captivity
An oceanic wonderland where you can go on amusement rides, eat overpriced (and shitty) food, and watch orcas, sea lions, and dolphins perform for you! God I hate these places. SeaWorld in particular is a multi billion dollar franchise and amusement park that, to be completely blunt, is horrible! I’m sure you’ve seen videos on your Instagram reels or TikTok of orcas in a tank that’s way too fucking small and there’s some sad music playing in the background and you’re watching this poor animal swim in circles with nowhere to go. Well, that’s pretty much the gist of it. The first ever SeaWorld opened its doors in 1964 with its first orca named Shamu. Shamu, a female orca, was approximately 17 feet long weighing in at 2000 lbs. The first incident happened in 1971. Anne Eckis, a trainer, was bit by Shamu amidst one of the performances and she refused to release Anne until other trainers rushed to help. Shamu died a few months later from blood poisoning and a uterine infection. Tilikum, another orca that was in the care of SeaWorld for 33 years, killed Dawn Branchau who was another trainer who worked alongside the orcas. Orcas kept showing resistance and aggression and SeaWorld continued to bring them into captivity. An average tank at SeaWorld is roughly 31 feet long, 23 feet wide, and about 12 feet deep. The average adult orca can be anywhere from 20-30 feet long. What the fuck right? The signs that this was a problem started to show up very, very fast. Gashes on orcas started to show up from them fighting with each other in their tanks, their dorsal fins started collapsing, and they started to show clear signs of malnutrition. I mean, if I was that big in such a small place I’d be freaking out too. The coolest thing to me about orcas is that each pod has their own language, their own culture, and they all hunt together. Plus, they operate in a monarchy. The ladies are in charge. This creates a lot of issues when it comes to orcas in captivity. A lot of people suggest that we should just argue for all captive orcas to get released. But, if that were to happen they would all simply just die in the wild. Because they grew up in captivity, they don’t have a pod. They don’t understand any other pods language or culture. And if you didn’t know this already, orcas are assholes. They’re hella exclusive and if an orca got released into the wild, it wouldn’t be able to join another pod, it wouldn’t know how to hunt, and it would die. Just a few years ago, SeaWorld announced that the orcas they currently have are the last generation of orcas they will be holding in captivity. WOO!!! RIGHT? Wrong. There are still so many amusement parks that have orcas and no plans to stop placing more in captivity. It’s awful. Because it just seems like they either die in captivity or you release them and they die in the wild. It has recently come to light that Kshmanek, a 35 year old captive orca at Mundo Marina in Argentina, has been stuck in his tank since 1992. There is video footage of him not even fitting through the entryway from one tank to another. I suggest watching the documentary “Blackfish” on Netflix. It explains a lot of this probably better than I ever could. The only solution to this problem is to place the remaining animals and orcas into sanctuaries (biiiiiiig ones) that they can live in for the rest of their lives. But, that takes an effort from a lottttt of people with a lotttt of money. Spreading awareness, signing petitions, and boycotting these parks is so crucial. I will link some in the “just one thing” section and I hope you take a few minutes to help. Be conscious and be aware. Talk to you guys next week.
