After the release and reaction of the movie Blackfish, SeaWorld had to damage control and do it fast. They took to the internet to defend themselves. They started tweeting about how much they care for their animals and how Blackfish was propaganda, not a documentary. There is now an entire webpage on the SeaWorld website dedicated to defending themselves. You can find the website here:
http://seaworld.com/truth/truth-about-blackfish/
They title it “The Truth About Blackfish”. They list 6 “reasons” why they are not in the wrong and why Blackfish is not reliable. While I do admit that the documentary is entirely one sided, I did not use Blackfish as my main source of information regarding the captivity issue on our hands. While Blackfish definitely sparked my interest in it, my research did not stop there. Perhaps the worst one of the “reasons” SeaWorld lists on their defensive website is that they do not separate mothers and calves.
When SeaWorld talks about separation, they say that they did separate mothers from calves just not when the calves were days old as the movie shows. What they failed to mention was that in the wild orcas stay with their mothers their entire lives. Age does not matter. Obviously, it would be traumatizing for a day old calf to be separated from his mother, it is just as detrimental to an older orca as it is to a young one. In fact, 12 years old is pretty young for an orca, in the wild at least, where they can live close to human years, 80-100 years old. Since the life expectancy in captivity is much shorter than that, closer to 40-50 years, 12 could be considered old, in reference to Takara. Kalina was only 4 1/2 years old when she was separated from her mother.
SeaWorld argues the separations had to happen because the younger calves were cause disrupt and issues with the other whales. In the wild, when things like this happen, the orcas have hundreds of miles to swim away to and cool down, they would hardly immediately resort to violence as they may in the small walls of SeaWorld, with no where to turn, they are driven to attack. In the wild, a simple swim and cool down could be all an orca needs to be calm, cool, and collected again. It could allow them to still interact and stay with their pod, because, as we know, separation from mothers cause extreme distress and worry, ultimately leading to violence to other orcas.
SeaWorld also lists other reasons as to why Blackfish is not factual, which I have provided the link to above. Every point they listed can be argued with, as can every part of Blackfish. It is a controversial topic but the facts speak the truth. The facts I argue with I have found on my own, outside of the movie. SeaWorld defends themselves from Blackfish, but they cannot defend that what they do is wrong. Captivity kills and SeaWorld has no defense against that.