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Victoria Metallinos

Leonard

English 1201.515

April 14 2017

Open The Tanks

Imagine living in a cement bathtub for your whole life with 8 people. Being forced to do

things you dont want to do. You dont get enough to eat, and when you dont listen to the people

that tell you what to do, you dont get any food. Its so emotionally tough on you, that you decide

to bash your head on the side of the bathtub until you die. Killer whales or Orcas live out their

life like this in captivity. Orcas should not be in captivity because it is detrimental emotionally

and physically.

Whales are aquatic mammals of the order Cetacea, found in all oceans of the world.

Members of this order vary greatly in size and include the largest animals that have ever lived.

Cetaceans never leave the water, even to give birth. ("whale." World Encyclopedia.) They are a

very misunderstood breed. Surprisingly intelligent and emotional.

The hashtags #OpenTheTanks, #SaveTheWhales, #StopSeaworld, and many more are

trending and used daily on social media. Stickers and posters are everywhere, and there are many

advocates for freeing the whales. Whales have been in captivity since 1961. As explained in

Blackfish a documentary by Gabriela Cowperthwaite ("Blackfish." Blackfish) how it all worked

was when companies like SeaWorld wanted whales, they would hire men with boats and

helicopters to find the families and herds. They had net and they would pull all of them in and

pick out the baby calfs. They took those babies from their families and brought them to a cement

pool that they would live out the rest of their life in. In the documentary it tells the life of an orca
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named Tilikum that was taken away from its whole family at a very young age. It explains how

he was mistreated by trainers in every park he was at.

Whale families are not like human families. We can adopt kids and teach them the family

rules and eventually we can all come together as one. For whales, it is not that easy. All families

are different. they have different languages in each herd. Because of the restricted utility of

vision underwater, whales use sound to perceive and interpret their environment and to

communicate, sometimes over vast distances ("whale." World Encyclopedia.) Because of this,

in captivity there are so many different sounds and languages going all around at once. It gets

very confusing. In the wild, families move together in packs and dont interfere with other

families. They stick together until they die. But when they are in captivity, they are in such a

small area with so many different whales speaking different languages, its overwhelming and

that helps to start their aggression. Fighting is inevitable. They rake each other. Raking is when

they use their teeth to scratch each other, making them bleed and scar. As a new whale in a

facility, there will always be rakes on the new orcas body for at least three to four months.

Whales live in a patriarchal society which means that the women are in charge and

because of this, it causes more strife and fighting between the women and the new whales. All of

this was happening to Tilikum when he was taken and put into captivity. He was beaten everyday

by the women in the parks. He would be bleeding almost everyday. For some reason, they were

even less accepting of him. There are laws stated now that prevent taking whales from the wild

in the US, but that just means that the companies and organizations go somewhere else to get

these whales.

As time went by, fight after fight and rake after rake, Tilikum got more and more

aggressive. He is a perfect example of what happens to whales in captivity. He broke. He went

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into defense mode. To this day, Tilikum has killed three people and injured many more. He has

dragged trainers to the bottom of tanks, and he has bitten limbs off a trainer. What is so

surprising about this is that there have been zero deaths in the wild. Whales have killed zero

people outside of parks. Whales become destructive and on edge when they arent in their natural

surroundings.

SeaWorlds plan has been that when a new whale comes to the park, they pair it up with

an older whale that knows all of the tricks. They tell that older whale to do tricks, and if the new

whale follows, they each get a fish. If they dont follow, each one does not get their fish. If that

happens, then that mature whale gets frustrated because they dont get their food. It ends with

fighting and raking. That happens all the time to whales throughout their life at the parks. It

makes them become defensive. They want their food, and will do anything for it, for example

hurt or kill.

After much research of the topic, the conclusion is that SeaWorld has been very dishonest

in what they tell their audiences, and on social media. For instance, SeaWorld has said that

whales can only live up to 35 years but they can live longer in captivity than in the wild; false.

They can live up to 80 years in the wild. The years get lower once they are in captivity. The

dorsal fin (the big fin on their back) is collapsed in almost all males in captivity and SeaWorld

has said that that happens to 95% of whales in captivity and outside of captivity, but that is false

again. When a dorsal fin is collapsed it is a strong sign of depression and almost never happens

in the wild, but only in captivity. SeaWorld tries to say that they are helping these whales but in

reality, they are just hurting them. Orcas can swim up to 100 miles a day in the wild, but in

captivity they are stuck there just floating.

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SeaWorlds take on Blackfish is that it is all for propaganda. They state that life for the

whales at their parks is not harmful, and that they arent trying to hide facts surrounding the

death of Dawn Brancheau, the trainer who Tilikum killed. They state that All of the falsehoods

and misleading techniques in Blackfish are employed in the service of the films obvious bias,

one that is best revealed near the end of Blackfish by a neuroscientist with no known expertise in

killer whales. She claims that all killer whales in captivity are emotionally destroyed, and

ticking time bombs. These are not the words of science, and indeed, there is not a shred of

scientific support for them. Rather, they are the words of animal rights activists whose agenda

the films many falsehoods were designed to advance. They reveal Blackfish not as an

objective documentary, but as propaganda. (Entertainment, SeaWorld Parks &. "Truth About

Blackfish.") SeaWorld has denied most of all that was explained in the documentary. The

documentary shines a harsh, true light on whale captivation. It started the storm and even though

the documentary talked about parks other than SeaWorld, SeaWorld got the backlash the worst.

There are some good things that SeaWorld has to offer. When whales are in captivity,

they are safe from harm that is in the wild. Beaching is a big example where they get stranded

out of water. They are protected, there are no boats in captivity that could cause the whales harm.

Also, food is never scarce. They are taken care of by vets and cetacean specialists. They say that

they protect the whales from the wild. Also, if whales arent at their parks, then no one will be

able to see them. They will be in the wild, in the ocean and kids will not be able to go see them

as easily as it would be to go to SeaWorld.

The Fate of Captive Orcas written by the Whale and Dolphin Conservation explain that

Research and observations in recent years have revealed that whales and dolphins not only have

the ability to learn as individuals, but those individuals can then pass their knowledge onto
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others. This is a rare intelligence in the animal kingdom. ("The Fate of Captive Orcas." WDC,

Whale and Dolphin Conservation.) Scientists also found out by observing their brains that they

have a part of their brain that humans dont have and that part of their brain gives them more

control of emotion. they can express their emotion and even feel more about emotion than we do.

Whales need stimulation to survive. they need it to live happy, long lives. Living in a

cement tub is not stimulation when they are used to miles and miles each day swimming in the

sea. Whales are in some ways smarter than us, they can comprehend more than we can, they can

think in different ways and strategies that we cannot, and they are huge. So explain why there are

whales kept captive in small pools at this exact moment where they will live out their miserable

lives being circus animals for our enjoyment but hating their life? There have been cases where

whales literally ram their heads into the walls in their pools until they bleed out and die. Why do

we want to do that to them?

Lori Gruen explains in her book The Ethics of Captivity the dolphinarium industry

continues to be lucrative and popular in the United States and around the world. But the toll of

captivity on cetacean welfare is devastating, and there is an abundance of scientific evidence to

show that cetaceans cannot thrive in captivity. There are a number of growing efforts to end

cetacean displays, including progressive movements to promote cetacean rights and personhood.

These efforts continue to force the marine mammal captivity industry to retreat and are

facilitating the turning of public opinion against captivity and providing enforceable ways to

protect cetacean rights. Since Blackfish came out in 2014, SeaWorlds profits dropped 84%.

SeaWorld came out in the last year and announced that the whales that are in their parks

now are the last generation of orcas to be in captivity.( SeaWorld Parks &. "Last Generation."

Last Generation) These whales will live out the rest of their lives in the parks but will not
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reproduce. That is a marketing strategy to get people back into their parks. Yes, it would be great

to have this generation as the last, but what about the whales? This last generation will still be

performing shows, living in cement pools, and will be hating their lives. SeaWorld is still trying

to come back from all of the negative publicity.

A captive whales life is like torture. These creatures are used to being free and

swimming, not contained to a small bathtub. All I can keep thinking about is what if I was in

this situation. I hope people will stop being so cruel, and start thinking about things other than

themselves and money. There are definitely two sides to this story, but it comes down to who you

are as a person. If you are pro-captivity, sit back, close your eyes and think about this

situation. are you being selfish? This whole situation is around money and greed. I hope that

during my life, there will not be any whales in captivity. Open the tanks.
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Works Cited

"Blackfish." Blackfish. Gabriela Cowperthwaite, 2015. Web. 27 Feb. 2017.\

http://www.blackfishmovie.com/film/#about

"'Blackfish': The Documentary That Exposes SeaWorld - SeaWorld of Hurt." SeaWorld of Hurt.

PETA, 2015. Web. 27 Feb. 2017. <http://www.seaworldofhurt.com/features/blackfish-

documentary-exposes-seaworld/>.

Entertainment, SeaWorld Parks &. "Last Generation." Last Generation. SeaWorld, 2016. Web.

04 Mar. 2017. https://seaworld.com/

Entertainment, SeaWorld Parks &. "Truth About Blackfish." Truth About Blackfish. SeaWorld,

n.d. Web. 04 Mar. 2017. https://seaworldcares.com/the-facts/truth-about-blackfish/

Gruen, Lori. The Ethics of Captivity. OhioLINK electronic book center; Oxford scholarship

online, New York, NY : Oxford University Press, [2014], 2014. EBSCOhost

The Editors of Encyclopdia Britannica. "Whale | Mammal." Encyclopedia Britannica Online.

Encyclopedia Britannica, 3 Mar. 2015. Web. 6 Dec. 2015.

<http://www.britannica.com/animal/whale>.
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"The Fate of Captive Orcas." WDC, Whale and Dolphin Conservation. WDC, n.d. Web. 08 Dec.

2017. <http://us.whales.org/wdc-in-action/fate-of-captive-orcas>.