thoughts on sea world and places like it? (read description first)

as i usually say, i searched this topic and could not find one here. if it has been done before please let me know :)

as many may have heard, sea world and other locations like it have been loved and visited by families across the country.

however, people have time and time again brought up the horrible reality that is the life of orcas and other animals held in captivity. orcas in captivity have suffered early death and malformations never found in the wild, such as bent fins. i’ll share with you some clips i found rather than trying to explain everything in my own words.

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“Tilikum started life as a free orca before he was taken from his mother and his home at the age of 2. He then lived in a cruel environment where they used food deprivation to teach him tricks and he was kept in a 20×30 foot container for 19 hours at a time till his next show. Before even arriving to Sea World Tilikum was involved in the death on one of his trainers at this park. Sea World vowed that he would only be used for breeding purposes and would not therefore be forced to perform alongside humans. Of course within a short time span he was a star attraction in one of Sea Worlds ‘educational’ shows. We all know the end result and Tilikum famously killed his trainer Dawn Brancheau in 2010. The film argues that in the wild killer whales have never been known to harm humans and are actually intelligent and playful rather than psychotic killers. Tilikum is not the only example and killer whales in captivity attack not just their trainers but each other, sometimes fatally, growing slowly madder and more bored at their existence of swimming around the same small area every single day of their lives.

Nothing Sea World does is for the benefit of the animals they keep. They have had no new scientific knowledge released on any animals in their parks for decades, so they are not contributing to the science of whales in any form. Nor, like other species, do whales and dolphins thrive in captivity and well out-live their wild counterparts. In fact they live a much shorter life in captivity and die of causes that they would never get in the wild such as St Louis encephalitis, a mosquito borne disease. Fin collapse also rarely occurs in the wild but is common in captive whales and many young calves that are born into captivity sadly die at an early age. Yet Sea World’s incestuous breeding program continues, for absolutely no good reason. So what really is Sea World contributing to the livelihood and welfare of these animals? The answer is quite simply, nothing.”

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here is the story of Inouk, an orca in France.

“For the last twenty years, he has lived in a small concrete pool in Marineland, Antibes. He was born there. His mother and father died there, carried away by infection for one, and loneliness for the other.

It’s there that, day in and day out, he performs tricks in exchange for food. He will never know the ocean, and never swim more than a dozen meters in a straight line.

Now I’m aware that the plight of orcas is something we prefer to only be vaguely aware of, something we keep at the edge of our consciousness. It’s a horrible situation, but also one where we feel there’s not much we can do, so… we try to forget.

But this picture… it haunts me.

He has no more teeth. (pictures attached at end)

Driven mad by isolation and loss and suffocation, Inouk began to gnaw on the concrete edges of his pool. He gnawed all the way to the raw nerve, and kept on gnawing until nothing was left but rotten stubs.

He gnawed despite the pain, the infections, and the blood.

He gnawed in a mad, hypnotic and repetitive behavior we see in giant cats pacing around their cages, or elephants swaying left and right.

He gnawed because his world was so horrible that scraping raw nerves against raspy concrete was a preferable alternative to reality.

He gnawed because we took this wondrous, beautiful animal…

And we drove it insane.”

-Julia Kvach, on Quora

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(Inouk’s mouth)

(how it’s supposed to look)