faithandfury:
pugking:
freedomforwhales:
You give this corporation your money, you’re the one paying for the abuse to continue.
pay attention
Cunts
Unfortunately this has no evidence, so I went ahead and found the adequate research to back up the original post. After all, we can’t expect people to believe Tumblr posts that are just text placed on generic photographs, right? Here’s the data I dug up on SeaWorld for each:
1)Yes, the first Shamu was captured while her mother was harpooned. However, what this post fails to tell us is that this happened in 1966. That’s 50 years ago. Orca hunters were prominent in SeaWorld in the 60s and 70s. BUT this has not happened for at least 30 years, if not more. The original hunter, Ted Griffith, was banned from hunting. The current owners and employees of SeaWorld have no relationship to this act. A wild orca has not been captured by SeaWorld since 1983. Using this argument to shut down modern-day SeaWorld is completely invalid. They do not harpoon orcas. They do not snatched orcas from the wild to imprison in their park.
2) Bella the beluga whale died of an illness, not malnutrition or mistreatment. That does happen to animals, in captivity and in the wild. At least in SeaWorld there is veterinary care available. I do not have enough sources to determine what brought on the illness.
3) There was a fight between Kandu V and another orca during a show. This is because the two orcas were members of different pods in the wild, and were working out dominance. Orcas with these social differences should not be placed in the same pool. But this also happened in 1989. This mistake is extremely regrettable and should never happen again, but SeaWorld has not done this since.
4) Kotar died of blood loss when his head was crushed in the gate. He had a fascination with the gate and played with it frequently. During one of his play sessions, it closed and he quickly bled to death. This happened in 1995, 20 years ago.
5) Jozu’s isolation was because she was the last of the false killer whales in the park. She was kept with other species, not locked up in a tank by herself as one might believe from this post. How would one solve this “isolation”? Capture more wild false killer whales for her to have as friends? Of course not, that should not happen. Could they release her into the wild? No, that would essentially murder her, as she was born in captivity and did not have the skills to survive in the wild. She was chronically ill all her life, and the medical care at SeaWorld did its best, but she died at 17 in 2011. Yes, her death is recent and regrettable. Beyond that I have no information.
6) Inbreeding is a real problem at Seaworld. This is true. The reason that inbreeding has happened is because in the wild, orcas travel away from their groups to mate. In captivity, this is not an option. Nalani herself has shown no unusual physical or psychological developments, but this does not make it okay. So SeaWorld has developed a method to avoid this situation. In an effort to increase genetic diversity, they have developed a safe method of artificial insemination that not only allows a great increase of genetic diversity between parks, but does not require killer whales to be physically transported in order to mate.
7) Katina’s first calf, Kalina, was the first orca successfully born in captivity. Katina’s calf Nalani was taken away because the inbreeding made the mother reject her calf. SeaWorld separated the two because Katina was not caring for Nalani. Another calf was taken from her because of a bacterial infection that could have harmed the others. Other “calves” have been “taken”, but what the reports fail to mention is that the “calf” is full grown with a child of its own, and the “mother” was threatening the younger calf. Keep in mind that reasons like these are acceptable for separating mothers and calves.
8) I’m really sorry but I can’t find any information regarding this topic. There is nothing I can find that says that this event actually occurred, or did not occur.
What this post fails to mention:
- SeaWorld San Diego is going to rebuild its killer whale pool and will more than double its size. The new project, Blue World, will be finished in 2018.
- Most of the animals that live in SeaWorld live at least as long as their counterparts in the wild. Sea lions in the park live twice the length of those in the wild. Wild killer whales have an estimated lifespan of 46-50 years for females and 30-38 for males (once you factor out the high infant mortality rates). These are comparable averages for parks. SeaWorld San Diego has five 30+ whales and one 50 year old female.
- SeaWorld has to reapply for certification from multiple third-party organizations, such as the AZA, every 1-5 years. This means that they are held to the highest standards and will not pass if any mistreatment or harmful living situations are found. They are currently certified by these organizations.
- SeaWorld takes part in animal rescues of all sorts. And I don’t mean that they capture injured animals and hoard them for themselves. I mean that they rehabilitate them and release them back into the wild. In 2015 alone, about 500 animals have been successfully rescued.
- SeaWorld also works with numerous charities such as the Make-A-Wish Foundation and Shop With a Cop, and many more, as well as fund other research and conservation projects. So if you close SeaWorld, you lose all of that.
- Blackfish is an emotionally charged piece of propaganda that masquerades as a documentary. It skews evidence and twists interviews to put SeaWorld in bad light. The interviews were given on the condition that the “documentary” be fair and cover both sides, and we know this is not the case. The “facts” told by the film are out of context or completely incorrect, not unlike this post.
TL;DR SeaWorld is not evil. Nothing in this post is applicable to shutting modern day SeaWorld down. SeaWorld is a beneficial and crucial part of today’s conservation efforts and does not mistreat animals.
