'Life is short. Steal a walrus'

A Canadian theme AVF park sued animal trainer Phil Demers for plotting to abduct a 544kg walrus named Smooshi. This is the heartwarming tale of how after a decadelong battle, he finally succeeded in rescuing the animal

- By Elizabeth Claire

Phil Demers’ lawyer once gave him a stern warning: he shouldn’t use his bullhorn megaphone at a protest outside MarineLand, the Canadian entertainment park near Niagara Falls. If he did, the park, which was already in the process of suing him, could take further legal action.

He didn’t listen. On 18 May 2019, he took to the streets and climbed a ladder among a throng of protesters, bullhorn hot in his hands. BAAAAAR-BAAAAAR. He screamed that the park would never silence him or anyone else.

Phil grins as he recalls the day. “I didn’t make it easy on him,” he says about his lawyer.

Six years earlier, in March 2013, MarineLand had filed a lawsuit demanding C$1,5 million (about R19m) from Phil, who had worked as an animal trainer at the park for 12 years. He’d quit the previous year after getting fed up with the animal suffering he said he had witnessed.

Yet MarineLand didn’t sue him for libel. Instead, they sued him for trespassing and plotting to steal one of their heaviest residents: a 544kg walrus named Smooshi, with whom Phil had formed a bizarrely close bond.

At the time Phil said the park’s allegations against him were a complete work of fiction.

“I could do nothing but laugh,” he says now.

Within a month, he had filed a counterclaim for defamation and abuse of process, thinking everything might get resolved within a year or two. But the legal battle stretched over a decade and accrued costs of around C$250 000 (R3,1m), pushing him to his financial and mental limits.