
Cetaceans have been living on earth for millions of years, much longer than us humans so they have had to adapt to a lot more than us to be able to survive today. Unfortunately, there is no way for them to create an advantageous trait for living in captivity, because they are not supposed to. The first orca to be captured and showed for live display was in at the San Diego SeaWorld in the 1960's. Since then, all kinds of cetaceans have been hunted down and captured by people just for the amusement of the theme parks. This was the start to a huge controversy regarding the well being of these captive cetaceans. To this day, there are activists that want to see SeaWorld shut down and all of the marine animals to be released into the wild (WDC & WCA). The controversy raises a question that interests me is: What are the physical and mental affects of cetaceans living in captivity? 

First I would like to define cetacean; Cetaceans are defined as a marine mammal of the order Cetacea; a whale, dolphin, or porpoise (Google). In the wild orcas can swim up to 100 miles a day whereas in captivity, they can only swim a fraction of that distance. Whales and dolphins live in large groups known as pods. They are tight night family groups who stay together for their whole life (Marine mammals in Captivity). Capturing only one wild orca or dolphin disrupts the entire pod (Marine Animal Exhibits: Chlorinated Prisons). These animals do not belong in a shallow tank at an amusement park, they belong in the wild living their lives peacefully with their family.

 Orcas are very social and loving creatures and to put them in captivity should be against the law. I define captivity as the condition of being imprisoned or confined (Google). This can be proven by studies that show how orcas usually live in tight net pods with their immediate family for their entire life. This loving relationship is most prevalent between a mother and her child. The mother raises her young child just like a human mother would; they teach their young how to communicate and hunt. The baby stays by its mother's side for many years until it is big enough to branch out a little and do things on their own, similar to humans. When babies are taking away from their mothers in the wild, there have been cases of the mother orca following the boat that took it for miles and the crew could hear the cries coming from the mother trying to catch up to them and try to get her baby back. While in captivity, the orcas do not have the luxury of choosing who they spend their time with so they do not usually get along for long. To compare the orca's situation living in captivity; it would be like putting a group of people into a room of all different races, languages, and cultures and telling them that "this is who you have to live with for the rest of your life, so you better get along.". Being put in this situation makes for a lot of stressful situations within the tank along with the mental deprivation for being taken away from their family. Another mental effect for cetaceans living in captivity would be the confinement that they undergo when they are not doing performances. The cetaceans are fed for performing well, and sometimes deprived of food for not being perfect. After the shows end, the cetaceans are put into holding pools with the other cetaceans where there is no way to escape. In turn, this causes them to become aggressive toward one another. These aggressive tendencies put stress not only mentally, but also does severe physical damage to the cetacean (Marine Mammals in Captivty).

Physical damage can occur to captive cetaceans by their fellow cetaceans in the tank, the tank itself, and the chemicals that are put into the shallow tanks. For example, because of high chlorine levels in their tanks, dolphins at the Clearwater Marine Aquarium in Florida lost the ability to open their eyes and their skin began to peel off. At the North Carolina Zoological Park not enough shade was provided for a sea lions tank causing the sea lions eyes to blister and rupture. Oklahoma City Zoo was forced to lose its dolphin exhibit after four dolphins died within two years due to bacterial infections (Marine Animal Exhibits: Chlorinated prisons). The cetaceans become so frustrated with living in captivity that they seemingly commit suicide. There have been instances where dolphins have repeatedly rammed their heads into the side of the concrete tank causing severe head trauma causing them to die. In other cases, it has been known that orcas rise to the surface of the tank and begin chewing on the side of he tanks until they grind down all of their teeth. Other cases inform us that some cetaceans refuse to come up for air so they drown themselves in the pool to end their misery of being captive (Marine Animal Exhibits: Chlorinated Prisons). 

You would think that dolphins living in captivity would have a longer average life span than the dolphins in the wild because they are free of predators and pollution, but the reality of the matter says different. On average, dolphins living in the wild usually live into their 40's and 50's where as dolphins living in captivity are lucky if they make it to their 20's. Dolphins living at SeaWorld rarely survive more than 10 years (Marine Animal Exhibits: Chlorinated Prisons). There are currently 2,360 cetaceans in captivity worldwide. More than 5,000 cetaceans have died in captivity since the 1950's (Work for Whales and Dolphins in Captivity). If these cetaceans continue to parish while being in captivity, why have there not been legislation passed to free these tortured animals back to the wild? Easy, the answer is money. SeaWorld is a one-billion-dollar corporation that brings in millions of tourists every year. Although there are multiple activists pushing to get legislation passed for their freedom, their numbers just aren't high enough to have an impact at this time. The people who have the authority to make a change is the governments around the world. They have the power but not the support to free these animals. Activist groups such as the WDC (Whales and Dolphins Conservation) and WCA (World Cetacean Alliance) are trying their hardest to gain support with government for them to support their cause. For example, in 2012 the WDC took 30,000 origami dolphins to present to the European Parliament in support of their campaign to end captivity across Europe. Croatia and Slovenia have already banned the capture of whales and dolphins in their countries (Captivity). Hopefully in the future, everyone will come together and take down these large corporations and free the captive cetaceans living in their imprisonment.

Personal Context:

Animals and humans have a distinct power relationship where humans have all the power and animals have none. In most cases animals lives depend on how they're treated by us humans. Whales in particular do not have much power to decide for themselves. While being captive at theme parks such as Sea World, their lives are completely run by the trainers working for the establishment. The reason that I am interested in this topic is because I feel bad for how orcas in captivity are treated. If they butcher a simple routine in front of a crowd, then they might not be fed for their mistakes. They are punished for not being perfect performers. In high school, I watched a documentary titled, "Blackfish" which uncovered many of the mistreatments that were happening at Sea World. The whole time while I was watching it, I couldn't help but feel sorry for the poor orcas. It affects my values directly because I have a soft spot for animals and whenever I see them struggling I wish there was something I could do at that exact moment, but in reality there's not much I can do while I'm watching the monstrosities occur on T.V.


Author David Kirby encapsulates a tell off book written by a former fourteen-year orca trainer (John Hargrove) at Sea world. He discusses the various mistreatments that the orcas had to go through while he was working as an employee. He compares the He compares the Sea World staff to a cult because of how the employees must act when they're around certain upper management officials. 

The major values and interests at stake in this article for the author include hate mail sent to him by his former Sea World trainers who are still there along with one man who threatened to get in a fist fight with him if he ever saw his face. A value of this article would be for people to open their eyes and realize that the orcas that are in captivity should not be in that situation. 

John Hargrove is certainly biased against Sea World upon his departure from the corporation in 2012. He labeled himself as a "loyalist" when he started working there, but once he saw how the orcas were being treated he changed his mind and began to try to change the way things were run at sea World but it did not work so he quit. 


This article Discusses some of the affects that orcas go through while being in captivity. The website is a non profit organization that's main goal is to better the conditions for orcas in captivity. The article discusses how dolphins are highly intelligent marine animals who live in complex social groups. While in captivity they do not have the ability to choose their group members so they often fight each other.

The major values of this article include various struggles that the orcas undergo mentally and physically while being in captivity. The author discusses facts comparing how dolphins act in the wild as opposed to how they are forced to act while in captivity. Being in captivity decreases the dolphin's immune system so many dolphins die in captivity at young ages due to illness.

The author of this article is certainly biased against the captivity of dolphins. The publisher is a non profit organization who seeks to the ending of dolphins and whales being held captive in small concrete tanks. They use an ethos appeal for their reasoning stating that us as humans do not have the right to hold dolphins and whale's captive because we take babies away from their mother's and in some instances, kill the dolphins when trying to capture them from the wild.


This article discusses why orcas should not be held in captivity. It provides a list of six reasons why they shouldn't be and gives an explanation for each reason and why it is impactful. The article provides facts about the affects of living in small tanks both physically and mentally. She discusses that the "killer whales" have only been known to attach humans while in captivity because of either boredom or frustration.

The major claims in this article include humans not understanding just how smart orcas (Killer whales) are. She claims that orca's brains are four times larger than humans and their brains have been developing for millions of years. Another major claim is that the orcas do not get the proper exercise while in captivity so they become very weak. It is known that orcas can swim up to 100 miles a day in the wild, whereas in captivity they can only swim a fraction of that distance swimming in circles around their small enclosure.

The author is a vegan activist so naturally, she is against any harm towards animals, so I believe this article is somewhat biased. Even though she presents facts about orcas and their accommodations while living in the wild compared to being held captive in small aquarium like tanks. 


This research question is certainly arguable because there are two distinct sides to this argument. On one side, there are activists trying to free these cetaceans and putting them back into the wild; and on the other side are the scientists who argue that the cetaceans should be kept in captivity to perform experiments on them that would be next to impossible if they were in the wild. Some of the agreements that I have found in my research is the amount of miles that orcas can swim every day, how they spend their whole life living in tight net pods with their immediate family, and when they are taken away from their loved ones, it is traumatic for both parties. The two perspectives of the argument make me support the freeing of these cetaceans even more. I do not believe that animals should be held captive just for people's amusement. For this paper, I do no think that I should have changed my research question. It was specific and I found the evidence I needed to support my claim that cetaceans should not live in captivity.  

