Stan Searles: Killer whale trainer turned conservation guru

by Cheryl D’Mello

Stan Searles has had an exciting career trajectory for the last 50 years. His work has included training dolphins and killer whales at Sea World, saving walruses in Siberia, reintroducing Andean condors in Venezuela and working in Alaska with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to reintroduce trumpeter swans to Ohio. He’s also consulted for the Russian government on an aquarium project in Vladivostok, trained baby manatees to nurse from a bottle in Florida, studied dolphins at Iki Island in Japan and collected penguin eggs in the Antarctica.

On Feb. 2, Searles shared 50 years of his work in the field of conservation with members of the Black River Audubon Society in Elyria via a zoom webinar.

Searles grew up in the San Francisco Bay area, in Menlo Park, Calif. He loved swimming and surfing and wanted to become a lawyer. But in 1969, at the age of 18, his plans changed after he got a job at the Redwood City Marine World.

It was a new field, and killer whales had been in captivity for just five years. With some on-the-job training, he discovered he had a knack with the animals and conducted shows with killer whales, dolphins, pilot whales, sea lions and elephant seals.

Within four years, he was hired by Sea World Corporation, the world’s largest, most extensive oceanarium and relocated to the Sea World in Orlando, Fla. where he worked for nine years.

In 1983, Searles came to Sea World of Ohio as vice president/general curator. Sensing that change was coming, however, he elected to hire in at the Cleveland Metroparks Zoo in 1990 where he discovered the field of conservation.

“The zoo had a nonprofit mindset. It is about the mission, not the money,” he said.

Besides managing the avian and aquatic collection, he gained international fame for initiating zoo conservation programs. Among that list is the reintroduction of trumpeter swans that vanished from Ohio for more than 200 years, brook trout conservation and the formation of a Venezuelan conservation organization for Andean condor reintroduction.

Searles spoke about the changes zoos have experienced in the last 20 years.

“By zoos, I mean zoos and aquariums, institutions that are accredited by the Association of Zoos and Aquariums. Ninety-one percent of all facilities are not accredited.”

Zoos have come a long way from the 1960s when there was very little research or scientific studies carried out, Searles said. The first Earth Day in 1970 marked the birth of the environmental movement and the Endangered Species Act of 1973 followed.

Over the past 20 years, zoos have focused on the physical, mental and emotional welfare of their animals and in working with local populations to bring about changes.

After 22 years, Searles retired in 2012 as the zoo’s curator of birds and aquatics. He then plunged into conservation efforts, both locally and internationally, as founder and executive director of Global Conservation Connections.

“It is unfortunate that we often don’t get connected with the environment until creatures start dying before our eyes,” he said. “Action can take all sorts of forms, like donating money and pressuring politicians to introduce legislations. We can’t turn back the clock, but we can make things better.”

Searles recommended the public join groups such as the Cleveland Lights Out project, the Ohio Blue Birds Society, and more.

Searles and his wife Vicki, who is director of conservation education at Cleveland Metroparks Zoo, were married in an Andean Village in Venezuela. They live in Brecksville. ∞