January 2017 saw the death of one of the most renown Killer Whales documented to this day. Sandra Pendicini of the Orlando Sentinel writes, “Tilikum, the infamous Killer Whale, has died” (Pendicini). Tilikum, a full-size Killer Whale that was captured off the coast of Iceland in 1983, lived a very scrutinized life. He was the whale behind three killings during his time in captivity, but despite being a known danger to trainers in ocean parks, he still was one of the main draws at SeaWorld’s big performances throughout his time in captivity. For years leading up to his killing of SeaWorld trainer Dawn Brancheau, Tilikum brought out the big splash that all the kids at the shows he performed in were in attendance for. However, after his final killing in 2010, SeaWorld quickly began to look for different uses for the 6 ton Killer Whale. 

The male whales typically weigh between 8,000 and 12,000 pounds and are between 19 and 22 feet while females weigh between 3,000 and 6,000 pounds and are between 16 and 19 feet. When these animals are in the wild, they have all the space they need to roam, swim, eat, and do everything they need to do. However, in captivity, the tanks are nowhere near the size that Killer Whales will experience in the wild. SeaWorld has Killer Whales in captivity in San Diego, Orlando, and San Antonio. The Orlando park has 9 whales and is the middle sized park, but the show pool only extends 10 feet longer than the San Diego show pool, while both go 36 feet deep and are 90 feet wide. Although all parks have several other pools that the whales are kept in when they are not in the show pools, there is not a lot of space for the whales to use. 

While another name for these whales is the Orca Whale or Orcinus Orca, their common name of Killer Whale describes who they truly are. After watching the notable documentary “Blackfish,” Helen Lewis wrote, “[The] clue is in the name of his species. Killer whales don’t have any moral prohibition on murder: in the wild, they have to kill to eat” (Lewis). These creatures do what every living thing does to survive and that is kill their prey so they can eat and keep living. Humans have done this for all of their history, and it is known that in nature animals also kill to survive. Lewis argues that due to Tilikum is still a wild animal since he knew what nature truly is due to being captured out of the wild (albeit at the age of 2), unlike the captive-born whales only know nature as living life on a schedule in a confined area with these 2-legged things that toss them fish after performing tricks properly. Brian Clark Howard, an author from National Geographic wrote a piece covering SeaWorld’s immense announcement regarding their entire Killer Whale program with breeding and shows roughly 3 years after the release of Blackfish. In his piece he wrote, “After several years of pressure from activists and the public, [SeaWorld] will end its orca breeding and theatrical shows” (Howard). For the theatrical shows, Howard reports that the company plans to eliminate all shows by 2019, starting with San Diego ending shows in 2017. This decision still does nothing for the whales being held in captivity, and after all the information that has been released along with interviews, documentaries, and data, Killer Whales are affected in negative ways both through physical and mental aspects of their lives in captivity and should be released to the wild. 

One of the most damaged pieces of Killer Whales’ lives while in captivity is their lifespan. This aspect of the cetaceans’ being is one of the more discussed pieces due to the whales needing to be alive for them to be held in captivity. Most whales that are in captivity today, especially younger whales, were born in captivity and have never experienced life outside their tanks. Mark Leiren-Young is a journalist based out of Vancouver, British Colombia where he documented the city-wide debate that raged over keeping whales in the ocean parks in Vancouver in 1996. In his article, Leiren-Young writes “The [Vancouver Aquarium] announced it would stop capturing whales for display five years ago” (Leiren-Young). This documents that parks stopped capturing whales decades ago, including those such as SeaWorld. Due to the parks no longer capturing wild whales, they had to begin trading for whales and, more commonly breeding their own whales within the parks. It is here, in the parks, that Killer Whales have their life expectancies cut down by decades if not more. The 2013 documentary “Blackfish” features several clips and interviews where lifespans are brought up and discussed from a researched perspective and from a park’s perspective. One of the Orca researchers that was interviewed for the documentary was Howard Garrett who says, “They live in these big families, and they have lifespans very similar to human lifespans. The females can live to about 100, maybe more. Males to about 50 or 60” (Garrett). Naomi Rose from the Humane Society of the United States also compiled information to form her work about Killer Whales in captivity in 2011. In it she discusses many parts of Killer Whales’ natural lives versus their captive lives, and one of the first things she brings up is life expectancies of the cetaceans. She writes, “…males live an estimated maximum of 60-70 years, and females live an expected maximum of 80-90 years” (Rose 1). Although these two scientists give slightly different estimates, their descriptions of wild Killer Whales’ lives are still far greater than the expectancies of those that are held in captivity. SeaWorld employees that give tours around the parks shown in “Blackfish” tell their guests that their whales live about “25 to 35 years” (“Blackfish”) which they then tell guests is about how long all wild Killer Whales live. Garrett rebuts this when he says, “Because the whales in their pools die young, they like to say all orcas die at 25 to 30 years…and of course that’s false” (Garrett). 

In the wild, Killer Whales are already built with all they need to fight off whatever it may be that comes across their path that could harm them. Their bodies and organs know how to combat natural diseases they could face, and their size and physical features as well as all the space they could need give them the protection and security they need to brace themselves from what will engage them in the water. However, in captivity they face new challenges and surroundings. In Rose’s entry she has a section that discusses the types of infections captive whales come across and where they come from. Rose writes, “The most common causes of death in captive orcas, wild-caught or captive-born, are pneumonia, septicemia, and other types of infections” (Rose 5). It is not impossible for some wild whales to encounter these diseases, but since they do not receive the care and supervision that the captive whales do, it is a bigger problem when the captive whales get sick and the expert veterinarians are not able to help. Rose then goes on to say that immunosuppression may be a contributing factor that causes infected whale mortality rates to be so high. Rose says, “Pathogens or injuries that the immune systems of wild orcas would successfully combat or manage may be fatal to captive orcas, due to chronic stress, psychological depression, and even boredom” (Rose 5). She then goes on to say that when mental states of many species are either traumatized or inactive, such as with the captive whales, their immune systems stop functioning properly, contributing to diseases being more fatal.

The social life of Killer Whales is arguably the most important part in their society. Each “family,” as Howard Garrett calls them, is unique and can be seen as a separate culture from pod to pod. Garrett says, “Each community has a completely different set of behaviors. Each has a complete repertoire of vocalizations with no overlap” (Garrett). This “overlap” means that each group has their own individualized noises and calls that no other group has. However, this is only in the wild. In captivity, these whales are forced to be together. No two are from the same pod, and parks have no worries about sending calves to different parks, separating them from their mothers. Due to the matriarchal society that is the Killer Whale culture, the mothers and females are the important whales, especially for the young whales. In the wild, adult offspring do not leave the side of their mothers for the entirety of their lives. This is not the case in captivity; parks will send off young whales while they still can so they can maintain space in their parks and make money in the process. “Blackfish” brings up one instance of this happening where one of the whales from the Orlando park was sent away a few years after being born. Carol Ray, a former trainer at SeaWorld Orlando was at the park the night the young whale was shipped off. Ray tells the interviewer “After Kalina was removed from the scene…Katina, her mom, was left in the pool. She stayed in the corner of the pool, literally just shaking and screaming, screeching, crying” (Ray). The cries that Katina was making were later said to be long-distance calls as she was calling for her daughter that has just been stripped away from her. Although females give birth roughly once every five years, having one of the calves taken away from its mother is a psychologically damaging experience on both animals. When parks still practiced capturing wild Killer Whales, another example of the close bond that the families share is shown when a group of capturers off the coast of Washington a were hunting a large pod that had several young whales. Howard Garrett was on the scene when it happened and after the calves were taken on to the ship he says, “They had the little ones in the corrals, so they dropped the seine nets, and all the others could have left, but they stayed” (Garrett), referring to the older whales that knew what was happening but were still unable to prevent their young from being taken away. 

In nature, there will be violence. Killing for food, survival, or just being in the wrong place at the wrong time are all common. Theoretically, holding animals in captivity would be one of, if not the best way to prevent this violence from happening. However, that’s not so much the case when it is full-size Killer Whales that are going at each other in an extremely confined space. Often in captivity, violence among the whales has been witnessed. If not during the incident, certainly afterwards. In “Blackfish” a whale can be seen coming on to the stage closest to the audience with large cuts by its tail and quickly losing blood. One of the former SeaWorld trainers also tells a story about how one whale went in and broke the jaw of another whale which caused the injured whale to bleed out and die in captivity. John Jett, another ex-SeaWorld trainer mentions that in the wild fights and attacks will happen between whales, but there they have all the space they need to escape and get away from what is happening. This is something they lack in captivity. The notable whale Tilikum, who began his show career at Sealand of the Pacific in Canada, was often victim to captivity violence. Steve Huxter was the director at Sealand while Tilikum had his brief stint at the park and was interviewed for “Blackfish.” Huxter says that Tilikum’s old trainer used training methods that involved punishments if the whales did not do the behaviors correctly, and usually this was withholding food from the whales. Huxter says, “Deprived of food to keep them hungry, this caused a lot of frustration with the larger animal, the established animal, and would in turn get frustrated with Tilikum, and would rake him with her teeth” (Huxter). Unfortunately for Tilikum, the circumstances would not change when he moved to SeaWorld. John Jett tells his interviewer for “Blackfish” that “When Tilikum arrived at SeaWorld he was attacked viciously, repeatedly by Katina and others” (Jett). He then ties together his earlier point about wild whales having acres of space to leave violent situations by saying that due to Tilikum’s size (22 feet, 6 tons), he really had nowhere to run to and could only float around in his tank and hope that the other whales would leave him alone. Naomi Rose also chimes in on this, citing incompatibility as a reason for tension and violence between captive whales. She says that it is “frequent, with certain individuals bullied by others, resulting in lacerations and other wounds” (Rose 7). Since these captive whales are all from different groups and regions, they don’t have any true similarities according to what Howard Garrett says about each community. The only things they all have in common is that they are Killer Whales and they are all in the same tanks.

SeaWorld often talks about how their animals receive the best care possible because they have some of the best marine veterinarians around. However, there will always be one thing that these veterinarians can’t stop and that is death. The one thing they can do about it is prolong it so that it gets the whales at a later age. One of the biggest struggles with young whales in captivity is keeping them alive. Rose says that “The infant mortality rate in captivity…is approximately 50%” (Rose 3) with infants being defined as any of the animals younger than six months and including stillbirths. As mentioned earlier, a female whale will give birth roughly once every 5 years after sexually maturing around age 14 (Rose 1). SeaWorld has not had many female whales live to the menopausal age (40-45 (Rose 1)), and they have had “roughly one orca death per year since its breeding program began – 25 in 26 years, evenly spaced over that time, all but three of whom were younger than 25 years of age…and six of whom were 12 or younger” (Rose 4). SeaWorld loves to talk about their great veterinary staff and the constant access that the animals have to it, and to that Rose says, “Given the fact that the animals have access to 24/7 veterinary care and ‘restaurant-quality’ food, this is a poor mortality record, particularly when considering the ages of the animals at death” (Rose 4).

Ever since a group of UCLA grad students created SeaWorld San Diego in 1965, Killer Whales have been providing benefits to humans. One of these of course is revenue for SeaWorld and other ocean parks that keep Killer Whales. Through shows, videos, and movies like Free Willy, Killer Whales have provided an immense source of revenue for their owners. On top of providing revenue, they also provide jobs. If not for whales like Tilikum, despite his violent tendencies, many trainers like John Jett would not have had the jobs they did with training whales. In 2014, Joel Pollak of Breitbart News wrote an article discussing a potential bill in the California State Assembly. The bill was proposed by Richard Bloom, a Democrat from Santa Monica and in the bill Bloom set out to end Killer Whales usage entirely at SeaWorld San Diego. Pollak writes that “Bloom’s bill would have destroyed SeaWorld, killing thousands of jobs (both directly and indirectly) and depriving the San Diego area of untold millions of dollars in tourism revenue” (Pollak). The jobs affected would have ranged from SeaWorld San Diego to all kinds of businesses around San Diego as one less attraction would be in the city causing a drop off in people coming to visit or even residents going out to spend money in ways that benefit the city. 

Killer Whales in captivity also provide the benefit of a close-up education. This comes not only through the descriptive signs on the sides of their tanks, but also through close study that may not be easily achievable in the wild. Keeping these whales in captivity allows for one more species to be closely studied as well as presented to audiences that might otherwise have no means of seeing them. Mark Leiren-Young also interviewed John Nightingale, the executive director of the Vancouver Aquarium, in 1996 when he asked him about the debate over keeping their whales in the park. Nightingale says that the activists don’t know what it’s really like being the one in charge of the whales as he defended keeping them in captivity for public displays. He follows by telling Leiren-Young, “‘I just don’t think you can have a good aquarium – much less a world-class aquarium – but particularly an aquarium that’s educationally effective, without the entire spectrum of the aquatic world to show people’” (Leiren-Young). If the whales are only found in the wild, not only are they harder to study but they become that much harder to describe and showcase to increase the knowledge of those that don’t get to study them.

After the decision made by the most famous ocean park company, SeaWorld, to not only end Killer Whale breeding in their parks but also to end Killer Whale shows, the end of Killer Whales being held in captivity may be in sight. This is a good thing since Killer Whales that are held in captivity are negatively affected in physical and mental ways, despite providing several benefits to the communities they are surrounded by. The next step for the whole ocean park community is to figure out how to release the whales if that ends up being the decision, or how to make the accommodations better in the parks for the cetaceans. Michael Noonan from the Department of Animal Behavior, Ecology, and Conservation from Canisius College suggests that for the tanks that parks make them “much larger in size and that they incorporate many more elements of the natural environment than do present-day facilities” (Noonan 394). While some suggest ideas such as Noonan’s where parks just make the tanks better, others believe in using ocean pens where the whales are released into the ocean, but having the area they are released into be confined. Melissa Smith of Reel Rundown says, “The idea of releasing the animals into sea pens is promoted by most activists as the most humane option for non-resalable animals” (Smith). She goes on to mention a downside of this idea which is the immune system of some of the animals and how they may not actually be able to acclimate to the ocean water, especially those that were captive-born and have bodies that are adjusted to the tank water. No matter the decision on what to do with whales in the future, the choice will be criticized by groups as well as have downfalls still. If parks just re-do their tanks, people will want the whales set free and the whales will still be in captivity; if parks set the whales free, owners will be upset at the activists and demand something in return, not to mention the chance of the whales becoming sick without any care to nurse them to full health. Despite the inevitable scrutiny, parks are taking progressive steps towards having no whales in captivity while also slowly preparing them for the open ocean.

 