A CRUMBLING CASE FOR CETACEAN CAPTIVITY?

the importance of one's work, can be a significant part of the academic review process. Although
citation analysis can have its limitations, it can be a valuable tool for assessing whether the research in
question is contributing to the basic scientific literature and it can be a critical initial filter through
which any research paper must pass in order to have any impact.
To achieve some level of impact, studies should be published in reputable peer-reviewed scientific
journals and should be, at the very least, independently cited by other authors. Citations are important
because they index the “reach” of scientific findings, that is, the contribution made to the overall topic
at hand and, therefore, the potential, for application to conservation.
Method
In order to identify original peer-reviewed papers from each facility (VA and ML), their respective web
pages were first reviewed. A search was then conducted of the terms “Vancouver Aquarium” and
“Marineland” on Web of Science, one of the most widely used standard publication databases. Web of
Science was also searched for specific authors who were associated with each facility. Moreover, in
order to ensure papers were not overlooked, the reference section of each paper was reviewed to
identify any other authors and papers which might derive from each facility.
In order to confirm the findings in Web of Science, two additional popular databases, Scopus and
GOOGLE Scholar, were searched. Conference abstracts were excluded as they are not full papers and
there is no reliable way to measure their impact.
Peer-Reviewed Research on Captive Cetaceans at Vancouver Aquarium
In order to identify original peer-reviewed scientific papers from VA, the list of publications posted on
their website at http://www.vanaqua.org/act/research/publications was first reviewed. A search for
the term “Vancouver Aquarium” was then conducted in the Web of Science database (with no date
limits). An additional search on Web of Science was conducted for the authors of those papers that
were found with no further results.
In order to conduct a citation analysis, Web of Science was used to count peer-reviewed original
scientific papers citing studies conducted with captive cetaceans at VA. In cases where no citations
were found by the Web of Science, findings were confirmed with Scopus or GOOGLE Scholar.
Results
The number of peer-reviewed scientific papers on wild cetaceans supported by the VA stands in
contrast to the more limited number of in-house studies of captive cetaceans. Using the methods
above, 13 peer-reviewed original scientific papers using captive cetaceans at VA were identified over
the past 30 years.
1) Piercey RS, Rechsteiner EU, Battaile BC, Trites AW (2013) Seasonal changes in the food intake of
captive Pacific white-sided dolphins (Lagenorhynchus obliquidens). Aquatic Mammals 39(3):
211-220.
A Crumbling Case for Cetacean Captivity? 5