The Walrus and the Whistleblower

when I was initially called a whistleblower,

It was by an investigative journalist who said, "you'll be a whistleblower."

Whistleblower, I blew whistles for years at marineland,

But it was, uh... It was to tel the dolphins to come back to the stage and get their fis.

I don't do speeches, so I was... I was born a rambling man.

There's a walrus back there.

Her name is smooshi and I gotta get her out of there.

Yeah, the words have changed except for the tagline at the end.

Even when we were kids that song came on and you were so excited, you know,

"oh, I get to go to marineland."

It's there all the time and I'm still singing the song.

One of the things that made niagara falls more popular

And brought in more families with young children, especially,

Was the opening of marineland in 1961.

pick up your free children's passes to marineland and game farm.

The marineland and game farm is open all day, every day

And features a thrilling underwater show starring jeff the seal, trained dolphin,

And an underwater valley.

I started my job at marineland on, uh, March 11th of the year 2000.

So I was 22-year-old kid.

They had decided that, "hey, let's put phil in the show.

Let's... Let's have him swim with an orca."

And so they called me, they said, "okay, you want to come up front?"

I'm like, "for what?"

They're like, "we'll let... We'll let you know when you get here."

Okay, so I show up, they're like, "put a wetsuit on."

You know, I had no training.

I'd... I'd... I'd all but touched an orca and fed him at this point,

But, yeah, they put me in the water, no experience whatsoever,

I was making 6 dollars and 85 cents an hour

And I was swimming with killer whales, you know, mere months after starting my job.

I sat down with john in his park one sunny afternoon for an interview.

He looked like a guy that was going around

Just checking to make sure the washroom facilities were working properly.

This is the owner of this tourist empire?

See, he loved walt disney and he would say, "well, disney does it like this."

And john wanted that degree of sophistication and I think he was envious.

he's an older man, wise, successful,

He felt a bit fatherly and so we had some really powerful interactions.

he was from slovenia.

He told me that in his younger years while he was still there,

He cut his teeth, uh, training circus animals.

This was his culture.

it was the biggest game in town back then.

On a busy weekend, we would do five-six shows maybe, several thousand people a show.

It's 23.66.

24, 25, 30 and 40 dollars.

marineland was the first of its kind

To hire as many people as it does every year.

I believe about 800 people a year.

Very, very strong commitment to the public in niagara for... For jobs.

And more than half of the hotel rooms are filled in this area because of this attraction.

it's been a very special week for us here in marineland,

A week of special thrills and a week of special happiness.

I got to work with orcas and dolphins and seals and sea lions,

But then there was this low rumbling rumor that we might be getting a walrus

And I'll never forget it because I remember saying, "well, where would we put it?

Like, we don't have a walrus thing."

A couple of days later, we show up to work and there's a baby walrus.

"look, she keeps smooshing against me. Look at this.

What do you call this, smooshing?

But she keeps... Look, smooshing."

Uh, her name just became smooshi.

We were undergoing a procedure where we were trying to get blood work done.

So the procedure is that you put the net on the walruses

And then you wrestle them down and then a vet draws the blood.

Smooshi was barking and she's climbing the trainers,

So I sought to move her away from the scene.

All I did was, I'm tapping her... I'm tapping her to get her attention

While she's trying to smash everybody and she looked up at me

And I put my hands in front of her face and she took this big breath

And her nostrils went big and wide and her eyes got big and at that exact moment,

Unbeknownst to me, I don't know this, yet, but I've imprinted on her.

It was this and that was the exact moment, no question,

The window was this big, it happened.

And, in that moment, I became her mom.

Hey, smoosh.

Pretty snow hats. Look at your snow hat, huh?

Look at your snow hat. Look at your snow hat.

That's good.

Hey, walrus, what are you doing? What are you doing, huh?

What are you doing? Okay, that's a good girl.

She was like, uh, just the sweetest and most perfect little...

I guess best described as ball of innocence.

She was... She could just...

And it's not because she's the apple of my eye that she could do no wrong,

It wasn't like that, it was like... She was... She was a brat.

I have more questions and answers about this.

This is really a phenomenon and there is something called imprinting in animals

When baby animals bond to their mothers

And it's conceivable she thinks of phil as her mother.

.

I mean, our hands are full suddenly. We're walrusland.

Look. Look at buttercup.

Sonja, zeus and apollo, smooshi and buttercup.

When it was established that I was the walrus whisperer,

It was because I could physically have four or five walruses in front of me

And I could say, "let's go!"

A woman by the name of elizabeth shearer,

She was looking for any type of cute story she could run on a valentine's day article

In the toronto star.

And so in 2007 that first article ran and thereafter

It just became this ever-growing momentum-building thing.

It progressed to a different live morning radio interviews

And then, eventually, uh, it would be a story in cbc's the national

And then, eventually, it would even get to jimmy kimmel, like late night talk show.

This is a heartwarming tale of...

And it's a kind of bond that cn develop between animals and people.

For three years, this trainer at marineland in ontario

Has been working with a walrus named--

Smooshi is a walrus who lives at niagara falls, marineland.

He is at the center of a love triangle between his girlfriend, and a walrus.

a 900-pound female walrus chases a woman away from her handsome, male handle.

You love me, moosh? Do you, yeah? Give me a kiss.

Christine was a trainer at marineland for as long as I was.

She started a few months before me.

She was kiska's primary trainer.

One of the first persons that I crossed paths with was christine.

Uh, we were at a doorway in, uh, in the trainer's room and, uh, she had purple hair.

And, you know, she's one of the first people that said hi to me

And if I'm not mistaken, one of the first things she said was like,

"oh, what kind of music do you listen to?"

-I always liked christine. -Yes, it's true.

I always joked around every time she came around--

You have to tell the stories.

I would tell people... Like, if anyone come around, like she... She...

I worked at the front in the stadium where you do the show.

She was... Her focus was with the killer whales at the back.

And you always flirted with me.

I would flirt with christine. So what I would do is anyone would show up--

-Only me. - in the front, they were coming

To pick up our garbage or something, I'd say, "oh, where's christine?"

They'd be like, "oh, she's at the back." I'd be like, "tell her I said hi."

Yeah, and that's what everyone says to me when they come see me,

"oh, by the way, phil said hi."

- yeah, I'd do that a lot. -Always.

Do you remember what you used to say?

"oh, hey. Oh, hi crids."

Oh, wait, no you didn't call me crids yet.

"oh, hi christine." and then you would flip your whistle.

yeah, well, that's my .

I'm getting tears in my eyes. It's so funny.

- we ran the show at marineland. -It's true.

oh, yeah.

-Are you recording me? - yeah, because it says recording at the top.

That's right. Now push it again and see if it stops.

You know, over time you become good at what you do.

You enjoy the company of others and the place becomes like a family-like environment.

You know, I loved them all. We really were a tight-knit group.

It was a... Quite a perfect fit for me, the job.

Johnny, john holer's son who was a good friend of mine, he had a good heart, good sense.

Johnny liked me because, uh, I was someone he could smoke cigarettes and swear around.

If I needed something it was a waste to go to john. I would just go to johnny.

Johnny would get into trouble a lot of times for me, specifically for me.

the only thing that we're reading in the local media

Were stories about the birth of another baby whale.

They were getting that kind of coverage.

I took a look in our own files of the st. Catharines standard,

There was one story that struck me,

About one particular whale, uh, at marineland.

The headline was

"baby jane upset injures herself."

I mean a picture tells a huge story and that one did for me.

When I... I look back on who was protesting out there and who was doing it first, nafa.

That's niagara action for animals, and it was always catherine ens

Who was the leader of that organization in the late 1980s.

I'm an anti-speciesist. I guess that's the best way to describe it.

I would like to see animals stop being exploited,

Stop being used, um, for anything.

I would like to see no more marine mammals in captivity, period.

That's... That's the bottom line.

I didn't like the idea that these guys are telling me what I'm doing wrong

And they didn't even know the half of it.

I'm just like, "you guys got nothing." that's the best part.

Like, they were saying, "these animals just shouldn't be in captivity."

It's like okay, well, that's an easy one.

You've got, uh, 20,000 people on this side of the fence paying 50 dollars a head

Saying that they should be in captivity and you got 12 people saying no.

activists fought with police today at marineland

During a demonstration to protest whale and dolphin captivity.

American activist ben white was defiant till the end.

You don't go to marineland, please. Think about what you're doing.

We have the best record of all the parks, marine parks,

In north america as far as keeping these animals alive.

I was quite a number of years distant from marineland at that time

And, in my mind, I had become anti-captivity.

I spoke to captivity in general. I didn't slam marineland.