Documentary Summary: The Traditional Zoo

The Traditional Zoo: Redefined Scratch marks the length of the body, spilling copious amounts of blood. Held captive in a dark metal box over night. Put on display during the day for other’s amusement. This may seem to describe the victim of abduction or a hate crime, yet it describes the life of an orca in captivity. Orcas are captured out of the wild and forced to do tricks in order to get their food. Their lifespans are drastically shortened and their dorsal fins no longer stand straight up. Their families are separated and sent thousands of miles around the globe. And for what? The amusement of the average ticket buyer at Seaworld and other similar institutions. This type of torture should not be allowed to go on and those responsible for it should be held accountable for the actions they have taken. Taking in an injured animal from the wild and rehabilitating it while studying it is one thing, but purposefully hunting and capturing these animals for them to put on shows is impermissible. Through the extensive interviews with former Seaworld trainers and investigation into the wrongdoing of multiple institutions, the movie Blackfish was able to show the barbaric practices being performed on these innocent animals. Early in the documentary, the process …show more content…
Any scientific endeavor must be held to impeccable ethical standards that ensure the safety of all involved. A much better approach to the issue of understanding more about whales is identifying those animals that are injured or sick in the wild and collecting them to be healed and studied. When an animal’s lifespan is quartered and they begin to demonstrate behaviors that are unprecedented in the wild, another approach must be found to study them. If only sick animals were rehabilitated and immediately released back into the wild, the animals would benefit and marine biologists could still gain valuable data on these mysterious