While I am on the post Blackfish movie thoughts, I have had an appiphany that has been brewing in my mind for a long time. I have long believed that zoos were monstrous, that why should humans keep other animals in a cage for our visual enjoyment? I have already known about the orcas, they have recently been exhibited on social media as abused animals in desperate need of care and treatment. I have a more moderate view on this subject. Yes, I do believe that no animal should be put on display for humans, we have no right to take their lives away. I do not believe that these animals are entirely mistreated either, they are simply denied the life that they could have had if they were not taken from their natural lives.

The Blackfish movie made me start thinking more about the state of Killer Whales in captivity. I try to think about both sides of the story. What are the true benefits of keeping them in captivity? Why do we do it? There are two polar opposites to this story, those that are for and against. The people that are in favor of keeping the whales are looking at the issue on a human level. They believe that these whales are safer in captivity, and they want to train them so that they can learn to the full extent of their mental abilities. They also state that orcas live longer in captivity, and this information has repeatedly been shown to be entirely false. Statistics show that female whales live an average of fifty years in the wild, and when female whales are raised in an artificial tank, they live for an average of thirty years. This drastic age difference is one key point of contention that the argument centers around.

Another big topic is the one about the trend for Orca dorsal fins to become bent over in artificial tanks. SeaWorld, a big contender in the show whale business, states that the dorsal fin collapse is the result of genetic issues with the parent whale Tilikum. More recently, SeaWorld also has posted on their website about this issue, they state “As killer whales at SeaWorld tend to spend more time at the surface working with their trainers, and many of the males have slumped or bent dorsal fins, it seems probable that time spent at the surface may be a contributing factor”(SeaWorld), which totally contradicts their earlier statements about the genetic factors. One tidbit of information that I could not find is whether or not all whales of different families have collapsed dorsal fins as well. The counter to this comes from Orca researchers with a combined 40 plus years of observation and study about the animals. They state that less than one percent of whales in the wild have a collapsed dorsal fin, and they think that the cause of the collapse comes from various causes, such as pattern swimming. They point out that these captive whales are trained to swim either clockwise or counterclockwise for their entire lives, and the force of water against one side of the fin versus the other can be a cause of the bend (Ocean Advocate). They have also observed that the whales spend a lot of time resting at the surface of the water, immobile. Gravity could be a result of the collapse in this case, as the unmoving whales are not doing anything to stop the collapse. There were two videos explaining each side of the discussion, and I found that the more believable of the two was the one from the researchers. Their points made much more sense to me, they had more hard data than SeaWorld. The fact that over ninety nine percent of whales in the wild do not have this condition, it can be assumed that the collapsed fin has a direct connection to the state of the whales in an artificial habitat.

These whales should be rehabilitated. They have been kept isolated from the realities of their real world for their entire lives, so they cannot be pushed out into the wild, but perhaps a solution like sea pens could work.  This just cannot be allowed to happen, humans taking these whales from their natural lives just for our enjoyment. This argument is not done however, we need to pursue this issue to its fullest extent, so we can all live in peace.