Whales will generally reside in all of the oceans throughout the world, but during the winter seasons they will go north and breed. After they have their calves, the people who capture the calves for show attractions will go up North looking for the best calves to sell to aquariums such as SeaWorld. Then separating the calves from their mothers and fathers causing much distress. …show more content…
In the United States alone, there are over 20 cases of Orca Whales killing or injuring human trainers. A specific Orca, Kandu V, has 5 incidences where she has shown aggression to trainers and one other where she has shown aggression to another whale. The most severe case is when she lands on top of a trainer, Joanne Webber, during a rehearsal, causing Webber to never be able to move her head again because she fractured a bone in her neck. This goes to prove that these animals cannot be kept in captivity because they are extremely violent. OSHA, or the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, have been working many years to put some sort of a barrier with the trainers and the whales because they have been promoted as dangerous in captivity (Cowperthwaite, Blackfish).
With these animals being dangerous to humans in captivity, captivity is also dangerous to the animals. When they are captivated in the small areas, they will become stressed. Since the animals’ holding paddocks are where they spend the most time, but are even smaller than the performance tank. This then would lead the animals to stress, aggression, and possibly …show more content…
Tilikum not only being the largest Orca, he is also responsible for the death of two trainers and a civilian. His first attack is when he was younger when his residency was at SeaLand of the Pacific. SeaLand of the Pacific was a small fishnetted area off of a boat ramp that was very low budget, but the original place that “owned” Tilikum. In February 1991, is where Tilikum led his first murder, the murder of Keltie Byrne. She fell into the water without her wetsuit on and the Orcas were taking her underwater until she drowned. He then was transferred to SeaWorld Orlando, where there was his next two incidents. His next incident was in July 1999 where he was responsible of the death of Daniel Dukes. His autopsy reported that after Dukes drowned in the cold water, he was bitten in the groin. His most recent incident was in February of 2010. During a show in Shamu Stadium (SeaWorld Orlando), Tilikum grabbed his trainer Dawn Brancheau by her arm and proceeded to drag her under water. Even though Brancheau tried hard to escape, there was no escape and she eventually died. After that the other trainers then went into the water to retrieve her arm. After this, SeaWorld Orlando declared that because of Tilikum’s size and previous two murders, it was unsafe to be in the same cage as Tilikum.
One may ask, how will we stop animal captivity?