What is it like to spend your life in a pool? To live everyday roaming around in circles without any stimulation? That is the life of orcas in captivity. Orcas have no way of escaping or enjoying their lives to the fullest. SeaWorld, an amusement park, trapped orcas in tiny pools while, off in the distance the park is surrounded by open water. Killer whales have been hunted for entertainment since the 1960s. Due to the massive size of orcas and the close bond with their pod, there was a lot of difficulty catching them. Soon enough, the practice of capturing these animals was put to a stop. However, this didn’t stop businesses such as SeaWorld, from finding other ways to keep their orca population and their shows. SeaWorld and other entertainment businesses profiting off of orcas understand captivity has a negative effect on the orcas and the trainers handling the animals. However, amusement parks continue to allow trainers to be near orcas and keep them in small concrete tanks with other animals. 

While orcas were hunted in the wild, many of them passed away when they were caught on the net. Killer whales are family oriented which leads to close-knit relationships with one another. When mother killer whales were being torn apart from their babies, they tried to fight and keep their calves. Many of the animals were crying, yelling and communicating with one another. The captures recall this as a very sad scene. In order to hide the amount of orcas that passed away, the dead calves and adults were filled with rocks so they would sink to the bottom. Orcas from the wild had a hard time coping with the travel and adjusting to their new “home”. It was a high stress situation for the young calves who were torn apart from their mothers and isolated. Due to this, at first many killer whales died on the journey or in their new “home”. Over time the number of deaths of orcas from being captured from the wild slowly decreased. As time went on people were able to get a hand on how to safely handle orcas to keep them alive. Although, over time the capture of orcas from their natural habitat was brought to an end, artificial insemination was used in order to continue to have a decent population of orcas for the Shamu show in SeaWorld. However, even if the orcas can now give birth, many orca calves passed away before they reached two months. Again, this changed as trainers and staff were learning how to handle newborns and create a stable environment for them. Nevertheless, captive orcas pass away earlier than they would if they lived in the wild. 

People don’t understand how precious orcas are and how intelligent they are. Orcas are very social animals. Orcas can be separated into three populations. The first would be (Resident) fish-eating orcas which generally stay in one area, (Transient) mammal-eaters orca which generally stay along the coasts and the last group (Offshore) stay around the deep-blue water. Orcas are then further divided into large family groups called pods. Each pod has a different language from other pods as well as different cultures. It’s said they have different cultures because the older orcas teach the calves the families language, where they hunt, how to hunt, sexual behavior and what food they can eat. Orcas may look very similar to one another however, they are very different. Orcas also live in a matriarchal society which means the most dominant female controls the pod. Grouping random families together leads to tension as they cannot communicate with each other. Not only are they separated from their family, orcas are left to wander around in circles all day until they are required to rehearse for the show. Orcas are bored from the lack of stimulation as they are repeating the same movements till they perfect them.They are extremely intelligent, and putting them in tanks only demeans their intelligent and negatively impacts their health.. 

Orcas in the wild are physically different from orcas in captivity. Orcas in captivity have a flipped over dorsal fin, which represents their lack of health. SeaWorld insists flipped dorsal fins are common in the wild however, there are no reported flipped over dorsal fins in the wild. Due to the lack of communication with other animals and being placed with different families, many orcas in captivity have rake marks through their body, or are bitten till they are bleeding. In SeaWorld during a show, the dominant female, KanduV rammed into Corky II. KanduV ended up fracturing her jaw and severing a major artery. The crowd witnessed how KanduV aggression led to her ultimate demise as she bled out for forty five minutes. This is not the only reported incident where orcas have lashed out on one another and ultimately passed away from this violence. These incidents become very common when orcas are placed in very close quarters with one another and nowhere to swim away. This rarely happens in the wild, orcas stick to their own families since all orcas have different languages and cultures and can only communicate with their family. Therefore, captivity greatly deters their physical health and wellbeing. 

Captive orcas constantly chew on the concrete walls and gates that separate the pools, which severely damages their teeth. In order to prevent infections SeaWorld, drills down the killer whales teeth and flush them daily with chemicals. Most of the orcas in SeaWorld have their teeth drilled down or they have no teeth at all. Captive killer whales teeth aren’t necessary for them as their food is thrown directly into their mouths. They are fed thawed dead fish which also contains medicine for the orcas. However, their teeth become significantly weaker and are more liable to further damage such as fractures which leads to premature deaths. In the wild, orcas are in the top of the food chain so they feed on octopus, squids, sharks, sea turtles and fish. However, the diet of the pods depend on whether they are Resident orcas, Transient orcas or Offshore orcas. Nevertheless, captive orcas are severely malnourished compared to those living in the wild. 

Most of their aggression stems from the boredom of their mundane routine. Killer whales usually spend their days swimming hundreds of miles and hunting for their food as well as spending time with their family. However, captive orcas spend their time swimming in circles or just staying still in one spot and gulping their food down. Not only do their problems stem from boredom, captive orcas also have excessive amounts of stress.  Their stress comes from poor nutrition, overcrowding as many orcas are placed into small enclosures with one another, being placed with orcas that are very aggressive, separation or social isolation. Rechberg in her study, “Dying to Entertain Us or Living to Educate Us? A Comprehensive Investigation of Captive Killer Whales, Their Trainers, and How the Law Must Evolve to Meet Their Needs.” mentions, “Excessive stress in marine animals ‘can lead to ulcers, breakdown of immune systems, even death.’”. A lot of captive orcas die prematurely from stress. Captive killer whales with excessive stress sometimes make become self-aggressive and bash their heads against their enclosure walls leading to a brain aneurysm which, ultimately leads to their death. Captivity has been affecting orcas negatively and its been shown physically.

 Captive orcas are harmful to themselves and other orcas as they take out their boredom and excessive stress on the other animals. However, they also are very harmful to their trainers. SeaWorld has hidden a lot from the public such as the number of orcas death, number of calves death or number of deaths and injuries caused by captive orcas on humans. This soon changed after the very public death of an experienced trainer, Dawn Brancheau. In front of an audience while Brancheau and the captive orca Tilikum were performing for ‘Dine with Shamu’, Tilikum dragged her underwater, thrashing her against the water and diving with her lifeless body. The audience witnessed this gruesome death and soon it was discovered that this wasn’t the first time Tilikum or other captive orcas physically harmed trainers. Specifically, Tilikum was involved in two other deaths. In a park in Canada, Tilikum along with two other whales, killed a trainer as she was trying to get up from the tank when she slipped in. In SeaWorld Orlando where he murdered Dawn Brancheau, in 1999, an unidentified man was found dead and nude with bite marks laid on top Tilikum. 

Captive killer whales not only placed their aggression on themselves, other orcas and their caretakers. There have been over 40 reported injuries on trainers from captive orcas. Many of the injuries stem from the orcas appearing strangely out of nowhere. Captive orcas will lunge at their trainers and bump into them. It’s mostly reported that captive killer whales will grab their experience trainers by their feet (sometimes during shows) and pull them to the bottom of the pool and hold them underwater for a minute then pulling them back up and repeating this action. Also, they would be slammed underwater. Captive orcas would push their trainers into the water. A very public and common case occurred in SeaWorld California with a female captive orca, Kasatka and her trainer, Kenneth Peters. Kasatka attacked Peters before however, during a show, she grabbed Peters foot and dove him all the way to the bottom of the tank and less than a minute later she pulls him back to the surface and continues to take him to the bottom of the tank. Footage shows Kenneth Peters doing his best to take deep breaths and calmly rub Kasatka and made sure to not freak out himself. Trainers attempted to get Kasatkas attention away from Peters. A net was placed in between them and Peters was assessed to have suffered a broken left foot. Not only do these animals harm each other, they harm those who spend their life dedicated to caring for them.

Orcas have suffered greatly in the entertainment industry. It is astonishing that many countries have banned animals from being used in the circus. However, orcas, who are extremely intelligent, physically harm their trainers from stress and are malnourished are still being used for our entertainment. SeaWorld claims they have to be kept captive because they don’t know otherwise. This may be true, but they do not want to admit that their are options. SeaWorld refuses to contribute to a whale sanctuary. This sanctuary can be used to help orcas safely rehabilitate from being hand fed to hunting for their own food. Essentially, this sanctuary or sea pen will create a natural environment and allow the animals to roam freely. The public will be allowed to visit however, it’s not an entertainment facility and the whales health will come first. 

 

Work Cited

Cowperthwaite, Gabriela. Blackfish, CNN Films, 2013. Netflix.

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Jones, Jonathan. “A picture of loneliness: you are looking at the last male northern white rhino.” The Guardian, May 12, 2015 https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/may/12/last-male-northern-white-rhino Accessed October 15, 2019.

Rechberg, Megan J. “Dying to Entertain Us or Living to Educate Us? A Comprehensive Investigation of Captive Killer Whales, Their Trainers, and How the Law Must Evolve to Meet Their Needs.” Journal of the National Association of Administrative Law Judiciary, Oct. 15, 2011, https://digitalcommons.pepperdine.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1015&context=naalj Accessed September 20, 2019.

Mountain, Michael. “Dental Damage and Decay Among Orcas at Marine Parks” The Whale Sanctuary Project, October 12, 2017 https://whalesanctuaryproject.org/dental-damage-decay-among-orcas-marine-parks/ Accessed September 20, 2019.

“SeaWorld orca Tilikum that killed trainer dies”, BBC, January 6, 2017 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-38531967 Accessed September 21, 2019.

“Violent incidents between humans and orcas in captivity.” The Free Morgan Foundation, October, 2019 http://www.freemorgan.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/list_of_incidents.pdf Accessed September 21, 2019.

Spear, Kevin. “How smart are killer whales? Orcas have 2nd-biggest brains of all marine mammals”, March 8, 2010 https://phys.org/news/2010-03-smart-killer-whales-orcas-2nd-biggest.html Accessed September 22, 2019.