The average human walks about 5 miles a day, students on college campuses and people who live in cities can average even more then that. Humans move to be efficient, to survive. People walk to the store to buy food for themselves and their family, they go running to stay healthy, and they walk or drive to work to make an income that will support themselves and whoever they need to. People live their lives every day not even realizing the immense amount of freedom they have by being able to walk and go anywhere they please. Now imagine a society where they live in boxes, about the size of a class room. The people never leave the box but they are fed, washed, and given attention so they do not feel neglected. Just because the people are taken care of does that make it right? Of course, most people would see this as inhumane. Not giving a person the choice to live in their natural habitat seems cruel and unhealthy. However, our society deems this behavior as appropriate if it is done to an animal. The main focus of animal captivity on the media is about killer whales and SeaWorld. It is correct that killer whales should not be kept in captivity, but this is true for other species as well. Exotic animals kept in zoos and large aquatic animals kept in aquariums are prime examples of this belief that animals do not need freedom. The main focus of animal captivity on the media is about killer whales and SeaWorld. It is correct that killer whales should not be kept in captivity, but this is true for other species as well. Kept in boxes that are a miniscule fraction size of what their home would look like in the wild. Society deems that captivity of animals as legal because they receive all the necessary care to survive. All though, this does not mean the animals are happy. People disregard the well being of captive animals because they make for good entertainment.  The relationship between humans and animals need to be reevaluated. Society would find it barbaric to put a human in a box for their whole lives when they should be walking an average of five miles a day. Then why does society deem it tolerable to keep killer whales who travel up to 100 miles a day and lions who travel 50 miles a day in a small cage or pool? Through investigating numerous types of research, it has been revealed that Killer Whales and other animals should not be kept in captivity for human entertainment because it is poor for their mental and physical health, effects some animal's family life, and alters the way humanity thinks about nature and animals. 

Family is very important in some species of animals. When an animal is taken from the wild or born into captivity, humans do not focus on keeping a family unit together. Animals are sold to zoos, aquatic attractions, and aquariums as merchandise, so staying with their families would be costly for the buyer. The damaging effects of separating a family can be seen through many species, but is obviously exemplifies in killer whales. Killer Whales in the wild stay with their immediate families their whole lives, called pods. Then numerous pods travel together and form a community (Orca Spirit). Killer whales are a very communal species; they help each other so the whole community will benefit. These communities have their own language; different communities cannot understand one another. This is why captivity is so detrimental to this species. Killer whales from different communities are put into a pool together for their whole entire life time (Black Fish). Imagine a person spending their whole life in a small room with someone who did not speak the same language as them. This causes the whales in captivity to become depressed and lonely. 

One phenomenal thing about killer whales is the size of their brain. They have the second largest brain out of all species in the whole world (Black Fish). This is why killer whale's gestation period is 16-18 months long, they need time to develop their large brain. This long gestation period causes whales to grow a bond even stronger between mother and child then humans do (Orca Spirit). Whales have a life expectancy close to the age of humans. Instead of leaving their families after they become an adult like humans do, children and mother whales stay together until the mother dies (cite this). At Seaworld, a mother gave birth and the baby was taken from her to a new park when the calf was only 2 years old. An old trainer who worked with the whales commented on how the mother whale reacted after her baby was taken. "Katina (mother whale) stayed in the corner of the pool, literally just shaking. Screaming, shaking, and crying ... there was nothing you could call that besides real grief" (Blackfish). Whales are not meant to be separated from their children at such a young age. The only reason the baby was taken from Katina was because she became disruptive during some shows. The executive branch of SeaWorld put the performance of a Whale high on their priorities then the well being of the whale family. 

Another example of the extraordinary bond between mother and calf is killer whales near Saun Juan island. The whales near here are observed by whale researchers keeping track of their communities. One whale gave birth to a stillborn whale. After the birth of the whale, the mother carried its body for 8 days. Researchers recorded that she did not eat for three days in order to carry her baby using her head. If the mom ever dropped the dead calf, then another member of the pod would swim down and retrieve the body and return it to the mother. After eight days, researchers noticed the whales were closer to the shoreline then usual. The pod created a U-shape around the mother and their calf. The mother pushed the calf into the waves and the body coasted to the shoreline. The killer whales had their form of a burial service for the still born and the grieving mother. These actions show that mother and calf should not be separated for human entertainment. The way mother whales react when they lose a child show the emotional harm that separation causes for these whales. It is inhumane and not justified to separate them solely because more whales are needed at another park or the baby is disrupting her mother's show.  

Keeping animals in captivity inhibits their innate need to stay with their family, it also hurts their mental and physical health. When an animal is used to having open space to roam free, being forced to stay in close confinement can cause frustration and agitation. When animals become aggressive toward one another, they have miles of ocean or land to separate. When kept in confinement, there is no where to swim. This becomes even more of an issue when social status between animals cannot be upheld as well. In the wild, each pod of whales is lead by an older female whale, called the matriarch. She is the dominate whale in the pod, it is her job to teach younger whales how to hunt and to keep the rest of the pod in order (Orca spirit). This becomes an issue when two or more older whales are kept in captivity with each other. They all have this innate dominance. This can lead to fighting between two older females or the females tend to form an alliance against male whales in the same pool (Orca Spirit). There have been numerous according of whales in captivity have striations on their skin from teeth. Also a bite from another killer whale can cause a massive amount of bleeding. 

Another aspect that has a negative effect on the mental and physical health of killer whales in captivity is that they are put in false "pods". Whales at SeaWorld and other aquatic attractions are not with their biological family all the time. Being with whales from a different pods in close proximities can cause hyper aggression between whales. One former trainer at SeaWorld said, "These are different nations; these aren't two different killer whales. They have different genes, different languages." Being removed from their families and put with foreign whales causes the killer whales to become irritated and angry. Whales have died in captivity due to fights between whales. In 1988, Korki the whale was attacked by an older female whale who was trying to prove her dominance. Korki was rammed by the other whale with enough force that it broke her jaw bone. This also punctured and artery in Korki's head which cause her to bleed to death. This is just one of the many killer whale deaths due to whale aggression at aquatic attractions. 

Lastly, one major physical disability that happens to whales in captivity is Dorsal Collapse. This is when the Dorsal top fin of a killer whales flops over to the side instead of standing straight up. In the wild, less then one percent of killer whales has Dorsal collapse. In SeaWorld, it was reported that over half the males had dorsal collapse. Dr. Astrid van Ginneken is a professor who has studied wild orca whales since 1987. In an interview she gave her input on why captive Dorsal Whales have dorsal collapse. Her first reason was pattern swimming, meaning whales in captivity swim in a circle at all times because they are in a pool. In the wild they turn and dart in different directions to catch prey. Second, captive killer whales rest at the surface of the water much more then wild whales do. This is because they have platforms in Aquatic attractions that are only one to two feet deep so the audience can see the full body of the whale. Gravity takes a toll on the top dorsal fin when out of water, and cause it to lean to one side. Lastly, killer whales in captivity eat less food because they use less energy in pools because they do not travel as far as whales in the wild. This lack of food causes the captive killer whales to be less hydrated, making the dorsal fin collapse. 

The last reason why killer whales should not be kept in captivity is because it teaches children a false dominance over the species. Sea World and aquariums justify the captivity of killer whales because it is educational to children. However, this false environment that the whales live in gives kids a false sense of nature. After children go to SeaWorld, they do not picture killer whales in the ocean, but in a pool. It gives them the sense that it is tolerable to abuse nature. Yes, children will learn facts about killer whales from trainers and tour guides at SeaWorld, but they also learn that it is acceptable to take a whale out of its natural environment for the purpose to do performances in front of a crowd. This is not teaching children about animals, this is teaching them that humans have dominance over captive animals. Captivity takes away the ability for killer whales to capture their own food and make their own decisions.

(for final add a couple paragraphs on counter argument)

Killer whales are a species that is meant to hunt, be with their biological families for their whole lives, and swim a mammoth distance in the ocean each day. All of these things are taken from Killer whales when kept in captivity. Even if killer whales are born into captivity, these innate actions should still be fulfilled. From detailed research it has been shown that Killer whales should no longer be kept in captivity for the reasons of human entertainment. It separates pods and destroys social order, causes mental and physical harm to the animal, and teaches our youth society that it is okay to abuse the rights of animals. No species should be treated this way, especially killer whales who have lives that cannot be fulfilled by living in a pool. 

