In response to this (full disclosure, my wife works at SeaWorld training Dolphins and working with Hawaiian Monk Seals). I am also good friends with many trainers of belugas, sea lions, and orcas.

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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.

Correct, they do. But the only reason they swim this much is to hunt and search for food. They don't have to swim this much and this far daily, it is not something they just "do". At SeaWorld they have no reason to swim this much because they are fed a ton of food (the biggest one at our park gets 160 lbs of fish a day). In the wild they do not spend most of their time submerged under water. As they are mammals they must come up to breath, they spend much time near the surface (not directly on the surface but not in the deep dark depths either). This is why whale watching trips are so popular.

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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.

False, we have a whale at our park that is in her 30s, there is another one in another park in their 50s. There are very few pods of orcas that have actually been studied long enough to produce valid results. Recent peer reviewed research gives the average mean life expectancy of Pacific Orcas to around 30 years for females and 19 for males. Orcas in the Alaska seem to be 50 and 30. In response to the orca that has been reported as being "100" there is no way of knowing for sure. The original whale that they are talking about was never tagged or had a tooth pulled (the only surefire way to tell an orca's age, like a tree stump). So many of these reports are unverified scientifically.

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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.

False, collapsed dorsal fins are observable in the wild and is not an indication of emotional reactions at all. The dorsal fin is just a large collection of cartilage (like an ear). Collapsed dorsal fins happen for many reasons. One is amount of time spent near the surface. Whales at SeaWorld spend more time at the surface than some whales in the wild so gravity has more an effect on the dorsal fin. Another is just size of the fin. Some fins, like any other appendage on different people, grow to different sizes and they become so heavy they fall over. Again, a dorsal fin is not indicative of the whale's emotional feelings.

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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.

Not necessarily true. Yes whales live in pods, no they are not always "family". It has been observed in the wild many whales leaving their original pods and finding new ones, just like human kids (only wetter). No, SeaWorld does not take away babies. They separate weened juveniles (4-5 years) which from a developmental standpoint of the orca makes them almost adults. This happens naturally in the wild as well, sometimes earlier than 4-5 years. In regards to the last part you can't compare human children with orca calves as cognitive development between humans and wild animals are extremely different. There is no "developing right emotionally" as their isn't much of an emotional response from the animals. (Intelligent yes, but intelligence and emotion are not all-inclusive).

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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.

False, no inbreeding takes place. The entire reason SeaWorld uses artificial insemination is to spread the genectics around to prevent "inbreeding". They also do not breed as "soon as they physically can". Females are estimated to become sexually mature between 7-16 years. At no point before this does SeaWorld attempt artificially inseminate, and they don't do it all day every day when they do it. In response to the part about breeding preteen humans you are again equating orca physiology with human physiology and biology, and you can't. They are two completely different ends of the spectrum when it comes to that.

In conclusion, I've seen some posts on here talking about SeaWorld's responses as "PR moves". While one could argue that any type of information given by a company is a PR move SeaWorld is at least backing up their information about Orcas with reputable sources. Any article on the SeaWorld website has citations of peer-reviewed scientific articles corroborating the information they are putting out there. (for example: https://seaworld.com/en/truth/killer-whales/lifespan/)

If you have a moral belief that orca/animal captivity is wrong than I have no problem with that, God knows I won't be able to change your opinion. What I do have a problem with is the spreading of baseless lies like this to the uninformed (and no, a blog does not count as a usable scientific citation). Whether you choose to read everything I wrote or not I can't help that, but at least do real research from accredited sources and not from a "documentary" film that has been proven to use creative editing techniques along with just plain wrong information and videos.

/EndRant

Scene by Scene of Blackfish Innaccuracies