By Jeffrey Ventre & Carol Ray
State Legislators in New York and California have proposed bills to ban or end captivity in those states. Just yesterday, 38 US Congressmen sent a letter to Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack, citing outdated regulations protecting cetaceans and assert that the current rules don’t reflect “updated science." We couldn't agree more.
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| Read about it HERE at The Dodo or Read about it HERE at CNN |
Despite overwhelming evidence that killer whales are not suited for captivity, the giant captivity corporation continues to spread misinformation to hold onto a tired business model that the U.S. public has outgrown. Scientific polling data collected by Edge Research and commissioned by the Animal Welfare Institute (AWI) & Whale & Dolphin Conservation (WDC), released on 26 May 2014, can be viewed HERE. Only 21% of the American public support keeping killer whales in captivity; 50% oppose captivity; and 29% are undecided. With those numbers its clear to see why politicians are finally jumping on board the anti-captivity train.
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| Read about SeaWorld's Misuse of Dr Ingrid Visser's research HERE |
As former SeaWorld trainers, we can offer a firsthand perspective on this controversy. We participated in Blackfish with the hope that the public would learn about the very real suffering of killer whales at SeaWorld. This is reflected in measurable ways, including shorter lifespans, broken teeth, collapsed dorsal fins, and social strife.
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| SeaWorld's asking supporters to battle the Blackfish Effect |
We watched as young orcas were forcibly separated from their mothers to be shipped off to other facilities. We listened to the mothers' wails of despair. Katina, a nurturing and conscientious mother, has tragically had five of her seven offspring taken away from her.
Katina currently lives with Nalani, her daughter who was fathered by her own son Taku, and young Makaio. Tragically, soon after impregnating his mother, Taku was separated and shipped to SeaWorld of Texas where he was killed at age 14 by a West Nile Virus infection transmitted by a mosquito bite.
SeaWorld spins these traumatic separations by defining youngsters who are no longer nursing as "independent." That's like saying a 5-year-old toddler is ready to be taken from his or her family. In the wild, orcas rarely leave their family pod and the bond between mother and child lasts a lifetime.
SeaWorld spins these traumatic separations by defining youngsters who are no longer nursing as "independent." That's like saying a 5-year-old toddler is ready to be taken from his or her family. In the wild, orcas rarely leave their family pod and the bond between mother and child lasts a lifetime.
TO LEARN THE TRUTH ABOUT KATINA & HER CALVES, CLICK ON THIS ARTWORK BY LEE HARRISON
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| Incredible Art by Lee Harrison, New Zealand http://okura.deviantart.com/ @kiwiokuraorca |
There's an abundance of evidence that captivity kills orcas, usually at a young age, and that stress, social tension and poor health are chronic issues among orcas held in marine-park facilities. Genetically adapted to spend their entire lives within the complexity and security of family groupings, orcas captured from the wild have been denied the comfort and mentoring that these communities provide.
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| Read an article about this data HERE. See the Edge Research memo HERE. |
Killer whales at SeaWorld are confined to small acoustically inadequate concrete pools, where they must live in extremely close proximity to other whales, with whom they often share no ancestral or cultural connection. The squabbles and tension that result are exacerbated by the fact that they have no way to escape. Subdominant animals like Tilikum have no where to run, and he has no mother to provide him with any social status in the artificial pod. So he gets beat up, picked on, and isolated for his own protection. Those higher on the social ladder are like schoolyard bullies, ramming and raking (dragging their teeth over) more submissive individuals.
Washington Post sports columnist Mike Wise:
Just got done watching #blackfish on @CNN. Welp, there goes the family vacation to @SeaWorld. Bunch of lying, cruel bastards.
— Mike Wise (@MikeWiseguy) May 23, 2014
This is unreal. @SeaWorld mounting a counter PR campaign in the middle of the most damning documentary imaginable. #Shameless
— Mike Wise (@MikeWiseguy) May 23, 2014
Serious injuries, including bites in which chunks of flesh are torn off, are not uncommon. SeaWorld's tanks are only a a tiny fraction of the area through which an orca would move during a single day of swimming in the wild.
SeaWorld's orca "inventory" in no way benefits orcas in the wild. In fact, the park's whale catchers devastated an orca population off the coast of Washington state by removing so many individuals to be used in theme parks. (Watch: "45 Southern Residents were taken.") Many orcas have died prematurely in SeaWorld facilities from violent accidents, preventable injuries, illnesses caused by stressful living conditions and many other causes, and the park has never released a captive orca back into the ocean.
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| 3 Young Ladies deliver a petition of 1.2 Million Signatures in Support of Richard Bloom's California Blackfish Bill AB 2140 |
SeaWorld's well-financed public-relations machine is designed to deflect and deny, and it is an expert at spinning twine into gold. But the riveting documentary Blackfish has drawn back the curtain on what George Orwell is said to have called "universal deceit." That curtain can never be closed again.
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| To Watch a GIS Tour of The Blackfish Effect produced by Michelle Duncan @Chicasyoga Click HERE |
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| 3 May 2014 in Rochester, New York |