SeaWorld has had a lot of backlash after bad press and former employees speaking out against them. After many lawsuits and cases brought against them, they are still allowed to remain open and until recently breed whales (Begley). Thirty-one of the whales were bred from Tilikum, who killed three people due to being in immense emotional distress (Wake Forest Law Review). In addition to just Tilikum, there have been a number of other baby whales taken away from their mothers, which SeaWorld claims is beneficial for them because the mother "rejected" them (SeaWorld, n.p.). Along with the inhumane conditions that the whales are being forced to live in, trapped in cages while they should be in the wild swimming one-hundred miles a day, the public is also being lied to (Wake Forest Law Review). SeaWorld's recent counter attack is that they spend a majority of their money on funding research and helping out orcas in the wild using the money they make from those in captivity. However, SeaWorld made 1.4 billion dollars last year in eleven of its parks, and only pledged to spend 10 million on orca research (Raja). Somehow, that does not add up. This matters because these whales cannot stand up for themselves, so they need people to do it for them. In the future, everyone does not want to look back and wonder how we could have done this to animals and treated them so cruelly and kept them in places so unlike their natural habitat, so something needs to be done now. SeaWorld needs to be completely restructured to make it a more humane and healthy learning environment for the public, as well as a rehabilitation environment for marine animals that have been hurt by human impact on the world.

Tilikum was taken from his mother, who was killed in front of him, when he was two years old near Iceland. After he was taken, he was held in a tank made of cement for about a year in Iceland before he was transported to a marine park. The first place he went was Sealand of the Pacific in Canada and he lived in a 100 foot by 50 foot tank that was only 35 feet deep (SeaWorld of hurt). However, at the end of the day he was kept in a cage with two other female whales, Haida and Nootka. In the wild, whales are matriarchal in their pods and the males tend to stick to the outside so as to not get beat up by the females (Wagner). Since Tilikum could not get away, he endured abuse from them night after night in a dark tank where he could not get away. Keltie Byrne, a trainer, fell into the tank on February 21st, 1991 and was killed by all three of the whales, mainly Tilikum. It took two hours for them to recover her body. Sealand shut down for good after that, and put Tilikum up for sale. SeaWorld immediately bought him and did not give any thought to his past or what he had been through. Fifty-four percent of the whales at SeaWorld now have his genes. He was forced to give sperm and then the female whales were artificially inseminated. His tank at SeaWorld contains 0.0001 percent of the water that he would have swam through in a single day out in the wild (SeaWorld of Hurt). This would be the human equivalent to an adult man living on half of a volleyball court (Biodiversity News). 

Tilikum later killed two more people at SeaWorld, people who he had worked with hundreds of times in the past. He has shown signs of abnormal behavior, such as chewing on metal gates and the sides of his tank until his teeth are entirely worn down. He was lashing out from extreme emotional distress. Even then, SeaWorld did not inform the trainers about what had happened and most of this information came from news outlets. After his last killing of his trainer Dawn Brancheau, he was kept in isolation (which is detrimental for whales who are very social creatures) for a year. He was reportedly just floating around listlessly, like he was grieving. After a year of isolation, he was returned to performing. Tilikum was not a rare case at SeaWorld, there have been over 600 incidents of whales lashing out. While there are nearly none in the wild, the stress that whales face in captivity causes them to lash out (SeaWorld of Hurt, n.p.). 

Whales, much like humans, are very communal creatures and need interactions with others in order to keep a healthy mental state. Dolphins experience emotion stronger than humans. Pods in the wild have a kind of communication that is an entirely different language than other pods. Therefore, by SeaWorld putting whales of different pods together, it would be like living with someone from a different country and language, and communication would be impossible. Since whales also communicate in sonar waves, keeping him in a concrete tank would be like "living captive in a room covered with mirrors on all walls and the floors" (Maddux, n.p.). In the wild, he would have emotions much like humans including sadness, embarrassment, pain, and joy. He would even be able to recognize his own reflection. However he has never been able to do any of these (Maddux, n.p.). 

SeaWorld claims that no baby whales were taken from their mothers unless their mother rejected them first. This was in response to a claim made in Blackfish that the majority of whales were taken away from their mothers in the wild (Blackfish, n.p.). However, according to independent marine researchers, there are no cases of whales abandoning their children in the wild. Although it has occurred multiple times to the mothers and children that are held captive in SeaWorld, which really goes to show what kind of stress they are under (Biodiversity News). Another claim they have made is that the reason all of their whales have collapsed fins is because it just happens in the wild too. Which is not the case at all. Only one percent of orcas in the wild have a collapsed dorsal fin (Kennedy). However there is still some debate over what causes it. Some theories are that the pressure from the water and swimming so much in the wild is what keeps them from collapsing, while others say it could be due to dehydration, overheating, stress, or change in diet. Either way, it obviously is not natural.

The documentary Blackfish was the biggest eye opener to the public about the real SeaWorld and what the whales have endured. John Hargrove was the first trainer to speak out in the movie. He suffered multiple broke bones and destruction of his sinuses. However, he said it was worth it because "[he] owes those whales." (Blackfish,n.p.) He said that in his twelve years working at SeaWorld, he grew to believe that the whale's emotional states were suffering from living in captivity. The whales were withheld food, both to punish them and to make them perform tricks. For so many of the former employees to be speaking out, and saying they were not even properly informed before going to work for SeaWorld, there has to be a problem with what they are doing. 

PETA, one of the front runners in the war on SeaWorld, brought a lawsuit against them in October 2011. It said that they were breaking Tilikums Thirteenth Amendment right. The Thirteenth Amendment states that "neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction" (National Archives). However, it does not specify that this amendment pertains only to humans. The court refused to even listen to the case because the whales are not human, however human rights and Thirteenth Amendment rights are given to viable and nonviable fetuses, humans without brains, corporations, and trusts. Whales should have more rights to not be mistreated than a corporation. After all, humans share more DNA with whales than they do a corporation and a trust. We also share a few other very important things with them: the ability to feel, breath, and love. There have been similar cases brought before the court systems, and the general ruling is that animals, which are capable of feeling pain and pleasure, deserve to be treated kindly. Another important point brought up in the Wake Forest Law Review is that the reason the laws have not been changed is because this is the way they have always been, with the laws that we got from the Romans. The dangerous part of that is that people start just relying on the past "for merely having been" (Wake Forest Law Review). Also, the organization that sets all of the standards for this has questionable values anyway because "writing tests" are allowed, where an animal is injected in its stomach and researchers count how many times it writhes in pain over a given period of time (Wake Forest Review). Therefore, their values are not the best to be deciding what animals should and should not be forced to endure. 

When SeaWorld was first founded, there was not a lot of technology available for viewing whales out in their natural habitat. Capturing them was really the only option. However, as technology has changed, the ethics need to also. In today's times it is so much easier and more affordable to go and study and view the whales in their natural habitat (Raja).  While SeaWorld claims that their whales in captivity do a lot to benefit the whales in the wild, only ten percent of its five million dollar budget goes to research. Therefore, there needs to be a lot more money into funding orcas in the wild and other marine animals that have been affected by humans encroaching on their natural habitats. 

Shutting down SeaWorld is not the answer. Despite its shortcomings, SeaWorld is still the largest rescue and rehabilitation program in the world. Without them, many animals every year would die because of humans. They have had twenty-four thousand successful animal rescues of all types of marine animals. This program in SeaWorld operates under the supervision of the government and surpasses the standards that have been set. SeaWorld also has two nonprofit organizations, one of which is SeaWorld Busch Gardens Conservation Fund, which gives millions a year to land and sea conservation projects. In short, its for-profit whale shows go to profit its nonprofit organizations. So while it does have its flaws and lapses in judgement, there is a lot of good that it does as well (McKinney). 

However, the answer is not to release all of the whales back into the ocean to fend for themselves. SeaWorld has not gotten a whale from the wild in over thirty five years (SeaWorld). Therefore the majority of their whales have never been outside the four walls of their tanks. Keiko, a whale who was released after living in captivity for a long time, died shortly after being released. He never did rejoin another pod. However, he was also not rehabilitated for a very long time and there has not been a lot of research done on whales being rehabilitated into the wild. They also did not know where Keiko or his family pod was from before he came to live in captivity. This being said, there needs to be more research to see if the whales who were captured from the wild could live freely in their remaining years. Two good candidates for release would be other whales such as Lolita and Corky, because their family's location is known and it would be easier for them to rejoin their family and their lifestyle. However, the whales that were born into captivity might never be released because they do not have family pods in the wild, only the artificial ones they forged in captivity. 

SeaWorld does not need to be shut down, just redone. Primarily, the whale breeding needs to stop entirely. They continue to bring whales into the world that will never be set free and now they are the responsibility of humans. Secondly, they need to greatly increase research and conservation efforts. Most of their funding needs to start going to conservation and funding, otherwise there will not be any more marine life for people to enjoy and learn about years to come. Thirdly, all of the orcas that can be rehabilitated should be gradually allowed to learn all of the survival skills they will need in the open ocean and then set free and continued to be tracked for research. In addition, the other marine wildlife they catch needs to be healed and then set free, rather than keeping them for entertainment purposes. Unless of course they have a condition that prohibits them from being able to live in the wild, in which case they should be given the best life possible in captivity. Also, the whale habitats should be updated to where they allow sonar radar waves to pass through so it is not just torturing them, and they should also be made to where it is harder for the whales to injure themselves on their habitats. SeaWorld's new purpose should be for educating the public on what they can do to help save the oceans and marine animals, rather than for entertainment purposes. Times and technology are changing and it is time that we do not allow this cruelty to go on any further.

