Blackfish Research Paper

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Captive Killer Whales

Blackfish is a movie about an orca named Tilikum who was captured at a young age and taken to perform at Sealand. Within a year and a half he was moved to Seaworld for breeding purposes and because Sealand shut down. Tilikum soon became a great attraction and everyone wanted to see him and all the trainers wanted to train him. They all thought Tilikum was an excellent whale, but that is because they were never told that anything bad happened. Unfortunately, Sealand had been shut down due to a very serious incident.

Orcas are captured at a young age, taken to Seaworld, and trained to be stars. People capture the baby orcas by surrounding them with boats and planes then throwing bombs at them. They are cornered and cannot get away. Then they pick the babies out one by one until they have them all. Before they leave they have to sink the …show more content…
Tilikum and the other whales were treated horribly . They were starved if they didn't do the right thing. The owners thought the orcas would learn from their mistakes but they would only take their aggression out on the other whales. The whales were kept in a small dark floating metal box in the ocean all night with all the whales squeezed in. In the morning the orcas would have scratch wounds on them because they would fight during the night. One day three whales were performing at Sealand, the trainer was on the platform because they aren't allowed to get in the water with the orcas. The trainer took a misstep and slipped in the water, she started to pull herself out but a whale grabbed her boot and pulled her back in. The owners told reporters that it wasn’t Tilikum that pulled her in but the people who were watching it happen said it was him because they saw the floppy dorsal fin. Sealand was shut down and Tilikum was moved to Seaworld where he would probably have a better life, right?

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