually big puppy dogs They're they're I've always felt so bad for candy. We had this big male beautiful big bull male I he was just he was rocked his existence having been pulled from his mother and this is really largely explains why Tillich Oh, you ruin their lives. That's over. I mean their whole

32:52The reason they remember to they remember never get a mother that fuck man. It's just why do we allow this? It seems to me like Like almost a form of slavery. I mean, I don't want to diminish the horrors of human slavery because in human slavery at least There's no question whatsoever that that's a human and there's communication. Yeah, so it's it's as awful as it gets But god damn put the ignorance aside. The slavery of killer whales is like really close. It's really close The only way to get them to work Effectively and efficiently is to keep them hungry Oh drug them and keep them hungry. So Yeah, it's brutal. How is it still legal? I mean isn't see you isn't sea world? Are they expanding didn't they just make a bigger Pool for the killer whales like well, we're so nice to our killer whales. We gave them a bigger cage Yeah

33:46So what they've done is they've tried to repackage the show as we're not doing the big dynamic show But they really still are they're like we're just showing natural behaviors, which is bitch what natural behavior Let them go fuck up a whale shit. They put a fuck they put like a like a backdrop of a couple trees and some shit like a new show Hey, see world. There's a lot of crazy shit going on. I mean in in in California See world now see were promised to stop banning Uh, rather they promised to stop breeding the killer whales, right? But these fucking promises don't do not believe for a moment that they're like some type of responsible corporate citizens is gonna hold on to this thing It's bullshit. So we're an entity but business entity they're trying to make money And so what california did was they they went out and banned it so in california you can't breed orcas

34:27I don't import export issues all that but in florida So again sea world makes the promise they had an orca protection act that they were looking to do exactly california They were gonna put it. They were gonna make it concrete Pass the law that way that way sea world can't just backpedal on it down the road which everyone suspects they will Sea world is lobbying like fucking crazy and just just last week successfully defeated the bill again They're putting a lot of world is trying to defeat a bill that they successfully defeated multiple times Including that just last week that allows them or the bill would keep them from breeding these animals in captivity So they're fighting against that. Yeah successfully fighting it's over they're doing in florida. Yeah while they're Pretending in california. They don't want to breed them. Well, no in california. They actually passed the law the state

35:10Because it's a law in flora. It was defeated repeatedly and now Fuck man. So they're trying they're trying to breed animals in captivity and if they do breed them in florida They'll be able to ship them to california to china. So that's where the demand is right now And in fact sea world was just bought by a large chinese corporation. They just named They just named one of the one of the guys to the sea world board And so what people I mean, it's safe to assume that this is exactly what's happening is sea world is Is planning their exit strategy and they're gonna start sending their their orcas to to china. Oh, jesus christ Where that's a booming industry right now. In fact killer whale captivity is like if you can get you in there and it's all coming out of russia, right still but And so they're still capturing them in the wild. Yep in in china. It's it's a it's a burgeoning uh Booming industry

36:01Man 44 ocean theme parks in china right now. Jesus building up like crazy How many of them are in the united states? How many aquariums? Yeah, I don't know. I can't I can't say for sure Oh I was actually surprised to read there's like 300 and something dolphins in captivity in the states I didn't I think that was the number I saw I didn't realize that was that big I had no idea that there was that many in captivity in the states It just seems to be such an archaic thing And it just I can't imagine that the united states wants to keep doing that The fact that sea world is trying to keep doing that in florida and that they've successfully lobbied To allow them to keep breeding these animals in captivity, but you can't Once you have them in captivity for a long time say if sea world wanted to release them

36:43They can't really release them. There's nowhere to release them and that's what's being worked on now There's a project called the whale sanctuary project and I I suspect there'll be a fairly large announcement soon I believe they'll be looking at a location in uh In canada and they're going to build this thing though There will be a place for them, which is a great place to do it because how would they do that? Well, you go coastal of course. I mean you got to be in the ocean. You're gonna pen off an area you gotta I mean There's lots of things to consider you got to make sure there's a lot of water changes a lot of different things Because you can't keep the animal in something that's gonna stagnate Keep them in it. So it's gonna be some sort of a cage it yeah assume a fence of sorts Around there may be like a fjord. I wouldn't be a fjord if it's in canada, but like just imagine jump

37:21It I imagine that they'll make certain that that's not gonna be the case, but uh, well they can i've seen i've seen dolphins jump out of the pool That's crazy. Yeah. Yeah. I got rushed in one morning to uh I called in because a because a dolphin jumped out of the pool Holy shit I mean that's a wake-up call when you get there and you see this thing flopping around and you're like jesus christ And I do you do well you get the sling together first off There's you know, we have these different slings and things that you know to move these dolphins So I was I was alone how much does a dolphin weigh yeah, like 500 pounds 600 pounds in this case She was she was a decent sized female So I went and grabbed a kid out in a ticket booth or some shit It was too early in the morning. I had no staff there Rush him in i'm like dude. I got two guys

38:00I'm, like we got to get this dolphin and these guys I mean if you've never done that before your jaws on the floor, right? I fucking had these two Steel poles on my shoulders dolphin in the sling lifting her up. I swear to you, man My back went backwards like this. It was the heaviest thing I'd ever carried, but we got her back in It was crazy But yeah jumped out of the pool. It was crazy In fact, there was a time in the summer I remember where one of our dolphins was teetering on the edge what she would do is she you know They're always spy hopping like this looking over the edge at the crowd Explain that to people that are just listening Okay, so we're just listening so imagine there's like a short wall something that you know, they can look over So they're sort of spy hopping they're spying up to look okay

38:33One of our dolphins learned that she can actually jump up on the ledge and balance now she was on that That's like an eight-foot drop to the concrete on the other side of this pool She's up there posing. I'm hearing the crowd. I'm backstage. I hear the crowd going crazy I'm like what is this I go out there. She's having fun doing this. Holy shit. That's the dolphin that jumped out So what we did is what I said We got to take her out of this pool We took her out put her in the back pool where no one would see her of course and that's the next day She actually jumped so I should be dead today if we hadn't moved her oh Then of course all marina did was put up like more you know more obstruction things to keep keep them in the pool So now when you find her outside of the pool, how long had she been outside for she was still wet?

39:08So it wasn't so bad, but one one dolphin was we found her that she she she got stuck on the stage overnight And when we got there her skin had become so dry that it was it was starting to crack it was kind of fucked up she actually has this permanent scar from Having dried up yeah, and a chunk come out Oh, I don't know what she was probably thrashing Are you talking to her when you find her do you try to comfort her like I mean yeah sure Hugging her and everything else. Let's go. Does she calm down when she realizes people are trying to help her? Like are they aware what's going on or she in a panic they always fight they always fight if they don't I mean this particular dolphin was a fighter every time we ever try to put her in a sling and move her I mean one time I love I can go back in memories I can I can remember my thoughts during these times and we had her in a sling hovering over the pool

39:55And the way the sling is is you've got two holes in the sling where the pecs go in right the pectoral fins And then one where the genital slit is so if they shit it doesn't wind up You know stuck in the in the sling, but and then you've got a crane a top So now you've got this thing lifted over the pool. Well, she's fighting like crazy and we can see that there's a tear In the sling as she's fighting fighting fighting we get her the crane just gets her over the pool the sling rips She's plunked into the pool. Holy shit, man And we've we've slinged out like 15,000 pound or 10,000 pound killer whales over Like 30 40 feet in the air. Imagine one of those fucking drops. Oh my god So that was sort of a wake-up call Wow. Yeah archaic procedures man moving these

40:36These these things the things that especially at a place like marine land marine land when you step through the doors and hopefully you don't but if you do It's like you've gone back to the 70s Now has any of this hurt their business? Attendance is abysmal over there. They're crushed. I live right. I I watched the sunset over marine land from my front yard It's a beautiful sight. I drive by of course just about every day That their attendance is rocked and niagara falls Which where which is where marine land is is Booming the tourism is through the roof. You can't it's shoulder to shoulder over there and marine land seeing none of it And you think it's because people know about the conditions. Oh, absolutely I've got a lot of support in the local community like people know exactly what's going on Uh tourists. It's a little more difficult and you know, niagara falls welcomes millions of them

41:20So you're gonna get a fraction of that but it is a fraction marine land is not benefiting from the booming tourism They're they're on their way out the they're on a clock for sure for sure. I'd be shocked to hear them opening in 2019 I'm, not gonna make that prediction, but I would be shocked It's it's that bad, but to be fair. There's no investors at marine land It's one soul controlling mine owner who started with nothing started with 2000 bucks built this thing He is indebted to nobody He's you know He's cash rich of course and he's got a lot of fuck you money and not a lot of time So he's out to fuck shit up. I wouldn't be surprised to not a lot of time in life. You mean he's like 84 years old now Yeah, and so uh I would I wouldn't be surprised to think that he's rationalized in his mind to just fucking sewer this thing like

42:02destroy, you know destroy all all our lives for having spoken out, but just tank the park in the process fuck it Wow. Yeah, he's very defiant. He's he's a he's a very paranoid and defiant man And so you know at 84 years old what else does he have left to accomplish? I guess So you were saying that 50 beluga whales plus maybe even 60 at this point beluga whales are huge Yeah, what is a big one way? I don't know if we've ever met if we ever actually weighed our big man if you had a guess I'm 4,000 pounds maybe five You got 50 of those 50 of them. Yeah, that's insane try catching one. Oh, I don't want to try I I used to get tasked with here's your here's your scuba gear. Here's a net the size of a football field Go catch that beluga whale So me and my buddies be like, okay, here we go Oh, dude, you'd be it'd be it It really would be amazing to be able to capture the things we've done on video

42:53Can you recognize the difference in intelligence between killer whales dolphins beluga whales? Absolutely. Yeah dolphins dolphins and killer whales are like remarkably similar Just cunning smart you turn your back and they're pickpocketing you I mean they are just and they're brats and I love brats. I mean, they just are bratty animals They're having fun. They're having well They're fucking with you. They like to make things difficult if they know if they know how to frustrate you They're going to exercise that so it's always a mental game, right? Okay, especially with when you're dealing with animals training with animals beluga whales are really timid So like, you know, they call them the canaries of the sea because they're kind of skittish

43:24So I don't know if that's a reflection of their intelligence necessarily, but I would call them like maybe a maybe a hint more dumb-dumb than than the next one, right? But you know, they're more scared shitless of you than not, you know belugas. They don't really want it They don't want it, but they're not as smart as dolphins or I wouldn't say so I mean, it's but they're in some way in some way intelligent. Yeah, they're sort of sitting ducks out there belugas I just mean like in the in the in the in the whale world The whales respond they respond to verbal commands Yeah, so in the case of pinnipeds. Absolutely. So seal seal lines Yeah, walruses Seals seal lines they they respond to absolutely absolutely uh Whales we I I couldn't say for sure in my experience that that was the case However in the case of just that announcement last week of that animal mimicking the the human sounds

44:16It means she hears them. So if right if you can hear if the animal can hear you You can definitely create a queue of sorts to trigger behavior So they it's possible that they could know some of our language I don't know that they could Or recognize some commands. Yeah, I wonder no We know that they have dialects Right, but we don't know anything that they're saying right now No, uh, and that's what's interesting is I mean, I I sort of beat myself up wondering if in fact they're using a language that is to be interpreted as words as sentences versus sounds that mean Things I I guess maybe that's the same thing but I know what you're saying It's not something that's necessarily decipherable, you know, you know when a dog's pissed because they growl A growl is different than a bark barks are you know, right?

45:06But barks aren't necessarily words and if they are maybe they're fuck you. I don't know, but I was listening to this thing about monkeys I think it was Steven Pinker's book where they were talking about It was an audiobook they were talking about how monkeys have differentiated the sound that they make if there is a tiger Versus a sound they make if there's an eagle Anytime I'm walking around and I hear a squirrel in a tree making a certain sound. I know there's a cat in the vicinity That's probably one of mine But they have a language like a very crude language But what they've done is taken the sound of an eagle and they play it near monkeys and the monkeys look up Of course And they play the sound of a monkey trying to alert the fact that there's a tiger in the area and the monkeys run up trees Yeah, and start looking down. Yeah, it's really interesting because like they have a few sounds

45:52That they can repeat and they know for a fact that these monkeys know what they're talking about and monkeys even play jokes That's a language on each other They play jokes on each other like if one monkey wanted a banana He would say hey man there's a fucking eagle here and the monkey would run up the tree and he would get the banana Like they would they lie to each other Which is pretty fascinating makes doing fucked up things to them that much worse, right? You mean monkeys I mean, we know that they're intelligent, but they got a little tiny little tiny brain little tiny ass head little tiny brain You know, but it's all I need orcas brain those they're giant. These are huge enormous brains Dolphins brains are she dolphin brains are way bigger than ours. You want to hear a fucked up story? I think I do

46:34I had to dig up a dead killer whale to extract a portion of its brain that we missed during a necropsy You had to dig it up. Yeah, it was ground. Yeah, it was in the ground He had been buried for like 10 days to whoa, oh dude How'd he die? I can't remember how candy died exactly, but he did he died like pretty young I can't remember exactly what the what the final we we never got that information as as trainers You sort of were always told oh it was you know, it's always uh Meningitis it all be died of meningitis or or they would say a twisted intestine or something They always came up with things that you just You know, it kept you asking questions rather than feeling like anything was ever conclusive in that regard But on this particular case or in this particular case the vet had pulled me aside and said Okay, I gotta ask you something fucked up. Can you go get two people?

47:23Suit them up. We got to go get a piece of the brain. We missed of candy. I'm just like, uh I can't possibly impose upon someone to do that. I can't how deep it had been buried like It's about six to eight feet. Uh, he was And you can just do that in the yard they allow you to just bury it in the yard marina has mass graves in the back In the exact place that they're claiming development now, which i've got some overhead Shots they've actually like paving roads pretty close to it To where the the the bodies are buried and what like how many different things you think are buried back there What thousands I mean just in deer alone forget about it. I mean marine land breeds more deer and Why do they breed deer it's got these got a whole park of animals different animals That's where the animal cruelty charges stem from was actually it was not marine mammals because there's no laws protecting them

48:11so you know, they continue to live in a void of protection, but the the The the deers the bears there's no laws in canada in canada Yet it's coming man. I know i've been talking about this for five years. We're almost there But i'm up against the fucking first come on here 2013 was my first time here Yeah, so that would have been four years ago So they have thousands of graves in the back thousands of animals in in large graves So there's big hole for instance. There's a big hole for the deer. They're all going in there the big deer the bear Why don't they just eat them? He used to back in christmas Uh back in the day when he used to when the owner used to host christmas parties He'd go back and slaughter a bison and then feed burgers and make food out of it and stuff And they used to do that. They don't do it anymore. They actually used to be called uh marine land, uh Uh

48:57Something in game farm and then by by being a farm or classified as a farm. He was actually able to Kill and produce food right so that's something I I've been told that happened now. Why do they kill deer back there? Why is he just throw them into a hole? Well, I mean a lot of them die because they're they're gross first off You got 500 deer in a in a in a pen. That's Like disgusting They're not all going to get to eat some of them are going to get injured these things happen so At night what would happen is You know Someone let's say would drive around in his truck You know put the gun out the window and just eat it just go on these shooting sprees wiping out these animals in the morning The land animal care guys would show up and they'd be like okay go go pick up the bodies and these poor kids

49:40So would he do it on for a goof or would he do it because he's trying to thin the population because there's too many of them? Oh, no, it wouldn't be anything like that Well in one case once the once the investigation came out in 2012 which revealed of course abuse with land animals as well They went on a calling spree if you will where they got rid of some of the uglier sort of less healthy animals It's funny because yeah, because marine land actually breeds the more beautiful deer off-site the more beautiful animals That they have on are not on display. They're actually back there breeding off out of display That's where the two dogs. I don't know if you recall when the owner shot those two labs beautiful little labrador dogs Went running into the up and down the running up and down the fence across from you know marine lands owner's house

50:20Which is where the off-site pen is where he breeds the animals and that's where he decided? I'm not calling anyone to come get these animals. Fuck dude. The story is so heartbreaking. He just pulls out a shotgun kills one The other one cowers Because there was a witness of course The witness never identified themselves. They didn't want to be sued And then he shoots the other one and then he tells a land animal care supervisor. He takes these take the callers off the dogs go bury him in the pit It was I was there that day. I heard the gunshots. I was there when the vet got the phone call. She's like, oh my god Okay, she hangs up. She looks at me. She goes john just killed two dogs. I'm like what the fuck man? Dogs that you can go hey Go back home Puppies dude, they were beautiful dogs. There was a video. It's since been taken down on the toronto star website

51:05A lot of the videos are gone a lot of things are happening now on account of these lawsuits and further down the road that we've gone where Things are starting to disappear. There was a There was a very powerful historical website about marine land and some of the owners History and you know, these things are gone now. They're gone I mean, I can't Allege as to why or what agreements or if there are agreements I can't go down that road to suggest I don't know But a lot of these resources that I hate that were very powerful are gone and disappearing now So he's this marine land has this giant yard, right? Like how many acres are you talking about where there's thousands of animals buried? I mean the park is massive it is There's more there's probably three times undeveloped land versus what's developed there and it's a big park

51:49It's sort of barren. There's not a lot of things. There's rides and you got to walk a mile between them, but nonetheless uh The owner what he liked to do was was sort of acquire a lot of land over his lifetime that that was his thing He owns half of niagara falls I got to watch where the hell I step because I need given point if I'm land if I'm on their land I'm getting charged with trespassing whether I like it or not In fact, the city of niagara falls leased land to marine land to keep protesters off of their site Which is absolute Bullshit and if anyone's listening from city council, I hope you do you got to fix that because that's some horse shit right there man that you guys have been Pandering to marine land for too long. I mean to keep us from being able to protest that's horse shit. Sorry Now, why do you think that is because they just don't want to get sued?

52:29There was a time when marine land and owner were called like the king of niagara That was it marine land was atop the hill It was the falls came second to marine land at least marine land played the this idea that people came to niagara falls They would see the falls. They'd look at them for 10 minutes and then they would have no reason to stay They were saying they're bringing all this business Because people are now going to hotels going to restaurants and then going to marine land the next day and so and when did this change? When did marine land go to shit? Yeah 2012 So right when you left So before then is this thriving thing and just nobody knew about the conditions? That's what it was. We were ignorant of course. Well, people wouldn't have known who's gonna talk It's not new for marine lands owner or marine land the corporation to sue people for speaking out

53:12They did it before and successfully not in the sense that there was any judgment But successfully in that the people that spoke had to pay a horrible price And you know essentially got silenced So no one wants to speak out against that. No, I don't blame them. I get it. I mean i'm eating it now It's been five years five years of every day waking up wondering if this is the fucking one where you're done, you know So you've been embroiled in these lawsuits for five years five years on on they sued me on valentine's day of uh 2013 yeah And nothing's been resolved The the only way that there could be a resolve at this point is if I were to sign a document uh And i'm i'm i'm Assuming at this point because marine land sent nothing in terms of any type of agreement, but you know down the road It's their objective is to shut me up. They want to wipe out the last 20 years of my life

53:59They don't want me to open my mouth about anything And of course in the last five years and then the 12 prior You know when I sort of revealed everything that was going on they're trying to shut me up They want me they want an injunction a permanent injunction. I assume they would That uh to keep me from being able to go to the park well This becomes very conflicting for me because they have a my walrus sort of hostage there and I do I do dream of a day of being reunited with her and I imagine that would have to take place on marine land property someday So it's really i'm not prepared to sign anything. In fact, I told my lawyer just last week It's a non-starter and i'll remind marine land now Non-starter They'll never shut me up. I'm not signing it. I'll have to eat shit forever, but i'm not going to sign it So where do you anticipate this all going? I mean you've been in a

54:40Prolonged legal battle for five years now Where do you anticipate this going and so in april so last time I was here two years ago? I you know I solicited some some some help Resources to be able to pursue marine lands owner in that I want him to be examined in court much like I have in the same capacity That I had to forfeit all of my communications I want the same for the corporation and I want to examine marine lands owner as representative this proved very difficult it took uh I mean, we got the order only just last april to examine him we got we won the order And since then we've tried multiple times to schedule now We're almost out a year now of trying to schedule this man to come in for examinations and He's not shown up a couple times now and so At some point if marine land doesn't want the facts out there and that's what i'm pursuing. I want the facts out there They're gonna have to

55:33They're gonna have to settle and so How that ends with me, I don't know i'm not looking for money. I could give a shit about trying to get rich in this thing Are you trying to sue them for money though? I'm suing them. Yeah, but it's much Wow numbers don't matter, but it's like a million and a half or something. They defame the shit out of me. Let's be honest It's it's pretty absurd. Uh, but again So would the million and a half I'll never get it. I'll never see it, but would it be? Predicated on you would have to shut your mouth if it wasn't something that went If it wasn't a judgment that the judge made for instance if we went to trial the judge makes their decision then if we settle beforehand It's because everyone wants to wash their hands and walk away Marine land's not going to wash their hands of me

56:14Unless I I feel unless I've got them properly cornered the only way they want to get me is well, of course They want to ruin me right they how could you properly corner them? What would be well if marine lands owners missed a couple Examinations now how many until I can go in and actually file a motion to have the entire statement of claim dismissed? well, the fact is Pretty soon so my objective is to go and get this lawsuit thrown out at which point they've only got that I've got the counterclaim for them to work with they're not suing me no more now. Who's got the upper hand? That's my dream. That's your dream but if If if that doesn't happen I mean, it seems like five years is a long time to be in a prolonged legal battle like at what point in time But does it become so absurd that the court throws it out? So it just happened now

56:56It's actually a new rule that as of february 2018 any lawsuit that hasn't been uh scheduled for uh For trial was administratively dismissed It's a new law and so But that doesn't affect mine unfortunately because we actually fought to get a case management uh judge on our case be on my case because Like I said marine lands acting the fool. I can't seem to get in front of a judge everything's joking around So we we went and won that again. It took a long time You know, it's the crazy thing about these lawsuits and I see now of course 2012 was a lot more naive but all of the wins that I get in court cost me So for instance, I I I defend a motion against marine land It costs me Seventy five hundred dollars The judge says okay Phil wins this round Let's give him some money back on a partial indemnity He gets thirty five hundred bucks back still just cost me four grand

57:47Marine lands owner misses an examination as an example I've got to get what's called a certificate of non-attendance. I got to send a lawyer 1200 bucks so It's it And how is all this funded now? Oh, I have a public go fund me of course i've had several and how do people if they want to donate because i'm sure a A lot of people listening to this like fuck this man. I gotta help this guy save smooshy.com I've got my documentary on there, which i'd like to touch on a little bit. It's great Have you had a chance to look at it? No Okay, well if you get if you manage to it's it's pretty it's good these kids from uh, Ryerson university did it the brave kids and how how I know it's a very effective law or uh Documentary is that Marine land didn't sue them They know the danger of this documentary. They know how powerful it is and they didn't sue them And that's how I know

58:30That this is powerful and so they decided that it's so good They have to leave it alone and just ignore it because if they sue them then it'll put attention to it Exactly, and so they made a small statement saying oh, this is phil just doing what phil does And it's funny because the ryerson students turn around to me. They go But that's not true like we came to you They just want they actually wanted to do a five minute Personal profile of me they said look we want to just do a quick interview with them like sure That morning. I don't know they caught me on the right day. I just you know Like we spoke for hours and then they sort of got back and said, you know We want to do like maybe something more with this I'm like you guys do whatever the hell you want. I mean i'm i'm i'm an open book. I'm give everything away You want something here go go nuts with it

59:08And so they did and they did something great. It's really good And uh, yeah, so you know definitely definitely please check that out, you know Well, dude, every time I talk to you i'm happy to talk to you. You're a great guy But I always get fucking hugely depressed I'm always just like what? Fuck and now the valium Dude if I had to get into my own personal well-being I mean you get compromised when things like this happen you do you just do I imagine it's a half a decade of stress. It's a lot big portion of my i'm turning 40 in a month So from 35 to 40 30 it's all been stress and lawsuits every day And not just that they're sending goons to my house. I mean they sent the police to my house I mean it it it really is relentless It's absurd the things that he there was a comedian I don't want to mention his name because he deleted the tweet that and he told me oh twitter deleted it

59:59This is bullshit. I'm not gonna. I don't want to give any attention, but PETA had tweeted something and so he quoted that tweet and said it's time to burn this place It's a comedian very funny I click retweet I got the police uh cyber crimes unit on my front door the next day because the lawyer sent them because I uh I inciting violence. I incited violence for the followers. So now marine land was worried that the the buildings were gonna be burnt down Well, I would never say to do that Me neither fuck man, or I would never tell anyone to fly a drone over it either Opportunity for million view youtube hits. Yeah, don't do it. Don't do that Oh Man, it's just You know that they're on the wrong side of history and not just marine land But all these places all these places like there's going to come a time a time in the future where people look back at

60:52This kind of captivity of these hyper intelligent social animals stolen from their families It's a Terrible Terrible Terrible Statement about human beings the thing I love about I guess what you would call Um, uh ! My campaign is that I have support from hunters. I have support from vegans I am across the spectrum Yeah, one point I had a far right well a person who's perceived as a far right, uh Uh, uh internet personality tweet my documentary and then rosie o'donnell tweets it and she's as left as it gets And so i'm looking at this rosie o'donnell. Yeah, yeah Wow, oh, dude, I got a rosie story. It's kind of a heartbreaker actually, but When I went to new york and again joe, thank you so much for when you when you spoil me with those ufc tickets Dude that it's always the most timely thing and so appreciated because it's exactly

61:45It's all it's just like this trip. It's exactly what I need at the time to sort of keep myself A little break and have some fun And so I was going to new york city. I remember I sent you a message. I'm like dude and you're like bro enjoy I'm like and so So rosie sees the documentary And someone says to me a rosie just tweeted your documentary. I'm like, oh cool So I go to her twitter and yeah sure shit So I follow her she follows me back. She's just sending me messages like dude like Wow, it's really powerful like I I really like and then she goes to elaborate like I want to know more about you I want to call you tomorrow Okay, cool Sure shit the next day the phone rings i'm talking to rosie. I'm like this is crazy I i'm again i'm for you. I know who rosie is. I don't know what these days of kids know who rosie is anyway rosie o'donnell was like

62:24I don't know she was a heavy in my day at least she's like, you know Powerhouse and she's expressing all this interest like, you know, I've i've i've Done documentaries. I've released them on hbo, you know, i've done all these things i i'm gonna i'm going to la tomorrow And i'm gonna call you back on friday, but i'm meeting with this emmy award Producing uh producer and we're gonna get this thing out there and then she starts to say and this is where my heart starts to Ake is that you know, you always sort of hope that there's going to be a hero that I mean Especially in the last five years. It's gonna be like, you know what enough's enough. Let's let's do this And especially in the case of with my walrus She starts saying I think we can get the walrus like we can get some pressure get a tv network

62:59Pressure so let's get that walrus. I'm just like dude, you're pulling on my fucking heartstrings now. I you know and then I went to new york. I'd hoped to have lunch with rosie on that particular trip. I was going for two reasons actually I was also was hoping to do some ayahuasca. I'm looking to get a reset. Oh, I need some I'm gonna do that soon soon and later, but that was that was the intention of going to new york and uh And since then it's just been radio silence from rosie unfortunately, and I I accept that in that she's as a complicated World and whatnot, but man she pulled on my heartstrings Might have wanted to do it and couldn't yeah, and i'm not gonna fault I I see how crazy sort of her life and sort of things that go on and and i'm totally You know She's had a lot of family issues and yeah All sorts of other stuff, too, but yeah, that's a bummer. It's just a bummer is what it is

63:47I think uh, also people get involved with you and hear the stories and then they get scared of being sued themselves all the time Yeah, you should see it. I mean I just even last week I contacted someone that uh, I mean the media now and mind you It's a very different landscape now from 2012 2012 media was against me corporate media was in Relant had them in their back pocket That was before blackfish 2013 2014 2015 media is mine 2016 17 18 now the media is just Who knows what the fuck they're doing man like it's all over the map? So it's hard to get any sort of and again marine land will sue them so It's also an issue of after things have been going on for so long and nothing's happened people start going well What what can I do? You know a lot of people actually think marine lands done

64:30They're just like oh dude congrats. Marieland's dead, right? I'm like no man still happening still being sued. It's all happening It's just less current on account that it's five years, but that's exactly their their that's what they're doing. That's their objective Well, I think also I think also really land fatigue people are tired of fucking hearing about it I'm tired of right in it, you know, well, it's I think also the the 11 different counts of animal abuse, you know, they probably fought like oh, this is it I know I thought that that was it and then they turn around and sue the ospca, which I mean Man, it's all dark man. It's it's really dark and the fact that there's so many people involved helping It feels dark. You know, it feels feels like a total violation of my life like Whatever i'm i'm up for it. I'm here to fight but it feels

65:14Gross, you're at every turn being like fucked up and all you can do all I can do and in a lot of times I'm not allowed to even speak of it I mean, I may have even compromised things in this I mean, I always compromise things when I when I speak but it's that's what's choice How do you compromise things here today by Telling true stories i'll find out tomorrow or monday when I get a whole Deluge of fucking legal threats. I i've been threatened with more lawsuits marine lands lawyers have in fact threatened Other whistleblowers lawyers, so they're ready to sue lawyers. I mean you want to talk about gumming up a system It's over at that point if a lawyer sues another lawyer. You're looking at 15 20 fucking years Wasn't there changes in the laws in canada like how you can sue people?

65:58There was anti-slap legislation that was enacted years ago. I spoke at queen's park about it. This is something that you were Yes, of course about of course and then slap stands for strategic lawsuit against public participation So I speak out against what's happening at marine land marine land the multi cashfords corporation sues the shit out of me In a strategic way to try to silence you Right, and so ontario uh Passed uh legislation to make that illegal. However at the time Ontario's premier was suing the leader of the opposition She took out the retro clause. So it was no longer retroactive to any lawsuits that are already in the system So now i'm actually fighting against a lawsuit that is illegal And if it were to be applied to my lawsuit had it been marine land would be up against some punitive damages like crazy just for

66:44By fault of of launching a malicious because it's but because it's not retroactive I sit back and and I just continue to eat it and then other people are actually I see it in the paper everyone's like oh this corporation tried to sue this girl They owe her half a million dollars for well, maybe not half a million, but they owe her some money for For having launched the suit and i'm just like oh dude My dreams god damn man I feel for you No, don't man. You know what to be fair. It's also I call it a sort of curse and blessing. I mean look i'm here man in what world would I be here? I started out as a fan of the show I started listening to you saying things like be the hero of your fucking movie or whatever that quote was and I did And so I I get the idea I I get I eat But shit starts to taste delicious when you see the damage you're doing as well What are you doing for money now?

67:33So I started a business uh summer business some years ago. I've got an airbnb Which is like was the best idea I've ever had I'm so happy and blessed with this thing because People come down and I host them now. It's the thing I like to do the most I got a beautiful home on the water It's like you know, I got a nice dock Converted one of the apartments into an airbnb In honor of my cat that we spoke of in fact two years ago, eugene so it's called the eugene And so you know that's that's a means to sort of uh Sort of help me um, I I on occasionally I work for uh For canada post as a mailman, which I I sort of love in that It challenges me every day. I wake up in Minus 20 degrees wind howling blowing snow like crazy I gotta go spend like six to eight hours walking in this shit. It sucks, but That's challenge and you gotta wake up and rise to it, right?

68:26I mean you could just as well stay in bed all day, but that's not gonna help me Yeah, that's a weird thing about like mail delivery in a lot of places. It's still walking around. Oh, I do it It's brutal, but I love it. I'm walking 20k a day. Dude. I lost a lot of weight. I'm feeling good It's how it helps me it really does I I'm a I need to I need my body moving. I know one speed fast You know, i'm 40 i'm slowing a little bit but not that much surprisingly, uh, hopefully hopefully my run lasts for a while, but It helps me the voice in my head goes from dude Everything's abysmal and fuck to Dude, you got this man stick with it. You got this, you know, you listen to music you're getting powerful. You're feeling good Man, it's just right for me. It really is in a perfect world. Where would you like all this to end? I want the walrus

69:07Sounds crazy. My dream is i'm gonna free whales. There's gonna be a sanctuary. I'm gonna free marine lands whales I'm gonna have a hand in this that's gonna happen Number two you really think that's gonna happen you think they're gonna enact legislation that makes them release those animals I think so. Yes, really. Yes, what makes you so hopeful well s203 they they marine lands tried to kill this bill for Years now. They've not been able to and this time next week. So this sucker should go That whale sanctuary sanctuary project. They're gonna build a whale sanctuary. There's gonna be a place for whales if it's in canada and all the Exportation laws are that marine land can't get rid of their whales. There will only be one place for whales if That business elects to evolve or if there's any type of ownership changes. I see this being a real real Explain to me how this sanctuary would work

69:52Well, you would have an environment where is penned off in the ocean and you know, there'd be I mean various different Pens for various different procedures if you will, but the idea is that you if they can't be Wholly released Then you've got a place where they Have a sense a semblance of of freedom if you will, but it'll be in human care There'll be more of like for instance a viewing platform where people be able to view the whales versus how big of an area We're talking about massive. Yeah, I don't I can't say the square footage. I don't know because they that nothing's finalized So we're still under development would they develop a bay or something? Would they want to ideally get a bay that has good water change over that you know that that works if you can find that and I mean the east coast is looking really good these days is there a model that they've Drawn up not

70:40Well, there's models. Yeah, no, absolutely. There's blue prints. Can we look at something? Like this if you look up the whale sanctuary project, I'm sure you'll find tons of different I just don't know how they're keeping the orcas in those things If you put a fence up they're not going to go anywhere. They wouldn't jump the fence that they don't there's something about Jumping out. I mean when the when the wild captures happen this is what do we got here? There's the whale sanctuary We're building a model sanctuary where captive whales and dolphins can be Rehabilitated and live permanently in their natural environment. So it's a step So this is a step between this and then the the wild Yes. No, are they gonna free Them and then release fish in there for them to eat? I imagine there'll be all of that every which way So that would be nice to that allow them to actually hunt and kill the fish

71:24Which i'm sure that's what they want to do the fact that they can feel the natural rhythms of the sea I mean, they're in tune with the sea in their environment. The pools no place look at what it says here um For medium survive four years median survival time In years for wild caught orcas at a marine park four years 1,100 square yards of space in a large display tank in a typical high-end marine tank 314,600 is the minimum number of square yards for the first whale sanctuary project Seaside sanctuary, so this is 314,600 square yards, so it would be a massive place 105 is the number of captive orcas and belugas in north america So that includes marine land so marine land has half the belugas in north america It's crazy. It's crazy and they fly under the radar because no one wants to talk about them, right?

72:2024 7 round-the-clock care care for the whales at the sanctuary that sounds beautiful marine lands threatened to sue uh these people these people somebody fucking I am dude me not somebody but more we need more than just you it seems like Fuck man people listening, please get involved. This is a great step though. I love this idea of this step You know like have something that's like a bridge between a captive in the wild also It would allow their atrophied dorsal fins to to reinvigorate They could start diving deep again. I mean, I don't know how deep necessarily, but At least a little bit and get you could train these animals to physically take them for walks If you I guess you call them swims where you would be able to leave and have them just follow a boat and go for some exercise You could totally I mean that it really the

73:10The the things that this is going to present the opportunities for these animals is brilliant and amazing and the board is comprised of all your all your Wild animal brilliant scientists. I mean this is the project. This is the future So that is the way to do it right because i've always said when you go to a place like sea world or whatever and you look at all those Dolphins and killer whales like how would you get them free? How did there would have to be some intermediary step? There it is Wow, that's exciting times man. It's I hope they do that man. It's coming They do that because I feel like if there was a place where you could go And people could feed the killer whales like release some fish or something like that and be there to watch That would be way more exciting than Watching them in a swimming pool watch a fucking killer whale fart in the wild versus do a backflip in the captivity

73:57And you're watching that fart in awe and the and this thing is just music and bullshit. I pulled over uh, yesterday morning. I was in um, malibu real early in the morning and I pulled over and watched some dolphins Oh, dude, it was awesome. I was told I was speaking with someone. They're like dude. They're here. They're in malibu. Go see them Yeah, they're here right now. Yeah, I was um, I was on the pch and I was driving out of the corner of my eye I saw something in the water and then I saw the the tail Thins going over and a few of them together and I pulled over and i'm like fuck man, that's amazing Like I don't want to live in malibu because i'm scared of tsunamis But if you were there like right there like looking out your fucking Bedroom window and checking that out first thing in the morning. I wish dolphins in your yard

74:40Yeah, and they're just wild man having a good old time. They just feel different You know, you see them in marine land or or i've never seen them in marine land But you see them in any sort of captive area and you just get this weird feeling like yeah They're cool to look at but man, they're just not they're just not that you know There's something missing there. Yeah, it's like the difference between seeing a cow in a pen versus a buffalo in the wild You know just this is where hunters I say they're really this is where I get a lot of support from hunters because no hunters I mean all you got to do is grab a pigeon just go on the end corner street grab a pigeon If you can grab it put it in a cage and watch how depressed you are in a half hour watching I mean, it's it's horrible So so even that's what I love about the hunters are just like no man, you got this thing, right?

75:20Like fuck it well people have this erroneous idea that hunters hate animals. No, they love wild animals They love things to be wild, you know It's just uh Just a very depressing Aspect of human nature that we've chosen to go down this route and that we did it a long time ago I really truly believe that if there was no dolphin and orca captivity ever previously before It would not be possible to do today impossible people would freak out They would at least in america the future is bright kids are repulsed by it already I mean, this is where and they should be I go speak to schools and every kid and the beautiful thing and I mean it sounds horrible, but The kids that go to marine land get singled out pretty bad by the other kids So it's not a good time to bring your kids to to to a place like marine land unless you want you get have your kids picked Well, what about china? How is it?

76:07How is it so cool in china? They just don't get it over there. They just don't know It's fairly different culture. Yeah, it's fairly new for sure cultural. Yeah, I mean, I don't want to I don't know I just know that that's That'll be there for a while yet Right the paradigm shift hasn't taken there yet man, it'll be a while. Yeah So save smooshy.com for anybody who wants to go and um, and they can that's where your go fund me is That's where they can watch the documentary. Please do. Yeah, and um Listen, man. I hope in some way this helps you always does I'm so super appreciative. I hope in some way it gets people to to donate and to pay attention and to be aware and please folks Watch blackfish. Just go watch that and if If it doesn't make you crack up if it doesn't make you cry It doesn't make you really sad that people are capable of doing that It's just um, it's just wrong

77:00It's just it's not it's not what we should be doing as a as a as a species as a race as a civilization It's just the wrong thing to do and one day it will be looked upon very very poorly The timing of people putting their eyes on me now has never been better things are gonna happen follow me on twitter I'm gonna be tweeting a lot of major developments in the coming months the timing of this of this particular podcast couldn't have been better And again, i'm super indebted to you forever. I'm so appreciative. I'm appreciative of you too, my brother. Thanks, man. Thank you All right, folks, we'll be back next week. Enjoy your life. Bye