On average, over 20 million people visit SeaWorld San Diego in a year according to NBC San Diego. The high attendance at this park allows them to being in over 200 million dollars in revenue to only one of the three SeaWorld parks in only one year. Shamu is the figure head of SeaWorld and people come from all over to see one of the ‘magical’ shows in Shamu Stadium. 

The first SeaWorld park to open was SeaWorld San Diego in 1963 and has since opened parks in Aurora, Ohio; Orlando, Florida; and San Antonio. Currently, there are a total of 22 killer whales living in Sea World parks today. Overall, there are “a total of 61 orcas held in captivity in at least 14 marine parks in 8 different countries” according to Bradford. Since 1961, 156 orcas were captured from the wild and were forced into captivity in these marine parks. Of these 158, 128 of these killer whales are now dead. 

These marine mammal theme parks bring in an audience of all ages and make a good amount of money for themselves, but at what cost? The audience is enjoying the show, and the park is enjoying the money, all the while hurting these mammals and putting their trainers at risk. By looking at the physical and mental complications captive whales suffer from as well as the injury to humans caused by captive whales we can see that these mammals do not belong in captivity. 

Captivity negatively impacts the physical health of killer whales. In “The Case Against Marine Mammals in Captivity” Rose and Farinato explain how these captive animals have a higher mortality at birth rate in captivity than in the wild. According to them, “with 83 known pregnancies, only 40 viable calves (surviving past one year) have been produced.” That means more than half of the killer whales breed in captivity do not survive. In Hogenboom’s article “Why Killer Whales Should not be Kept in Captivity” she claims that captive orcas repeatedly rub against the tanks and as a result their teeth get worn down. In the documentary Blackfish there is footage of an orca being restrained to have their teeth cleaned, and Blackfish tells us that these animals bite at their tanks and seriously damage their teeth. In this film, you constantly see footage of Tilikum, a 12,000-pound killer whale with a floppy dorsal fin. A floppy dorsal fin is a sign of an unhealthy whale. In the wild, there are hardly any whales with a flopped over dorsal fin, whereas nearly every captive male orca has a floppy fin. 

In Zimmermann’s article “Tilikum, SeaWorld’s Killer Orca, is Dying” he explains that Tilikum is suffering from a fatal lung infection, which a killer whale would not be suffering from in the wild. According to Blackfish, the whales at SeaWorld have an average life span of 13 years, where wild orcas have lifespans similar to humans. On top of physical complications that arise solely from captivity, these whales are kept in very small tanks with other whales, which leads to fights between orcas that result in injury to the whales and sometimes even death. All of these health issues, including fights with other whales, would never be a problem for a killer whale in the wild. 

Constantly being in physical pain eventually takes a physiological toll on any animal. In Anderson’s, Waayers’ and Knight’s article “Orca Behavior and Subsequent Aggression Associated with Oceanirium Confinement” they explain how killer whales are “among the most intelligent animals on Earth.” This article describes how these mammals exhibit a range of complex behaviors indicating their level of cognition, social intelligence, and communication.  In Blackfish, the expert whale researcher Dave Duffus explains how killer whales have a part of the brains that humans do not have, which makes them insanely social. In the wild, orcas stay with their pods for their entire life. When orcas give birth in the wild, the babies stay with their mothers for their entire lives.  Each pod of whales even has their own way of communizing with each other, essentially having their own ‘languages’ which makes their family bonds even stronger. In Blackfish we see footage of baby whales being taken from their families in the wild. Knowing how intelligent and social these animals are, how could that not have a psychological effect on them? In this footage you see human put in a net and scoop up one of the baby whales while the rest of the pod circles around and shouts out for the young whale. They could run away in fear and as an attempt to save their own lives, but instead they stay. The whales cry out to the member of their family that is being taken away from them, showing how social and loyal they are to their pods, but also how helpless these intelligent mammals are to the indecency of humans. 

When two whales from different sides of the world are captured and thrown into the same tank, they have no way of communicating with each other. They do not communicate in the same language and as a result will lack any social relationships. When they are taken from the ocean and forced into captivity as well whales that are breed and born in captivity and still taken from their mothers it hinders that social aspect that killer whales were made to have. Being away from their families and without any whales they can communicate with they get lonely.

According to the organization “SeaWorld of Hurt”, the average wild killer whale swims approximately 100 miles a day, which would take be equivalent to over 1,000 laps in SeaWorld’s largest killer whale tank. Killer whales are one of the largest animals and Earth, and being confined to such a small space for such a long amount of time takes a toll on their mental health. In the EyeWitness News report “Shamu Kills Trainer 2010” they show the small pool Tilikum was kept in and how he could barely move in it.

As I mentioned earlier, when two whales are kept together in such a tight living space they tend to get in fights. In Blackfish, you can see how Tilikum was constantly attacked by the other two whales in his pen. Since he was so big he could not swim away to avoid the attacks. For a mammal who is used to being so social who no longer has any social relationships and is constantly being attacked, it is no wonder captive orcas suffer a psychosis.

 According to “Orca Behavior and Subsequent Aggression Associated with Oceanirium Confinement”, as a direct result of confinement killer whales act aggressive towards humans as an act of frustration. Orcas are intelligent enough to know right from wrong, and they know that they do not belong in those tanks.  Holding a whale in captivity is similar to leaving a human in solitary confinement for a long period of time, eventually it is going to have a permanent psychological effect on them.  

Once these whales start getting fed up with being physically and emotionally abused, that is when they become a threat to the humans they are in contact with. As explained in “Orca Behavior and Subsequent Aggression Associated with Oceanirium Confinement”, these acts of aggression from these mammals are a direct result of their living situation. These mammals do not have any other way to fight back, and they attack their trainers and other humans out of frustration. Blackfish shows many incidents of people being attacked by killer whales, including trainers being dragged to and held at the bottom of the tank, jumped on, and even killed. Tilikum himself has claimed the life of three humans, including the life of senior SeaWorld trainer Dawn Brancheau. 

The death of Dawn Brancheau was the reason Blackfish was created and what lit the match on the controversy of captive orcas. In 2010, Brancheau was killed by Tilikum in front of an audience during one of the Shamu shows. The other trainers in Blackfish said that Dawn was the best trainer there, and if she could be attacked by one of the animals any of them could have been. According to the EyeWitness News report as well as Wood’s article SeaWorld had claimed that no other “park had ever before experienced a similar incident” before, which Blackfish makes clear is not true and shows countless other times where killer whales have been aggressive towards humans as well as other lives taken by captive killer whales. Dawn’s death was a tragedy but it was not the first injury or even first death of that nature. 

Despite the name “killer” whale, there has never been a report of a killer whale harming a person or another killer whale in the wild according to Blackfish. As I previously mentioned, there have been an abundance of attacks recorded for captive whales, but that is not because these animals are monsters. When taking a closer look at the lives of these animals, it becomes clear how these dangerous incidents were acts of frustration and cries for help rather than acts of animalist behavior. 

In Rose’s “The Case against Marine Mammal Captivity” she argues that putting these animals on “public display is no more than commercial exploitation of captive animals.” With captivity being so physically and psychologically harmful to orcas as well as dangerous to humans, it makes one wonder why these animals are and have been kept in captivity for so long. Some might argue that keeping killer whales in captivity in marine mammal parks is no different from keeping a giraffe or a money at a zoo. In Taylor’s article “Zootopia- Animal Welfare, Species Preservation and the Ethics of Captivity” he describes the captivity of animals as a “necessary evil.” The argument is that zoo’s and other animal facilities are centers for preservation, conservation, and education. One might argue that exploiting these animals and putting them on exhibit for people to see it makes them real, and allows a person care for that animal more than they would by just seeing a picture of them in a book or on the internet. While that may be true, people hurting an animal and interfering with their natural habitats and life in order to make people care about them contradicts the idea of wanting to help and protect these animals. 

On top of the oxymoron of harming animals in captivity to make people care about them, killer whales are much different than a giraffe or a monkey. As mentioned in Blackfish as well as Hogenboom’s article and Anderson’s article killer whales are much more intelligent than most other animals on Earth. They have highly complex and advanced social behaviors, which captivity takes away from them. While the animals at the zoo look sad, their mental capacity is nowhere near that of a killer whale and therefore they are not fully aware of how wrong they are being treated. Since they do not know how wrong they are being treated, when they act out aggressively it is as an act of their animalistic behaviors, whereas a killer whale acting out is a cry for help and an act of frustration.

Even if these other captive animals had the mental ability to realize they should be free, they do not have the means to harm a human the way a killer whale does. When an orca and their trainer interact, it is in the water where these animals live and are used to, and where the humans only enter the water to be with them. On top of being out of their element, a human is only the fraction of the size and is helpless against an attack from one of these killer whales. When a human interacts with a giraffe or a monkey or even a lion all of these interactions occur on land, where the human is just as comfortable as the animal. Also, none of these animals compare to the size and strength of a 12,000-pound killer whale. 

Another argument that people make is that keeping killer whales in captivity allows humans to study and learn more about these animals. In Anderson’s article he tells that they were able to observe these mammals in captivity for a year. They reported that they “observed in animals what appeared to be pranks, tests of trust, limited used of tactical deception, emotional self-control, and empathetic behaviors” which proves how smart they are mentally capable they are. While studying these animals in captivity allowed them to see how intelligent they are, there are major differences between a natural, wild killer whale and a whale breed and kept in captivity for the entirety of his or her life. Therefore, studying things such as social behaviors, diet, size, health, or life span of captive animals do not provide any real knowledge on these animals in the wild and therefore making the argument that these mammals need to remain in captivity for education purposes an invalid excuse. 

The other main reason people argue to keep these mammals in captivity is that in brings in a lot of revenue. With 200 million in a year from just one park, SeaWorld is able to create jobs for other people as well as profit millions of dollars off of the exploitation of these mammals- but is it worth it? Is it worth physically and mentally hurting animals who are fully aware of how much pain they are in? Is it worth the human lives that are put at risk with these animals? 

Before Dawn’s death in 2010, there were not many documentaries or protests or movements to try to spread awareness about how unethical the captivity of killer whales is. Research on the intelligence and capability to cause harm to humans have been around before Dawn’s death, but there have been very few rules in place for these organizations. Since the first SeaWorld park opened in 1963, there has been only one national law passed to protect these mammals and their trainers and that was the Marine Mammal Protection Act of 1972. Congress passed this act with the “long-accepted view that the public display of animals (at facilities such as zoos and aquaria) serves as a necessary educational and conservation purpose” in mind and with very little efforts to actually protect the animals and people involved. In Wise’s “All is Whale that Ends Whale? The Deficiencies in National Protection for Orca Whales in Captivity” takes a legal magnifying glass to this act and reveals the inadequacies of this act and how it basically allows for parks to make their own regulations. This article looks at this Act and the role it played in the legal battle between SeaWorld and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA). This article also shows other incidents and tragedies that the shortcomings of this act have allowed to happen as well the legal steps now being taken since the creation of Blackfish.

Since Dawn’s death, Wise reports that” OSHA cited SeaWorld with multiple safety violations and $75,000 in fines, and most notably, OSHA ruled that SeaWorld trainers were not to be in close physical contact with whales in captivity.” Wise also stated that in 2014, the Orca Welfare Act was proposed with the hope on ending captive orca breeding. While no such act was ever passed, SeaWorld had announced that they will no longer breed orcas, and they ones that are currently in their parks will be the last generation. 
