SeaWorld's Decimation of the Southern Resident Orca Population

As a former trainer at SeaWorld I had first hand experience providing misinformation to the public, examples of which are depicted in the movie Blackfish.  

This included parroting false lifespan data during "education shows," claiming that dorsal fin collapse is commonplace in wild orcas, it's not, & also calling teeth drilling & flushing "superior dental care." Another fiction repeated to the public was that food deprivation was never used. We'd say, "The whales get their food every day, regardless of behavior." That is more misinformation. The whales were routinely withheld food, especially in the context of VIP shows, like when August Busch would visit the park, or when key animal separations were needed. The command was, and still is, "hold the animals at half-base." Translation: If an animal, such as Tilikum, received 220 pounds of food as a daily base amount, it was an order to hold him at 110 pounds to ensure that he was "properly motivated."

In general, SeaWorld spends a lot of time grooming & feeding its trainers, animal care specialists, and education staff with corporate talking points that promote captivity and portray the happy Shamu image. For trainers, this included mandatory public relations (PR) classes to learn the "correct answers" to questions, and voice training lessons to project your lines with confidence and authority. And if you wanted to stay employed there, or have access to whales, you did what you were told.

One of the most dubious claims made by SeaWorld is that having orcas in concrete tanks helps to conserve wild populations. They cite the decline of the Southern Resident Killer Whale (SRKW) population as a prime example as to why captivity is necessary. I cringe when I hear that whooper, like at the end of this interview.

The San Juan Islands. It's easy to see why the Southern Residents prefer this to SeaWorld

Here's the rub. The "Southern Residents," with over 120 members before the capture era (pre 1965) are endangered because of SeaWorld, and remain that way due to a lack of food. This clan, the J, K, and L pods, has been unable to rebound from collections that removed over 40% of its members, leaving just 70 whales, by 1976. At that point SeaWorld was ejected from Washington state for inhumane capture methods. Here's a video of former Washington Secretary of State, Ralph Munro, describing what he witnessed in 1976, at Budd Inlet.




The practice of displaying killer whales began in the United States in June of 1965 with the purchase of a Northern Resident Killer Whale called “Namu,” who was bought by Ted Griffin of the Seattle Public Aquarium for $8,000 USD. [See my footnote regarding Wanda and Moby Doll]. Northern Residents are fish eating killer whales, akin to Southern Residents, but with a range from Northern Vancouver Island up to Southeast Alaskan waters. Relative to the Southern Residents, they're just North.

Namu was the first to perform shows, and got his name from a fishing village in British Columbia where he became entangled in a net. After paying cash for Namu, Griffin towed the 22 foot male (the same length as Tilikum) 400 miles South, to Seattle, in a custom floating 60 x 40 x 16 foot deep sea pen held afloat by empty oil drums fastened around the perimeter. Namu's Northern Resident pod, including his suspected mother, reportedly swam with him much of the way. From a business perspective, Namu was an instant hit. Griffin rode him, trained him; a book & movie were made, and he performed for tens of thousands of paying customers. Namu made headlines around the world. Lloyds of London insured Namu, covering him for loss by vandalism or natural death.

With immense potential profits in their sites, Griffin and his partner Don Goldsberry, focused their energies on the acquisition of more live orcas. In October of 1965, at Carr Inlet, Washington, USA, they collected a young Southern Resident Killer Whale after harpooning and killing her mother.

“Shamu”was Griffin & Goldsberry's first successful live orca capture. She was 14 feet in length and approximately 2000 pounds. The young female, "She-Namu" was originally intended as a companion animal for Namu. But putting a young Southern Resident female with an older Northern Resident male didn't work out. In Griffin's words:

"When I [was] in the water with Namu, even riding him, this whale would ram Namu with such force that it might have killed me. And when I was [swimming] in the water with Namu, the whale would ram me, but not as [seriously] as some of the times that she rammed Namu. I thought this was child's play at first but it became quite serious. SeaWorld had come to Seattle and was very interested in acquiring a killer whale for their new facility in San Diego. They wanted to call the whale Namu and they wanted the rights to the name, and I wouldn't do that. So they said okay, we'll... call her Shamu, and that's how it all started. So Shamu went to San Diego and Namu stayed in Seattle.

So the orphaned Southern Resident "Shamu" was sold to SeaWorld for $75,000.  Thus began the company's decimation of mostly Southern Residents in the Pacific Northwest. Keep in mind that SeaWorld has never released a killer whale back into the ocean, argues against sea pens or release for current captives, & has no intention of letting "corporate assets" out of it's concrete enclosures.

SIGNS of TROUBLE: Killer Whale Shamu Attacks Woman Rider in Bikini

According to the Center for Whale Research, website, 45 Southern Resident Killer Whales were delivered to marine parks around the world, with the most going to SeaWorld, and at least 13 more were killed during the capture operations. As depicted by diver John Crowe in Blackfish, the hunters preferred smaller, younger animals. So, if you count the larger, undesirable animals that were corralled and released, often several times in their lives, the total number of Southern Residents "caught" is well over 200. This includes 80 orcas rounded up at Penn Cove in August of 1970. And these numbers don't include some Northern Residents (like Namu) or Transients, like Kanduke, who died at SeaWorld of FL from a mosquito borne virus in September of 1990.

  

According to an investigative report by ABC10 News, in 2007:

"Griffin made no apologies about the whales that died in the hunt, including Shamu'’s mother. Griffin shot her with a harpoon and she drowned."

The profits from Namu & Shamu triggered the formation of a multi-billion dollar franchise and marine park industry. Griffin & Goldsberry became the primary whale hunters for SeaWorld, with Goldsberry reportedly becoming SeaWorld's "Vice President of Animal Collections," and both accrued immense wealth. Unfortunately for the whales, Namu survived only 381 days at the Seattle Aquarium & Shamu lived only six years at SeaWorld in California. But a new lucrative business model had emerged; one that relied on a fresh supply of live-captured orcas to replace the ones who died young.

From 1965 to 1976 the whale hunters collected & delivered (or killed)  about 58 SRKW's. They were finally stopped because of inhumane capture methods, including using seal bombs to herd the whales, and aircraft to spot the pods and also to drop bombs from the air.

From ‘Puget Sound Whales for Sale’ by Sandra Pollard

Public concern over the captures, and other factors, helped trigger the passage of the Marine Mammal Protection Act by the U.S. Congress in 1972. In Washington State, public outcry over live captures led to the ejection of SeaWorld, by name, from those waters in 1976. After that, Goldsberry, a SeaWorld Vice-President, moved on to Iceland. Griffin was done. But this business model remained operational for two decades, until Kalina, the first "Baby Shamu," was born in 1985.

Petition: Force @SeaWorld 2 Pay 4 Decimating the Southern Resident #Blackfish Population https://t.co/Qo0j8OU7p4? @orcasos @Sam10k @orcawild
— Voice of the Orcas (@Voice_OT_Orcas) December 19, 2014

From a population standpoint, the damage was done. Approximately 58 mostly young Southern Residents were removed & the group was decimated. For reference, in the wild, killer whale females have their first viable calf around the age of 14, have about a five-year birthing interval and require 17 to 18 months of gestation to produce a 300 to 400 pound calf. Even under optimal conditions, it would be difficult to rapidly replace the missing members of the clan, but especially when your young females have been taken. Unfortunately, the conditions for recovery have degraded since the captures, mainly due to  human activity, including loss of wetlands and riparian areas, toxins from industry, factory fish farming, and the ongoing negative impacts from literally hundreds of dams in the region.

Here is a video featuring Killer Whale scientist Ken Balcomb, SeaWorld's Don Goldsberry & Blackfish cast member John Crowe, the tattooed diver who was present for one of the round-ups.




Watch another former SeaWorld orca hunter, Jeff Foster, describe hunting killer whales in Iceland in this recently released footage via CNN HERE.  


History aside, SeaWorld now has an opportunity to help increase Chinook salmon for the Southern Resident Killer whales, a group that it once decimated.  It could use its influence to aid salmon recovery efforts in California, Oregon, and Washington.  Political leaders could be encouraged, by SeaWorld, to vote for the removal of unnecessary dams that block salmon migration paths far inland. As an example, The Elwha River Restoration Project is both a great success and one of the most heart-warming environmental stories in decades. The corporation could develop true educational shows that teach millions of guests to reduce the use of chemicals & lawn products which contaminate waterways. It could join corporate partners, especially large grocery stores & restaurant chains, to discourage them from purchasing and selling farm raised salmon, With it's large marketing and public relations resources, this gesture could easily become a national effort to save a unique and iconic group of whales. An effort like that would earn the respect of a new generation of potential guests at their parks. 

It would be a win for the whales, a win for the environment, and a win for SeaWorld.


Footnote: A female named Wanda lived for a day at Marineland, in Los Angeles, after being harassed and netted by hunters of the now defunct Marineland of the Pacific; and after swimming into Newport Harbor, CA, in 1961. And yes, Moby Doll lived several weeks after being harpooned & shot several times by the Vancouver Aquarium in 1964; but the beginning of the industry began with Namu, who was successfully captured in good health, and with the intent to display.



Jeffrey Ventre is a medical doctor licensed in the state of Washington and is a board certified specialist in the area of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation. He treats patients with disabilities ranging from spinal cord & brain injury to low back pain, carpal tunnel syndrome, and amputations. He is (also) a doctor of chiropractic, and continues to use spinal manipulation as a complementary therapy in his medical practice. Jeff was a marine mammal trainer at SeaWorld from 1987 to 1995. He worked with John Jett PhD, Samantha Berg, and Carol Ray, at SeaWorld in Orlando. The four ex trainers continue to spread the word regarding cetacean captivity as a group known as "Voice of the Orcas."