Imagine getting kidnapped from your home, away from your family, put into captivity and used for entertainment. Being solely dependent on humans for survival, and mistreated for use of entertainment. That is how killer whales have been treated at SeaWorld and it is inhumane, but as long as it makes good money for the industry it’s ok right?
Sea World has been one of the most visited theme parks, what attracts people the most is the majestic sea creature, the killer whale. Sea World has been advertised as an all fun and happy park where animals are handled with love and care. Through the eyes of a little kid, seeing this giant killer whale do a number of tricks with its trainers looks like the time of their lives. However, most people do not think twice about how these animals in captivity are being treated behind the scenes in these entertainment industries.
How did they even get there?
The poor treatment of these whales starts with how they are ripped away from their families and natural habitat. The innocent whales are forced to adapt to their captivity once they are “violently captured and trucked or flown to a sterile aquarium that bears no resemblance to their former ocean home” (Lauren Rhone). In most cases, some are killed in the process or severely harmed. Once they are put in the small pools, the whales are no longer able to act how they naturally would in the wild. They have to become completely dependant on their trainers for food and instead of being able to swim long distances and diving to great depths in the ocean, they are forced to float around in their small pools. You can imagine the stress and boredom this can bring to the whales. In the wild, orcas dive up to 1,000 feet, while the tanks that SeaWorld has proposed will only reach 50 feet (SeaWorldofHurt). SeaWorld holds more than one orca in captivity.
Because of the tiny pools that they are put, they are held together in tight spaces, resulting in tension and stress that cause the orcas to fight with one another.An article posted by Los Angeles Times, mentions how a killer whale at SeaWorld bled to death after breaking her jaw charging into another whale. In the wild, orcas are able to escape and swim away from a fight, but held in these tanks they cannot. Many of the tricks that are performed in the shows actually harm the orcas. One stunt consists of the trainers riding the orcas through the water on their backs and beaks. “Such stunts strain the marine mammals’ sensitive lower jaws in a way that can damage their hearing, injure joints and muscles and worsen other injuries caused by confinement within holding tanks where the dolphins are kept” Dr. Heather Rally, a PETA Foundation veterinarian mentioned.
As a result from the unfair treatment and poor conditions that these whales have gone through, the whales have no other choice but to act against their trainers. Hargrove, a former worker for SeaWorld who quit in 2012, suffered numerous broken bones and nearly destroyed his sinuses after an incident during a performance. Hargover mentioned how he owed the whales, their physical and emotional well-being, he grew to believe, was incompatible with captivity. He did not blame them for acting out against them, after they are held in tiny tanks compared to their size, bored and restless, forced to perform tricks for food that trainers withheld as punishment, they occasionally slipped, Hargover writes, “into the dark side” (Adler).
The whales have no other option but to rebel against them to show that they have had enough. Orcas have a maximum lifespan of 60 to 70 years for males and 80 to more than 100 for females, while the average age of death for orcas who are kidnapped and put into captivity by SeaWorld is 14 years(SeaWorldofHurt). Orcas were never meant to be put in captivity, these numbers clearly show how poorly they are being taken care of as well as their poor living conditions. An orca named Kotar who was captured when he was barely a year old, suffered extensive blood loss from one of the gates closed on his head, crushing his skull.
This devastating incident would never had happened in his natural habitat, the ocean. Many incidents that led to the death of these orcas could have been completely prevented if they weren't held in captivity in the first place. Kidnapping and holding whales in captivity for the use of entertainment and money for the industry is inhumane and unfair. These innocent sea creatures have no business in being used for entertainment and treated poorly, they deserve to be left unbothered and roam freely in their home and live exactly how they are meant to.