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Marine mammals in captivity essay
Marine mammals in captivity essay
The effects of captivity on whales
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Whales living in captivity become aggravated and have been known to take out anger on themselves by self harming. In the pools they live in, metal bars are placed in between the pools to prevent the killer whales from swimming to another pool. On several occurrences, the whales have attempted to bite and break the metal bars. This leaves the whales with broken teeth and a risk of infection. Infections in killer whales can lead to death in many cases. If a whale gets an infection, they have to be taken out of the pool and placed into another pool by themselves to prevent any problems with other killer whales they live with. In many cases, whales with infections need serious care from whale specialists. The killer whales living at the SeaWorld park also undergo large amount of stress while living in the pools. Everyday, the whales practice tricks with different trainers. If the whale doesn’t do a trick, they are starved for the day or until the trick is completed the way the trainers want. The lack of food for an eight ton animal is critical and can lead to serious problems. Many times the whales will take out their anger on whales around them but have also been known to go after a trainer when not being fed. Trainers must complete at least three years of training before getting in the water with the killer whales. The trainers must get to …show more content…
Although the trainers are not allowed to be in the water with them, the trainers still use the same tactics of training. Some of the tricks the whales practice on a daily basis are, waving, showing off their teeth, laying on their side, and squirting water out of their blow hole. The shows still consist of the same concepts and the crowds continue to pay to see the whales do tricks. Whales living in captivity remain in distress and continue to lash out at trainers and other whales in their pools (10 Things You Didn’t
These killer whales are massive creatures living in these cramped pools not doing what they want to do when they want to do it. Mr. Jett and Mr. Ventre also said “...Typically spending their entire lives within tight family groupings, orcas captured from the wild, have been traumatically extracted from the security, comfort and mentoring which these groupings provide. Captured animals are confined to small, acoustically-dead, concrete enclosures where they must live in extremely close proximity to other whales with which they often share no ancestral, cultural or communication similarities.” Seaworld ends up throwing these animals in random groups of whales that are not their families, having whales that have never been outside of the concrete wall, to whales that all they know is the wild. The Documentary Blackfish states that one of the killer whale
Since whales are normally peaceful in the wild and they only seem to attack while in captivity, the argument is that captivity is wrong and dangerous for killer whales. This argument is supported by detailed facts about how the whales are tortured and agitated by other whales with no outlet. Both female and male whales are confined to a swimming pool where they are in a way being forced to try and mate. The female whales tend to abuse the male whales, which leads the whales to become mentally and physically unhealthy resulting in attacks on trainer. In the interviews with Corinne Cowell and Nadine Kallen, they mentioned that when they visited Sealand of the Pacific that three whales were confined to a “dingy pool”. Another appeal to pathos is when a neurologist that has studied killer whales mentions how the animals are very intelligent and are well-aware of what is going on around them. (SeaWorld) Killer whales have similar brains to humans, but have a bigger part of their brain where emotions are processed. With this, whales are more aware of their emotions and the bonds they make with humans and other animals. (SeaWorld) With the huge amount of raw footage, first-hand accounts, and true information, the film is able to grasp the attention of the viewers with the amount of emotion that is shown from the former trainers and the whales themselves. With these tactics, the film effectively appeals to the
SeaWorld also claims that the whales being kept there are treated humanely and are in no way unhappy. Although Cowperthwaite’s film clearly explains that that is a far cry from the truth with many trainers saying that the whales were often bullied by others which left them with painful rake marks that are created by teeth scraping against the whales skin. If whales did not perform a trick properly they would not be given food which left the whales hungry and extremely agitated. Behind the scenes footages shows whales being attacked by others with one whale even breaking its own jaw which led to an artery becoming severed and the bled out and died shortly after.
At first, the film is happy and the trainers talk about how much they loved working at SeaWorld and working with the animals. As the film goes on, you get to see the tragedies and heartbreak that goes on at these parks. The film talks a lot about the living conditions of the whales. Tilikum gets beat up by the female whales, which does not necessarily happen in the wild. The whales are used to swimming around one hundred miles a day, but in captivity, they are confined to a little swimming pool where they barely have any room to even breathe.
Out of the 156 whales they have taken into captivity from the wild, 129 are dead. Including orcas bred within SeaWorld, at least 165 have died in their facilities (Schelling). Another falsehood SeaWorld claims is that collapsed dorsal fins are completely normal and common of all male orcas. It is actually quite rare to find in the wild, while every single one of their male whales has a collapsed dorsal fin (“8 Shocking Facts…”). SeaWorld also guarantees that they never separate a calf from its mother and even have posted a picture of a baby and its mother as proof. What they didn’t tell the public was that soon after that picture was posted they shipped the calf off to Spain alone to a different park. A past trainer even said that there had been at least 19 separations of mother and calf that he knew of at his location. All of these factors previously stated added up have a large influence on the whales mentally. Many whales are afflicted by psychosis and anxiety and in turn are given drugs such as Valium to keep them performing in shows. There have been various occasions, often swept under the rug by SeaWorld and away from the public eye, where the drugs didn’t work enough (Schelling). There
Millions of people come from across the world to visit Seaworld every day without thinking about the lives of the animals behind the scenes. Why would they have concerns? From Seaworld’s commercials to the website, they convince the general public that Seaworld is the place to go to see the happy sea animals perform. If Seaworld is such an ecstatic place, what excuse does Tilikum, their greatest well known orca whale, have for the three attacks on trainers? The documentary “Blackfish” was created by the director Gabriela Cowperthwaite because she questioned herself after realizing Tilikum's odd behavior over time in captivity, and if there was any indisputable parts to animal captivity?
Keeping these huge animals in small pools does not seem right. Big mammals are not meant to be in small pools. When these mammals are born they stay with there mother all of their lives. They never leave their mothers until they are captured and put in small pools which is not right. Killer whales hunt in pods, the oldest female in the pod is usually the group leader. Each pod has its own set of whistles, clicks, and calls that only members of the pod recognize similar to having a unique language. Members of many pods hunt in teams. For example, they may work together to create waves to knock a seal from an ice floe and into the open water. In many pods,...
For 50 years SeaWorld has entertained park guests with numerous stunts involving the majestic sea creature, the orca, also referred to as the killer whale, and their human trainers. What the on-lookers don’t see at these shows is what goes on behind the scenes: how the whales got there in the first place, and the conditions in which they are housed.
Orca whales do not like to be taken from their family, held captive for many decades and put with other whales that they do not know. No other living organism on this planet would like to be put through the same thing. Orca whales are highly social animals, they are very intelligent, and are very emotional. If they are kept away from other whales, fed intermittently and received little attention from staff makes them get very emotional and can lead to death of people and the whales. Orca whales should not be held captive; they are beautiful creatures that are not great for people’s amusement and if they are treated poorly, they will act poorly.
SeaWorld presents itself as a family establishment full of fun “educational” activities. However, these activities harm animals physically and emotionally.
As an act of frustration, they take their teeth and rake other whales’ bodies. They would be covered head to tail with rake marks. Park guests would sometimes recall that during shows they could see blood, due to severe rake marks
It’s a very common practice in todays society for people to go to Sea World and see the famous shamu show while on vacation or out for a day of fun. Many people don’t fully understand how these animals feel while in captivity. Light has been shed on having these killer whales in captivity when a trainer was killed at Sea World recently. At one of the early parks called Sea Land one of the male killer whales Tilicum killed one of his trainers. After this incident Sea Land closed its doors. This meant that Tilicum was up for sale, Sea World jumped at the chance to buy him at a good price. Sea World was not fully aware that Tilicum was the actual cause of his trainers death. This was a death sentence for one of Sea Worlds female trainers. Sea World and companies like it are only in it to make money, these large animals should not be kept in captivity by any means.
Jerry Adler in the article, Why Killer Whales Belong In The Ocean Not Seaworld suggests that seaworld trainers needs to let the whales stay in the ocean where they belong, and don't mess with them at all, because if you bring them to seaworld they are just going to want to get to know you then after a while they may kill you.
Firstly, the trainers were forced to get into the water with the orcas and do crazy tricks with them. Whales are not like dogs or cats! They aren’t meant to be petted or learn dangerous tricks. Secondly, killer whales are one of the largest animals in the world and the ocean is a perfect fit for them because there’s plenty of room. At Sealand, Tilikum and others were kept in tiny stalls, only big enough for them to face forward and sleep. The stall is equivalent to a bathtub to them and is completely inhumane to keep them in there. Even at Seaworld the tank that they’re in is nowhere near the amount of space that they need to be healthy. Blackfish mostly focuses on the negatives on Seaworld, which they should because I believe that there are no positives to be found. They keep their animals in tiny habitats and if they don’t do what they’re told they don't get fed. They present their bias in a very informative and direct way, which is what truly changed my opinion about
The story about Tilikum is sad. Why? They captured him when he was 2 years old and was taken away from his mother. Once they had him, they put him in a shed for about a year. After that year they got him out and ready to train. The trainers would do the same thing for the female whales. They would separate their babies from their mothers at the age of 2 years old. Normally the baby whales need to be with their mothers by the age of 10. They need to stop separating the families a let them be with their mothers how they are suppose to. The trainers put the animals in so much stress to put them in shows. These whales have to perform every hour. They get so exhausted that they do not get to have a break and they use the whales to get a lot of money by showing them all the tricks they can do. After having a whale with a record of killing people they don't want to give him up because he is worth a lot. They do not want to let the animals go out in the wild because half of those animals were born at SeaWorld and wouldn’t know how to survive in the wild. Trainers need to let them go and give them a chance to live in the