thrills

SeaWorld’s worst nightmare: Lawmaker proposes ban on orcas in captivity

All the experts in the marine biology field agree that the orca are not thriving in captivity. Their mortality rate is sickening- they live longer in the wild. Have you seen their teeth, among other things? Or rather, seen their lack of teeth? There are young baby orca at SeaWorld who have almost no teeth left because they are so stressed and bored out of their minds that they chew on metal and the sides of the tank. They break their teeth. They are not immune to pain, and if you’ve ever chipped one tooth in your life, you know tooth pain is one of the most awful things you can feel. 

And SeaWorld has to drill out the centers of their teeth when they break and flush them out every day. Wild orca teeth don’t look like this! You might find a really old one that has a couple, over the course of its entire life depending on its ecotype and its specialized diet. But you wont find anything nearly so terrible as what happens to these poor creatures at SeaWorld.

You have no idea. You are protecting a company that claims better, world class vet care- But why do these animals need to be pumped full of medication constantly, things like vallium? Why is it SeaWorld uses a black zinc oxide to cover large rakes and sunburns, which basically paints them? Why does precious Sea World pay money to places like Mundo Marino, who keeps its orca in the most deplorable conditions you can imagine?

They Lie bold faced to the public, to people like you who think, ‘well, SeaWorld must know what its doing, right? They’d never lie to us!’ And that is what the uneducated public often thinks, however, the more of us that become edicated the less and less SeaWorld’s lies work. For instance…

They fight with one another, something that does not happen in the wild. They rip each other with their teeth, where in the wild, any disagreement between pod members would dissipate due to having enough space to keep out of each others way.

The Above orca’s name is Nakai. The injury took place during a show, where its seriousness was apparently missed because the orca actually had to finish the show before it was ‘discovered’ that he was hurt. Just recently an Orca Expert, Ingrid Visser, pointed out that the injury had orca tooth marks on it, and it is clear that this dinner plate sized wound was caused by Nakai being bitten. Injuries at SeaWorld happen far more frequently than you might think they do. Altercations between orca have even led to death.

The above is Kandu, who fought with Corky

Kandu V collided with Corky II leading to her death Kandu V was a female Icelandic orca who was caught in 1977 and kept at SeaWorld San Diego, California. She died on 21st August 1989 from a collision after attempting to rake newcomer Corky II. Kandu was 14 years old at the time and was mother to 11 month Orkid. Kandu had always been the dominant female at SeaWorld San Diego. The collision happened during a live show and several thousands of spectators watched as Kandu bled to death. The fatal accident occurred in the holding pool behind the main performance pool when Kandu attempted to rake Corky. Raking is a way orcas show dominance by forcefully scratching at another with their teeth, this happens a lot within captivity and many of the orcas have visible rake marks. Very few rake marks have been witnessed on wild orcas, this may be because groups tend not to mix whereas in captivity many different types of groups are made to live and perform together. Dr. James F. McBain, a staff veterinarian at SeaWorld said of the accident, at the time, that Kandu engaged in a “normal, socially induced act of aggression to assert her dominance over Corky”. Kandu missed Corky as she attempted to rake her and ended up ramming into a wall, rupturing an artery in her jaw and fracturing her upper jaw, she began spouting blood from her blowhole. The people in the stadium where quickly asked to leave. After a 45 minute hemorrhage Kandu V died, the whole time she swam by her 11 month old calf, Orkid. Orkid was later placed with Corky.

Again, SeaWorld is caught in a lie. This was not normal behavior at all.

This is Ikaika

Picture by beeskneesss

Notice something off? That’s right, that’s not normal. Captivity does nothing good for these animals, who have been proven to be sentient, self aware creatures that understand things the way we do.

Tekoa, one of the orcas separated from its mother way too early and shipped off to Loro Parque on ‘breeding loan’ (Read: experimenting with setting up shop in other countries) - But nonetheless, they claim breeding loan. Why, oh why, did SeaWorld send ALL RELATED ANIMALS on breeding loan, where they have made at least one inbred orca?

Why are SeaWorlds orcas, in this foreign facility, allowed to be torn to shreds?

When you support SeaWorld, you support every facility that keeps cetaceans.

(Whales and dolphins/porpoises etc)

Including Mundo Marino….

This is Kshamenk. You may be wondering why I would mention an orca that neither belongs to SeaWorld nor lives in its care. I mention Kshamenk because SeaWorld pays Mundo Marino to keep this beautiful orca in one of the most, if not the most deplorable conditions. Why? Because SeaWorld pays for Kshamenk‘s sperm. When you support SeaWorld your money goes to places like this! It spawns other countries to say, ‘wow! keeping these animals makes TONS OF MONEY!’ They don’t give a rats ass about these animals and they never have.

This is the pool he lives in.

The gates are closed, he does not have access to the show pool- Outside of shows.

He often floats upside down, defeated, bored out of his mind. You want to know how he came to be here? His family was forced - deliberately- to strand/beach themselves. Mundo marino waited a little while then came in and pretended to rescue them. They let one go, and took the rest. All died soon after, leaving Kshamenk alone.

If you pay to go to SeaWorld you paid for this. You paid for thousands of cetaceans (dolphins and whales) to be slaughtered- literally- in The Cove, in Taiji Japan. Even Sea World has bought dolphins (and I believe also pilot whales?) from the dolphin drives. Recently they tried to import a second generation dolphin born from parents taken from the drive and still support it! They also tried to get beluga whale sperm from DEAD beluga, to pay whaling groups and encourage them to kill more beluga. (They did not get that permit.)

But SeaWorld announced that huge realistic aquarium thing, right? LIES. Each year they push back the date of construction, because they have not yet even filed for the permits to build this new blue horizons or w/e its called. They said it as a publicity stunt, thinking it would draw in more people. It didn’t work for those of us investigating what SeaWorld is doing.

Please PLEASE use this opportunity to educate yourselves on this matter! If you believe what SeaWorld is saying, you are falling into their trap. Their stock is down, their attendance is dropping like flies. We have succeeded in ending further obtaining of cetaceans in canada, and now its time to spread it to USA.

We don’t want to release these animals into the wild- Their health, currently, along with broken teeth and psychosis means they can never be released. We are fighting to get them retired to open ocean sea pens, sanctuaries in the ocean where they no longer have to perform circus tricks for your entertainment. SeaWorld tries to say they do it for education, but their education is almost entirely tricks, routines and behaviors. Any information they give is largely false, or even outright lies.

You can begin looking over information about these topics here

I suggest also watching Blackfish and The Cove, slave to Entertainment, and A Whale of a Business.

These programs do not hold all the answers, but they are places to start. The anti captivity movement has been around since the very first capture. You can help our cause by signing this petition, and by spreading the word. My fellow anticaps please add more to this, I’m sure I’ve missed a lot of topics to cover but these were the most immediate things I could think of off the top of my head.

b3n3aththesurfac3 has a lot of videos of things going on at SeaWorld for those interested, including unnatural beaching and stranding behavior, and also discovered the notorious Dolphin Pox disease in dolphins in Orlando.