When the exposé documentary Blackfish was released on July 19, 2013, a whole new light was shone upon SeaWorld. SeaWorld is a family entertainment company and theme park chain with locations throughout the United States. They currently keep around 28 killer whales, 44 dolphins, 4 pilot whales, and many other varieties of marine mammals in captivity(CETA, "Captive Dolphins (Living)…”; WDC, "The Fate of Captive Orcas.") They keep these massive creatures in concrete tanks that to these mammals are about the size of a bathtub. In the past 10 years 62 dolphins have died within SeaWorld, and around 44 orcas have died at SeaWorld, not including countless still-births (PETA, "How Many Dolphins…”; WDC, "Orcas Held at US Marine Parks”). SeaWorld has
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The most famous and recent of which involved a SeaWorld trainer named Dawn Brancheau. Dawn was a very responsible SeaWorld trainer. According to her friends and coworkers she always followed the rulebook, and she had very good relations with all the marine mammals she worked with, but when a human is placed into a small confined space with a stir-crazy predator, it’s just not enough. Dawn was killed while working with the killer whale named Tilikum. Previous to SeaWorld owning him, Tilikum had killed two of his previous handlers. SeaWorld purchased Tilikum knowing this, but they warned none of the trainers. SeaWorld has tried to sugarcoat the event and claim that Dawn was just drowned, but ex-SeaWorld trainer, John Hargrove, had the real story. In an interview with National Geographic Mr. Hargrove said, “But though SeaWorld denies it, this was a horrific, aggressive event. SeaWorld’s expert witness, Jeff Andrews, said that Tilikum was never aggressive with Dawn. What’s so outrageous about that is that he didn’t just drown Dawn. He dismembered her.” (Worrall, Simon, "Former Trainer Slams SeaWorld…”) As we can see in the chart to the right, Dawn was not alone. This chart shows the number of incidents involving orcas at SeaWorld per year from 1965 to 2009 (Bekoff, Marc, "Do Orcas Go Crazy because…”) which in this graph is fairly large, but as we approach the year of 2016, …show more content…
SeaWorld, on their official website, claims that the average lifespan for a female orca is 30, and the average life span for a male orca is 19 (SeaWorld, "Lifespan.") According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the average life span for males is 30-50, and the average life span for females is 50-100 (NOAA, "Killer Whale.") The average age of death for a killer whale living in SeaWorld is 13 (PETA, "8 Reasons Orcas Don 't Belong at SeaWorld.") The detrimental physical effects of captivity to orcas is shown here through their greatly shortened lifespans. SeaWorld acknowledges this by trying to cover up these horrific facts by putting false information on their website. Also, SeaWorld tanks are too shallow and too small. Besides the obvious lack of room to swim, the shallowness of SeaWorld pools can have very negative effects on marine mammals, particularly orcas. Orcas are known to inhabit cool habitats, and they dive deep within the chilly waters of that habitat, so naturally they are not equipped to deal with the sunny SeaWorld exhibits. The tanks are too shallow to protect them from the sun, so they get badly sunburned. To cover this up, SeaWorld applies black zinc oxide to camouflage the burns (PETA, "10 Things You Didn 't Know About SeaWorld.") Within marine mammals, and particularly killer whales, a collapsed dorsal fin
The most famous and recent of which involved a SeaWorld trainer named Dawn Brancheau. Dawn was a very responsible SeaWorld trainer. According to her friends and coworkers she always followed the rulebook, and she had very good relations with all the marine mammals she worked with, but when a human is placed into a small confined space with a stir-crazy predator, it’s just not enough. Dawn was killed while working with the killer whale named Tilikum. Previous to SeaWorld owning him, Tilikum had killed two of his previous handlers. SeaWorld purchased Tilikum knowing this, but they warned none of the trainers. SeaWorld has tried to sugarcoat the event and claim that Dawn was just drowned, but ex-SeaWorld trainer, John Hargrove, had the real story. In an interview with National Geographic Mr. Hargrove said, “But though SeaWorld denies it, this was a horrific, aggressive event. SeaWorld’s expert witness, Jeff Andrews, said that Tilikum was never aggressive with Dawn. What’s so outrageous about that is that he didn’t just drown Dawn. He dismembered her.” (Worrall, Simon, "Former Trainer Slams SeaWorld…”) As we can see in the chart to the right, Dawn was not alone. This chart shows the number of incidents involving orcas at SeaWorld per year from 1965 to 2009 (Bekoff, Marc, "Do Orcas Go Crazy because…”) which in this graph is fairly large, but as we approach the year of 2016, …show more content…
SeaWorld, on their official website, claims that the average lifespan for a female orca is 30, and the average life span for a male orca is 19 (SeaWorld, "Lifespan.") According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the average life span for males is 30-50, and the average life span for females is 50-100 (NOAA, "Killer Whale.") The average age of death for a killer whale living in SeaWorld is 13 (PETA, "8 Reasons Orcas Don 't Belong at SeaWorld.") The detrimental physical effects of captivity to orcas is shown here through their greatly shortened lifespans. SeaWorld acknowledges this by trying to cover up these horrific facts by putting false information on their website. Also, SeaWorld tanks are too shallow and too small. Besides the obvious lack of room to swim, the shallowness of SeaWorld pools can have very negative effects on marine mammals, particularly orcas. Orcas are known to inhabit cool habitats, and they dive deep within the chilly waters of that habitat, so naturally they are not equipped to deal with the sunny SeaWorld exhibits. The tanks are too shallow to protect them from the sun, so they get badly sunburned. To cover this up, SeaWorld applies black zinc oxide to camouflage the burns (PETA, "10 Things You Didn 't Know About SeaWorld.") Within marine mammals, and particularly killer whales, a collapsed dorsal fin