Orcas In Captivity Essay

The capture and control of a breathtaking and majestic creature such as a killer whale is a very tedious subject. Most of the general public would enjoy viewing a show where these giant mammals jump out of the water and perform stunning tricks for viewer satisfaction. But what the public doesn’t see, or realize is that these animals could be severely depressed and could be lacking mandatory stimulation through social bonds and other factors the ocean could give them rather than an oversized bath tub. The ethicalities of keeping such an intelligent animal like an orca in captivity has been under scrutiny for years in the marine biology community. Despite the controlled environments for orcas, these environments cause psychological and social problems to the animals and are worse than nature. There is a distinguishable trait in killer whales in captivity that doesn’t appear in whales in the wild, the dorsal fin of the animal in captivity almost always droops over to one side or the other, and less than one percent of all whales in the wild have been recorded in having this trait. This could be directly related to the depressing life an orca in captivity faces in a closed off world with limited stimulation from the animals incredibly in depth social attributes.
Today, there are not any laws prohibiting the capture and display of orcas, but there are national laws governing the care, custody and research of the whales. A select few California law makers have attempted to make the performances and imprisonment of the animals in captivity against the law, which would immediately solve any problem regarding whether it is right or not to keep them locked up. "It is time that we embrace that the long-accepted practice of keeping orcas ...

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... be thrown away in this country. This fact is sad but true, and the sooner people realize that there money is what is funding the advancement of the sea world entertainment industry the sooner hope can be built in keeping these animals where they belong. Despite the controlled environments for killer whales, these environments cause psychological and social problems to the animals and are worse than nature. The ethical option is clearly to let nature take its course and leave a similarly intelligent species carry out its business the way it always has. The business side of this dilemma will continue to boom until the public refuses to be a part of the entertainment aspect of it. And without the funding from the general tax payers to keep the programs and parks alive, the outside world might become a little closer to an extra-terrestrial from a world within our own.