re: Blackfish

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I do think these animals need to receive the best care, however I don't think they are all truly suffering.

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You should actually watch the documentary because you'd be wrong. These orcas are mentally and emotionally fricked up in the same way that human prisoner is when kept in solitary confinement for most of his life.

In the wild these animals swim over 100 miles a day, and often trek thousands of miles all over the worlds oceans in short periods of times. At sea world they are confined to small tanks and spend most of their time listlessly floating around on the surface of their tank in the hot sun all day. In the wild they are protected by the sun by spending most of their time submerged far underwater in the shade. Their tanks are 40 feet deep at the most which isn't nearly enough to protect from the sun.

In Sea World the average lifespan for a killer whale is 9 years. In the wild males can live upwards of 80 years and females have been known to live 100 years.

If you go to Sea World or have seen Free Willy you will notice their killer whales often have a collapsed dorsal fin. Sea World has tried to say this is a normal condition among killer whales, but is in fact very rare in the wild and is the sign of an unhealthy orca.

One issue you should be aware of, in nature killer whales spend their whole lives with their families in large pods and are very social animals. Many of the killer whales in captivity around the world are taken away from their family as babies which is very traumatic. Once in captivity these whales spend most of their time alone. This has the same effects on the orcas mental health as it would if you took a human child away from their family at a young age and given limited human interaction. They just don't develop right emotionally.

They breed these whales as soon as they physically can, years before they naturally would in the wild. It's the same as breeding preteen humans just because physically they can. The trainers masterbate the males and artificially insemenating the female. Sea World uses the same female basically as a baby factory and often inbreeding her with her own sons.


Maybe it does raise some public awareness for whales, but at what cost? These are some of the smartest animals on the planets with emotions as complex as humans. Sea World and similar places might as well be hell for these animals.