It seems like there once again is going to be an emancipation of slavery. Seaworld has recently announced the current generation of orcas will be the last ones they will ever have. Seaworld has ended in-park breeding. They also said they will begin to phase out their current orca shows and add new “inspiring, natural orca encounters rather than theatrical shows, as part of [our] ongoing commitment to education, marine science research and the rescue of marine animals.”
Seaworld was founded 52 years ago by four graduates of UCLA setting out to build an underwater restaurant and marine life show. Eventually the restaurant idea was scratched and they came up with the concept of SeaWorld we know today. In order to get animals for this glorified prison, fishermen were hired to capture wild animals. The way these animals were caught was not human in any way.
In 1965, the first-ever orca show at SeaWorld was performed by a female orca named Shamu at SeaWorld San Diego. During Shamu’s capture, her mother was shot with a harpoon and killed before the young orca’s very eyes by a marine “cowboy” named Ted Griffin. Griffin’s partner, Don Goldsberry, later worked for SeaWorld and was assigned to bring orcas into the park. He continued kidnapping and slaughtering orcas, and at one point, he hired divers to slit open the bellies of four orcas, fill them with rocks, put anchors around their tails, and sink them to the bottom of the ocean so that their deaths would not be discovered according to Earth in Transition.
The Whale Research Center found in 1970, more than 90 orcas were stalked and herded into a three-acre net by deafening explosives, speedboats and airplanes at Puget Sound, a deep inlet of the Pacific Ocean off the coast of Washington. Alongside the hired captors was Terry Newby, a young marine mammal researcher. This was just the beginning of a lifetime of confinement and exploitation of orcas in marine parks and aquariums around the world.
In Puget Sound between 1970 and 1971, ten orcas were captured from their ocean homes. Half of those were sent to SeaWorld. Some only survived a few months; all died prematurely with the exception of Lolita who still lives at the Miami Seaquarium. According to Onegreenplanet.org, during the 15 years of capture in Washington and British Columbia:
275 TO 307 WHALES WERE CAUGHT
55 WERE TRANSFERRED TO AQUARIUMS
12 OR 13 DIED DURING CAPTURE OPERATIONS
Orcas in the wild have an average life expectancy of 30 to 50 years—their estimated maximum life span is 60 to 70 years for males and 80 to more than 100 for females. The median age of orcas in captivity is only nine.
Starting in the early 1980’s, SeaWorld, which had developed a business and professional relationship with the Kamogawa SeaWorld in Japan, had learned that it might be possible to enter into a business arrangement with the Iki Island fishermen. They might be able to start selectively driving dolphins, including False Killer Whales, into shallow water where SeaWorld, and other oceanaria including Marine World, could select the beautiful few…and then allow the fishermen to slaughter the remaining whales. SeaWorld obtained permits from the fishery service to import six False Killer whales in the late 1980s. They sent a capture team to Iki Island, Japan and caught 12 False Killer whales.
In captivity, male orcas have collapsed dorsal fins as adults, which is a sign of an unhealthy orca. 
SeaWorld claims that this condition is common and natural for all orcas. However, collapsed dorsal fins are caused by the unnatural environment of captivity and are rarely seen in the wild. Whale and Dolphin Conservation organization tells us that only 1 to 5 percent of male orcas in some populations (and none in others) have fully collapsed dorsal fins. Scientist believe that ocean currents help the dorsal fin stand up as the whales grow. In captivity, there are no currents, just stagnant pools. SeaWorld confines whales and dolphins—who often swim up to 100 miles a day in the wild—to tanks that, to them, are the size of a bathtub.
SeaWorld presents itself as a family establishment full of fun “educational” activities. However, these activities harm animals physically and emotionally. Whales have been recorded swimming head on into the side of their enclosures, refusing to eat, and even purposely engaging in fights. These whales are confined to crystal clear pools in broad sunlight. They frequently get severe sunburns which trainers then cover up with black zinc oxide.
Whales often suffer from broken and fractured teeth. This usually occurs from common threat displays known as “barking”, “raking” or “jaw popping” as they chomp down on steel gates that separate orcas in an effort to establish dominance. Dental fragments have been retrieved from the bottom of the pool after such displays and while this behavior can temporarily alleviate stress, it generates additional stress in the long run — a vicious cycle.
Paint picking was observed with Loro Parque orcas, but according to SeaWorld’s own behavioral profiles Tuar has had issues with this:
“Tuar has exhibited extensive tooth rubbing…and has had his LL1-7 and RL1-7 drilled. Tuar has been seen on multiple occasions picking at paint at the bottom of the pools.”
As you can tell this leads to cracked, chipped, and missing teeth. When the pulp is exposed, trainers must take a drill to the orcas teeth and remove the pulp in a modified pulpotomy. This is a painful procedure that is done without any form of pain relief or anesthesia. The whales are conditioned to “accept” the noise, heat, vibration and obvious pain associated with drilling vertically through the tooth column and into the fleshy pulp below. Success is measured by blood spilling out of the hole, in which case it’s apparent the bore is complete.
In the wild, cetaceans receive most of their hydration from the live food they eat. But in captivity, they don’t eat live food, they eat frozen food with very little hydration. In turn, the animals are given supplemental hydration. This comes in the form of ice, jello, and in many cases, the hydration hose.
The procedure begins five hours after the animal’s last meal, to prevent vomiting. Trainers must condition the animals to accept the insertion of a tube down their throats. Water is then funneled through the tube and directly into the stomach.
SeaWorld has not collected an orca from the wild in almost 40 years, and the vast majority of the orcas were born under human care, but that’s not as good as it sounds. Artificial insemination is widely used for livestock breeding, as used by cattle breeders. The practice of AI was developed by SeaWorld for the purpose of increasing its captive stock of Killer Whales. This has allowed the company to avoid the unpopular and illegal practice of harvesting Orcas from the wild and purchasing them from the market, from countries like Japan. It also eliminates the costly need to transport Orcas between parks for the purpose of breeding. The semen is collected from an adult male trained to voluntarily ejaculate. The male, positioned belly up and adjacent to the edge of the pool, is trained to present his penis. After collected, it allows the sperm and ova of captive killer whales to be stored by a technique known as “genome resource banking.”
One problem with their breeding program is that whales are bred at exceptionally young ages. Several females have been bred early despite scientific studies say that the average age in the wild that female orcas begin to reproduce is 14.9 years. Taima gave birth to a male calf at SeaWorld Orlando in 1998 – age eight. Kohana, SeaWorld San Diego, had her first calf, Adán on October 12, 2010 – age eight. Takara gave birth to her first calf, Kohana on May 3, 2002 – age ten. Tilikum, the infamous whale from Blackfish, is known for his aggressive tendencies. He was involved in the deaths of three people (two trainers and one trespasser) at SeaWorld – including Dawn Brancheau in 2010. Despite all this, Tilikum has been an incredibly prolific breeder, siring a whopping 21 calves, all of which could carry his genetically predisposed aggressive tendencies.
Perhaps the most problematic facet of SeaWorld’s breeding program is the matching of genetically-close individuals like Nalani, a female orca at SeaWorld Orlando, who is the offspring of a 37-year-old female named Katina and her own son, a male named Taku. Taku is both father and half brother to Nalani. Another example is Kohana, a female born at SeaWorld San Diego in 2002, who was moved to the marine park Loro Parque in Spain, where she was bred with Keto, the brother of her mother. She gave birth to Adan in 2010, but refused to raise him, so staff had to bottle-feed him. Orcas are notoriously difficult breeders — even more so in captivity. In fact, until the whale Kalina was born in September 1985, no captive-born orca was able to survive more than a few days. Before Kalina, the 10 orcas born in captivity were all stillborn. In 2010, a 21-year-old mother orca named Taima died while giving birth to a stillborn baby at SeaWorld Orlando. This family tree, created by Whale and Dolphin Conservation, gives a glimpse of how often captive orca babies have been stillborn in the recent past.
With this new program though, SeaWorld is hoping to redeem themselves. The current population of orcas at SeaWorld – including one orca, Takara, that became pregnant last year – will live out their lives at the company’s park habitats, where they will continue to receive the highest-quality care based on the latest advances in marine veterinary medicine, science and zoological best practices. Guests will be able to observe these orcas through the new educational encounters and in viewing areas within the existing habitats.
No more theatrical shows. Programs will focus on orca enrichment, exercise and overall health. Existing show pools and viewing areas will be redesigned into a more naturalistic setting but they will continue to present the whales at scheduled times before a guest audience. This transformation will start in the San Diego park next year, followed by San Antonio and then Orlando in 2019. SeaWorld has committed $50 million over the next five years to be the world’s leading marine animal rescue organization, to advocate for an end to the commercial killing of whales and seals and an end to shark finning. It seems like SeaWorld has really turned over a new leaf, or have they?
