After watching the documentary, Blackfish, I’ve become very interested in the captivity of Orca whales. I’ve been to SeaWorld, and I won’t lie, the Shamu shows are really cool to watch. As of today, there are 55 killer whales in captivity in aquariums and parks. It is said that killer whales that are in captivity are likely to have premature deaths, collapsed dorsal fins, are more likely to become aggressive towards their trainers, and many other unhealthy habits.
While the orcas are killing their trainers and becoming obviously psychotic, their captivity is being compared to living in a bathtub your entire human life. Although this information is interesting, and I agree that orcas should not be kept in captivity, I think there is a bias on the information shared. Whales in captivity hurt their trainers, yes, but if killer whales in the ocean are never exposed to human trainers, I don’t think it’s a fair comparison. They have done experiments on this, but there hasn’t been a control group, the whales are either in the wild or in captivity being raised by humans. I guess there is no way to have a control group, because the whales either grow up in captivity of they do not. While it is abundantly clear orcas shouldn’t be kept in captivity, we still have over 50 of them for show and our own entertainment. The sites I used to gather this information are here and here.
I agree with you that killer whales should be kept in captivity. I agree with Ryan in the fact that it was a bit confusing to see which side you were on and what your argument was. Zoos and other places like aquariums hold whales and other mammals in captivity to research and show off to others. I think scientists need to perform experiments to see if killer whales are better off being raised by humans in captivity or living on their own in the ocean waters. I agree with you that is very hard to do because researchers would have to capture even more killer whales in the ocean to study them, but put them back after. The article below discusses why killer whales don’t belong in captivity at SeaWorld. Take a look if you are interested!
http://www.seaworldofhurt.com/features/8-reasons-orcas-dont-belong-seaworld/
I connect with this article because I too have been to sea world, but I am not sure what argument you are making. Which side are you trying to take? I do agree that it is cruel to keep killer whales in these small tanks but how is this any different from other aquariums or zoos?
During summer, I did a motivation speech on stop visiting sea worlds because I also watch the documentary ” Blackfish”. I think you picked a great topic and it is absolutely cruel to lock those whales in bathtub size pool. They belong to ocean where they could be happy instead of being our entertainment. Here is a video that a whale trainer talks about killer whales captivity. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a0sRqvTvzAs