I’ve never been to Sea World, but as a child I had always wanted to. In the colorful upbeat commercials of the waterpark, my young mind was enraptured by the giant smiling animals that made graceful flips in the air only to return to nuzzle their trainers. They looked happy and I was glad that there were people in the world that would take these beautiful creatures out of the dangerous wild, and keep them well fed and happy.
The movie “Blackfish” directed by Gabriela Cowperthwaithe shows the profit-driven corporation that SeaWorld actually is. After watching this film, I can confidently say that I will absolutely never go to SeaWorld.
The documentary opens with a police report of a killer whale attack. In 2004, a killer whale named Tilikum grabbed a seasoned trainer named Dawn by the leg and shook her to death at a SeaWorld park in Orlando, Florida. Although only a few deaths by killer whales have been reported since the beginnings of SeaWorld, the documentary goes on to explain that there have been over 70 reported killer whale attacks to trainers at various Sea World locations across the world.
Why are these killer whales so violent?
In the wild, killer whales are friendly animals. They swim freely and countless stories have been reported of killer whales warning swimmers of sharks and other predators. Killer whales also live to up to one hundred years old, and have extensive families that have intricate communication systems within them. In the documentary, a researcher shows an MRI of an orca’s brain and what they found is that these intelligent animals have an entirely extra lobe that humans do not. This lobe produces highly emotional functions which prove that killer whales are capable of deeper understanding and creating emotional ties.
This fact acts as the base of why SeaWorld is an incredibly inhumane place. SeaWorld began over forty years ago when a fisherman hoarded a pod of killer whales into a cove and ripped their young away from them. In the documentary, one of the fishermen recounts the experience and says that as the ships were pulling the babies away, the adult killers whales swam nearby watching and trying to communicate with their young. The fisherman himself says, “It was then that it hit me, what exactly we were doing.” As high functioning and emotional animals, these men essentially ripped away children from their parents.
The documentary continues on, spanning ninety minutes, speaking of the mistreatment of the animals once they actually arrive at SeaWorld. These animals that hold an extensive culture based on family interactions are shoved into small pools with members of other pods. This leads to violence amongst the whales in these close quarters, and the animals undergo gruesome injuries while in captivity. Not only this, but even in their captivity, the female killer whales that have babies constantly have their young ripped away from. In an especially emotional portion of the documentary, one of the trainers explains a moment when a baby orca is ripped away from his mother while she is in captivity. As she is being taken away, the mother screams in a way that the trainer says, “could only be described as wails of grief.” After the baby had been completely removed, the mother sadly floated around a corner of her small tank.
The movie continues to describe other horrors of SeaWorld, and I urge you to watch this documentary. At this point in time, there are a huge number of issues that could be deemed of higher importance than the killer whales in SeaWorld. However, that being said, ending this torture towards helpless animals just means not visiting a “Sea World.” SeaWorld is a profit-seeking corporation that will use any kind of manipulation and advertising to make the public give them more money. I urge you to understand the facts, and stop going to this torture chamber for helpless animals.
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