Imagine spending your whole life in a tiny room the size of a bathroom. You are given food and water and share this room with a couple other people. There is no natural light and you have no mental stimulation. Twice a week you are taken out of the room, put in a small box and carried to a large theatre with bright spotlights shining on the stage. You and your friends are shoved into a large creature’s pockets or up his sleeves. After a burst of flame or violent shake, you are thrust out of the sleeve or pocket into the large creature’s hand. You flutter your wings trying to get your bearings and are promptly put into another small cage. One by one, your friends join you. Once the small cage is full, it suddenly shrinks to the size of a coffin and goes completely dark. Meanwhile another large creature climbs on top of the small cage and is unveiled to an applauding audience.
Not much of a life? But what else can a magician’s white dove expect? Oh and by the way, you are actually “lucky”, in the old days you would have been squashed to death in the small coffin-like cage according to the movie “The Prestige“.
When I booked the Norwegian Spirit for our Mediterranean cruise, live animal acts were the last thing I was expecting given the small cabins even high-paying guests stay in, let alone the employees! Yet I was horrified to see the resident magician do a dove act in the grand opening variety show the ship puts on to give passengers a taste of what to expect for entertainment.
The cruiseline has a daily announcement prohibiting photography, audio and video recording so I didn’t get any photos or video. I did Google the magician “Sander” who performs with his wife, Alison. They have some pics on their website but I prefer not to link it and give them any clicks. You can also find a promotional video for Sander and Alison on YouTube by doing a search. Since I couldn’t get my own photos and videos, I also Googled “dove magic acts” to get more information.
Here’s an article from Buzzfeed about a magician, Darcy Oakes who performs this trick and a YouTube video explaining how the trick is done. This article and the comments below say how birds can be accidentally killed during this trick. Now remember, I am not praising the magicians who do this, I am criticizing the inhumanity that these doves have to endure.
HOW SHOULD DOVES ACTUALLY LIVE?
Here are some websites with more information about these beautiful, peaceful birds who deserve so much better than a life of exploitation.
Article about inhumane treatment of performing animals
BUT WAIT, THERE’S MORE!
Before that cruise on the Norwegian Spirit, it never crossed my mind that anyone would be dumb enough to keep performing animals on a cruise ship. Besides the doves (one of which was DYED RED), there was also at least one rabbit and one large snake. In the case of the snake, not only do you have to question the treatment of the creature but also the reaction of people who suffer from Ophidiophobia (I happen to be one). Fear of snakes is one of the top ten phobias in the world and the unexpected proximity to a snake can terrify people or even cause a heart attack in the case of certain people.
In Sander’s act, he does one trick where he puts his wife into a cage and “turns” her into a snake. He then takes this huge snake and walks down the stairs from the stage and approaches the front row of the audience. He is less than 2 meters away from the audience at this point and anyone who is ophidiophobic is going to freak out. I happened to be one of the unlucky ones in the front row when he did this and I literally ran for my life as he approached me. Whether he intended to scare me/audience members or not doesn’t matter. In this case he followed me up my escape route (going up the stairs). This is part of his normal act and can be seen on his YouTube video which I referenced above. Yes, there are some people who like snakes and wanted a closer look. This also had to be pretty uncomfortable for the snake, being poked at by curious audience members.
Red line shows path used by Sander to carry the snake over his head, off the stage up into the audience. I was in the seat with the green dot, my husband was in the blue dot seat. I took this photo while the theatre was filling up before another performance.
NCL gave the audience no warning that a snake was involved in the magic show. Given that ophidiophobia is a top ten phobia, this should surely have been anticipated by the management and a warning given that people who are afraid of snakes should move to a back row. I would have still been angry and upset over the plight of the doves but at least I wouldn’t have hurt my back running up the stairs!
WHAT CAN YOU DO?
Just as we use eco-tourism to encourage poachers to leave poaching and take up new jobs as guides or other eco-tourism posistions, we can also discourage cruise ships from allowing animal acts. To find out if your potential cruise has an animal act, either call the cruise line and ask them specifically or post a question on Cruise Critic. Cruise Critic is to ships & cruising what Flyertalk is to planes and flying and would probably get a quicker reply as people there love to talk about their cruises.
If you find out that your cruise has an animal act, please don’t book it and let the cruiseline know why. If you are already booked, cancel if you can without incurring a penalty. If you are stuck, wait until you have boarded and speak to the cruise director and express your disapproval of animal acts. If enough people speak up, the cruise lines will stop booking animal acts.
The only animals on a ship should be service/guide dogs and these guys!
