Florida. – Division of Tourism. Animal trainer riding an orca at the Sea World attraction in Orlando, Florida. 1973 (circa). State Archives of Florida, Florida Memory. <https://www.floridamemory.com/items/show/93877>, accessed 6 May 2021.
“SeaWorld didn’t become a $2.5 billion company because of sequins and choreography. It was built on the backs of captive killer whales.” -John Hargrove1
SeaWorld Then
The first SeaWorld opened in 1964 in San Diego. SeaWorld Ohio followed in 1970 but closed in 2000. The Orlando park opened in 1973, and the San Antonio location in 1988. SeaWorld also has numerous affiliations with other parks, including Loro Parque in Tenerife, Canary Islands.
“SeaWorld was strictly created as entertainment. We didn’t try to wear this false facade of educational significance.” -George Millay, the founder of SeaWorld, 1989
Florida. – Division of Tourism. Orca performing at the Sea World attraction in Orlando, Florida. 1973 (circa). State Archives of Florida, Florida Memory. <https://www.floridamemory.com/items/show/93815>, accessed 6 May 2021.
Shamu family name
Namu was the first performing orca at the Seattle Marine Aquarium. SeaWorld purchased an orca from the owner, Ted Griffin, and also purchased the rights to the name “Shamu,” a combination of “she” and “Namu.” Shamu became the first SeaWorld orca. SeaWorld used the names Shamu and Baby Shamu for marketing purposes and even took out copyrights and trademarks on those names. For decades, people thought that the orcas were the same few that SeaWorld began with in the late 1960s. This left the impression that “Shamu never dies,” as Erich Hoyt wrote.2 Other marine parks have used similar marketing techniques.
But the original Shamu had experienced the harpooning and death of her mother during their captures. Shamu bit three people during her captivity, sending at least one person to the hospital. The orca died four months after that incident in 1971 of septicemia at age nine.3 SeaWorld veterinarians had put her on progesterone to increase her fertility so that they could breed her. But instead, she contracted pyometra, a condition that causes serious infections in the uterus. “In the wild, her grandmother lived to be a hundred.”4 Despite her sad story, Shamu became the brand.
My parents visited SeaWorld Orlando between 1973 and 1976 and saw ‘Shamu’ perform, but it was actually Ramu. They took these photos:
Circumventing capture laws
In the 1970s, after the implementation of import laws and bans on whale and orca captures, marine parks began ‘transferring’ orcas from park to park to circumvent those laws. SeaWorld imported orcas on ‘breeding loans’ where no payment was involved, and they didn’t necessarily return the orcas. “According to researcher Ron Kastelein at Dolfinarium Harderwijk, ‘breeding loan’ is simply industry jargon which means that the first calf becomes the property of the acquiring institution and the second calf goes to the institution that provided the breeding-age male or female. Technically, the breeding animal remains the property of the first company.”5
Other times, marine parks relocated orcas multiple times until their origin was no longer able to be determined because documentation was ‘incomplete.’ Or, SeaWorld paid marine parks in other countries to acquire orcas, and then ‘transfer’ them a few months or even years later. This is often referred to as ‘warehousing’ and has been going since the late 1970s. “While orca care in captivity has improved measurably in the recent past, the industry still regularly engages in appalling practices like ‘whale laundering’ or warehousing orcas captured overseas (orcas are not legally available in U.S. waters) at a windowless backroom tank in another nation until sufficient times passes for it to be imported to a U.S. facility as a transfer, all so the American company doesn’t have to obtain a U.S. capture permit.”6
View showing an Orca whale leaping out of the water during a show at the Sea World attraction in Orlando, Florida. 1976. State Archives of Florida, Florida Memory. <https://www.floridamemory.com/items/show/93860>, accessed 6 May 2021.
Captive Breeding vs. Conservation
The captive breeding programs at SeaWorld and other marine amusement parks were a direct result of bans on captures and the implementation of import laws. The parks had to find other ways to restock their orcas. However, this was the only purpose for captive breeding. “SeaWorld’s definition of ‘captive breeding,’ at least for orcas and bottlenose dolphins, is not the same as that used by the IUCN and other world conservation bodies – because the corporation apparently has no intention of re-introducing species to the wild,” wrote whale researcher, Erich Hoyt.7
In 2015 Joel Manby, the President and Chief Executive Officer of Sea World, said in a statement: “Depriving these social animals of the natural and fundamental right to reproduce is inhumane and we do not support this condition.”8But this was not simply by allowing orcas to mate. SeaWorld trainers artificially inseminate female orcas with the sperm from males also in captivity. SeaWorld’s breeding practices have been called inhumane and questionable by scientists and animal rights groups for decades.
In 2013, it was revealed that Tilikum was the father or grandfather of more than half of SeaWorld’s captive-born orcas. “Tilikum’s value to SeaWorld extends well beyond the raw market; he is, in fact, the cornerstone of the company’s captive-breeding program,” as David Neiwert wrote in 2015.9 Tilikum passed away in 2017 but it is believed that SeaWorld retained multiple samples of his frozen sperm to continue the practice.
“Rather than for conservation, captive cetaceans are bred merely to provide replacement animals for public display—an ongoing need given the high rate of mortality in captivity.”10
Orcas in captivity have a high infant mortality rate. Since 1980, three orcas died within 3 months of birth, and there have been 14 stillbirths and miscarriages. Those are just the documented ones. One sad example is Corky II at SeaWorld San Diego. She “had at least seven unsuccessful pregnancies before she achieved menopause and stopped cycling.”11
Kasatka and Makani. Photo by lolilujah on Flickr, Creative Commons license (CC BY-NC-SA 2.0). Makani’s mother, Kasatka, was an Icelandic orca, her father was the captive Argentinian orca Kshamenk from Mundo Marino. This is a prime example of the interbreeding of orca ecospecies through artificial insemination at SeaWorld and other marine amusement parks.
Mother-Calf Separations
As I wrote about in Part 2 of my orca series, many wild orca offspring stay with their mother and her familial pod for life. Grandmothers and mothers pass on knowledge about everything, including pregnancy, birthing, and raising their own. These skills are lost in captivity because Seaworld separates mothers and calves at a very young age and the young orcas don’t have a chance to learn. They also impregnate the animals at a much younger age than orcas would breed in the wild. These factors lead to high levels of infant mortality.12
“Captive breeding – often cited as a key reason for keeping animals in captivity – is an important part of conservation for some species and there have been notable successes at some zoos…But just keeping an animal in captivity is hardly conservation. In the artificial conditions of a zoo or marine park, an animal cannot continue its evolutionary path. The true measure of success is returning the animal to the wild.”13
“Education”
Many have already documented the lack of education in SeaWorld’s programming and educational materials. SeaWorld trained employees with inaccurate information about lifespan, diet, and environment that they relayed to the public. The company coached employees to circumvent tough questions from inquisitive visitors. They trained them to use semantics to defuse arguments against captivity. For example, orcas exhibit ‘behaviors’ instead of ‘tricks’. “SeaWorld orcas do not live in ‘cages’ or ‘tanks’ in ‘captivity’ and were never ‘captured’ from the ‘wild’; instead, they live in an ‘enclosure’ in a ‘controlled environment’, having been ‘acquired’ from the ‘natural environment.'”14 Recordings of SeaWorld trainers spouting inaccurate information are featured in almost all films about orca captivity.
Dawn Brancheau, October 9, 2006, photo by Ed Schipul on Flickr, Creative Commons license (CC BY 2.0)
Incidents
There were many incidents over the decades at SeaWorld. In 2006, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), whose role is to protect employees, investigated SeaWorld after an incident involving a trainer named Ken Peters. He was taken more than 30 feet down by an orca, suffering injuries and almost drowning. OSHA concluded in 2006 that “‘swimming with captive orcas is inherently dangerous and if someone hasn’t been killed already it is only a matter of time before it does happen.’ This of course turned out to be prophetic, as two trainers were killed by orcas within four years of the state agency issuing this statement.”15
But that incident did not come out publicly until after Dawn Brancheau’s death in 2010, during another OSHA investigation. The footage of the Ken Peters incident was shown at trial in full and leaked to the press (and you can find it online today).
Death
Since the advent of using captive orca for performance, there have been countless trainer injuries and several deaths. In December 2009, an orca named Keto killed Alexis Martínez at Loro Parque. Just a few months later, in February 2010, Tilikum killed Dawn Brancheau. Even more shocking, she was the third person known to have been killed by Tilikum during his captive history. SeaWorld blamed Brancheau for her own death, not once, or even twice – but multiple times. They have since gone back on those statements. But blaming the victim is reprehensible.
After Brancheau’s death, OSHA again investigated and “cited SeaWorld for subjecting employees to a workplace that contained “recognized hazards that were causing or likely to cause death or physical harm to employees” and they were fined the maximum. The long-term result of their unfortunate deaths was that OSHA banned “waterwork,” meaning that trainers can no longer perform in the water or swim with the whales. This was a massive change in the attraction’s main stage. You can learn more about the incident and the OSHA cases in the resources I’ve listed below.
As for the orcas, about 40 have died in SeaWorld parks alone. They could have prevented many of these.
The Blackfish Effect
Businesses like Southwest Airlines and top musicians severed ties to SeaWorld after Blackfish and David Kirby’s book both came out in 2013. Former senior trainer John Hargrove published his book shortly thereafter. The exposure created controversy over the issue of marine mammal captivity that has lasted almost a decade and is sometimes referred to as The Blackfish Effect. SeaWorld’s annual attendance decreased and their shares fell, and it seems that they have never fully recovered.
SeaWorld San Diego, photo by Andrew Van Pernis on Flickr, Creative Commons license (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)
SeaWorld Now
In 1992, Erich Hoyt wrote: “SeaWorld has borrowed liberally from the wild to fashion its corporate image and to make its millions. Will it one day return something important by restoring an endangered cetacean to its natural habitat?”16 Almost 30 years later, we are still asking the same question. So what is SeaWorld doing today?
While SeaWorld initially resisted the changing views of the public, they have begun embracing those new perspectives. Next, I’ll explain SeaWorld’s changes over the last decade and explore what they are doing today. Thank you for reading, please share and subscribe!
Additional Resources:
Book, Death at SeaWorld: Shamu and the Dark Side of Killer Whales in Captivity by David Kirby, St. Martin’s Press, New York, NY, 2012.
Book, “Beneath the Surface: Killer Whales, SeaWorld, and the Truth Beyond Blackfish,” by John Hargrove, St. Martin’s Press, 2015.
Film, Blackfish, directed by Gabriela Cowperthwaite, 2013.
Report, Rose, N.A. and Parsons, E.C.M. (2019). The Case Against Marine Mammals in Captivity, 5th edition (Washington, DC: Animal Welfare Institute and World Animal Protection), 160 pp.
Book, Of Orcas and Men: What Killer Whales Can Teach Us, by David Neiwert, The Overlook Press, New York, 2015.
Article, “Fate of Orcas in Captivity,” Whale and Dolphin Conservation, accessed May 18, 2021.
Article, “Kavanaugh Sided with Seaworld in ‘Blackfish’ Case,” by Wes Siler, Outside Online, September 27, 2018. Brett Kavanaugh dissented in the OSHA case against SeaWorld.
Page, “Ramu’s Gallery,” Inherently Wild, accessed May 12, 2021.
Article, “Former Orca Trainer For SeaWorld Condemns Its Practices,” NPR, March 23, 2015.
Article, “Blood in the Water,” by Tim Zimmermann, Outside Online, July 15, 2011.
Hugo and Lolita at the Miami Seaquarium in the early 1970s. Photo by my mother
In my last article, I explained a few of the issues with keeping orcas in captivity. Today I want to share the sad stories of two orcas held for decades at the Miami Seaquarium.
“It’s inherently hypocritical to keep a large-brained, gregarious, sonic animal in a concrete box. It needs to end.“-Ric O’Barry1
Postcard, Hugo, the Killer Whale, performing at Miami Seaquarium, circa 1968. From Florida Memory of the State Library and Archives of Florida, public domain.[efn_note]Postcard, Florida Memory, State Library and Archives of Florida, accessed January 29, 2021.[/efn_note]
Hugo, Miami Seaquarium
In 1968, whale herders captured Hugo at approximately age 3 near Puget Sound, Washington. The Miami Seaquarium purchased him but did not have an orca tank. He lived in an even smaller tank, the present-day manatee tank, for the first 2 years.
Small Tank
Ric O’Barry, founder of the Dolphin Project, worked at the Miami Seaquairum when they purchased Hugo. O’Barry objected to the tank’s tiny size. “When [Seaquarium manager Burton Clark] showed me Hugo, I shook my head in disbelief…’He’s longer than the tank is deep,'” he said. Hugo was thirteen feet long and the tank was only 12 feet deep. “He’s just a baby. He’ll grow twice this big. Leave him in here, Mr. Clark, and you’ll have the Humane Society down on your ears.” Clark said they were building a new tank and showed O’Barry the site. “I looked at it in dismay. ‘This is it?'”2 The current tank was completed in 1970. It is the one the park still uses today and is the smallest orca tank in use in the world.
Clark asked O’Barry to take care of Hugo and ‘keep him happy’ while the new tank was under construction. So O’Barry became Hugo’s caretaker, and though he was warned that killer whales were dangerous, O’Barry found that Hugo was a sensitive, intelligent creature and wasn’t scared of him. “‘Hugo!’ I said with a grin. ‘You’re nothing but a big, wonderful dolphin!” Hugo and O’Barry came to trust each other. “He allowed me to ride on his great back and, to amuse the tourists, I rode around on his back playing flute and guitar. Hugo loved music.”3
But O’Barry, wanting to protect Hugo and learn about orcas, struggled with the situation. “Hugo was eating 100 pounds of fish a day, and the bigger he got, the smaller his little whale bowl seemed. Nobody was more conscious of this than I, but every tourist who came through, thousands of them every day, pointed it out to me as if it were a great discovery.” The new tank construction had constant delays and slow progress. Even once completed, you can see how small it is since they haven’t expanded it. He was questioned by tourists about Hugo’s situation, and O’Barry in turn questioned his supervisors about it. But they were dismissive and nothing changed. “I left, this time for good,” O’Barry wrote about leaving the Miami Seaquarium.
“The [Miami] Seaquarium had sought to capitalize on Hugo by splashing an artist’s conception of him on billboards along the highway leading south: Hugo the killer whale thrashing through the frothy water, with an angry countenance and huge, bloody teeth.” – Ric O’Barry4
Hugo Suffered in Captivity
Hugo repeatedly injured himself while in captivity. At one point he severed the tip of his rostrum and a veterinarian had to sew it back on. According to a newspaper article at the time of the incident, “His powerful drive shattered the acrylic plastic bubble, and knocked a five-inch hole in it. And a piece of jagged plastic severed Hugo’s nose.”5 The same article speculated that an incident like this might happen again. And it did. Hugo rammed his head into the tank multiple times throughout his twelve years in captivity.
In 1980, Hugo died from a cerebral aneurysm, likely from the trauma he suffered from his self-mutilating behavior.6 Many refer to Hugo’s death as a suicide. The Miami Seaquarium lifted his body from the tank and put it in the Miami-Dade landfill.7 They did not memorialize his life or death in any way, “it was as if he had never existed.”8 Even today, this is the only mention of him on their website: “Miami Seaquarium welcomes the arrival of Hugo, it’s First Killer Whale to the park. The whale is named after Hugo Vihlen, the man who sailed across the Atlantic Ocean in a six-foot sailboat.”9
Hugo and Lolita at the Miami Seaquarium around April of 1977. Photo found and digitized by Thomas Hawk on Flickr, Creative Commons license (CC BY-NC 2.0)
Lolita, Miami Seaquarium
While Hugo’s story is sad, Lolita’s story is even more sorrowful. She is a 7,000-pound orca and is 22 feet long but lives in the smallest and shallowest tank of any orca in North America. The tank is 80 feet long, 35 feet wide, and 20 feet deep. She can’t dive because she is as long as the tank is deep. For comparison, an Olympic-sized swimming pool is 164 feet in length and 82 feet wide. The tank violates the law, as the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS), operating under the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), requires a minimum of 48 feet wide in either direction with a straight line of travel across the middle. But they do not have the authority to require an expansion. Worse, the local jurisdiction opposes the expansion of the Seaquarium on the small island. Drone footage shows just how small the pool she lives in is compared to her body:
“The orca Lolita’s tank at the Miami Seaquarium may be the smallest for thisspecies in the world—she is longer than half the width of the main tank.”10
But the size of her tank isn’t even the worst part.
Lolita lives alone.
Recall that orcas are highly social animals that usually live together for life in multigenerational family groups. Since Hugo’s death in 1980, she’s lived alone. Sometimes two or three Pacific white-sided dolphins live with her, but reports show that they rake and harass her.11 Can you imagine living alone except for two other species that only sometimes interacted with you?
After Hugo’s death, the Miami Seaquarium required Lolita to continue performing without her companion. In fact, they had her doing her regular performances the very next day. Her former trainer told a reporter at the time: “We expected problems when Hugo died, but Lolita performed as usual the next day…Once in a while she would look for him, but she got over it.”12 We now know that orcas grieve as humans do, so it is difficult to understand this today.
Lolita has always struggled in captivity. A former Seaquarium employee recalled Lolita’s early days at the Miami Seaquarium: “The skin on her back cracked and bled from the sun and wind exposure,” she said.“She wouldn’t eat the diet of frozen herring. … At night, she cried.”13 Today, she often floats very still and appears despondent. She cannot get enough physical activity, hasn’t seen another orca in over 40 years, and likely suffers emotionally.
“Even the Seaquariums’ public-relations director admits that the show won’t tell kids where Lolita comes from, what life for orcas is like in the wild, what threats face her native L pod…But then, these are the kinds of facts that prompt children to ask uncomfortable questions like, ‘Why isn’t Lolita with her family, Mommy?'”14
Lolita at the Miami Seaquarium, image by Marita Rickman from Pixabay
Capture & Relation to Hugo
In August 1970, four-year-old Lolita (originally named Tokitae) was one of six juvenile orcas captured from the waters off Washington state. “By 1987, Lolita was the only survivor out of an estimated fifty-eight killer whales taken captive from Puget Sound or killed during captures.”15The captures were often violent and whale herders used speedboats, an airplane, and explosives in the water to herd the orcas into a small area. “The juvenile orcas were separated from their mothers, as the infants were prime candidates to be sold to aquariums, while the adult orcas were released and free to leave. However, the adult pod would not leave their offspring and refused to swim free, vocalizing human-like cries, until the last baby was pulled out of the water, never to return again.”16 Another account described it this way: “During those weeks between capture and transport, the adult orcas never left the abduction site, and the sound of their grief-filled keening rang through the cove.”17 One adult and four young orcas were killed during Lolita’s capture.
Though caught in separate years, it turns out that Hugo and Lolita were related. “Unbeknownst to the staff and owner of Miami Seaquarium, Hugo and Lolita both were captured from the Southern Resident Killer Whale population, and shared similar dialects with one another, allowing them to communicate.”18 So while this was an accidental good pairing for companionship, Hugo and Lolita only had each other and mated. Lolita was pregnant several times but did not birth any live babies. She may have miscarried due to inbreeding. This does not seem to happen in wild orca populations.
“For the Seaquarium, Lolita represents a star money-making attraction, a possession so prized that officials maintain their grip on her despite years of protests by activists and animal experts who cite evidence that her living situation is legally and ethically unacceptable.” -The Whale Sanctuary Project19
Trainer “surfing” an orca, either Hugo or Lolita, at the Miami Seaquarium in the early 1970s. Photo by my mother
Time for Lolita’s Retirement
There are many organizations working on Lolita’s behalf to free her, including the Orca Network, the Center for Whale Research, Ric O’Barry’s Dolphin Project, the Empty The Tanks organization, the Salish Sea Marine Sanctuary organization, and The Whale Sanctuary Project. Ken Balcomb, marine biologist and founder of the Center for Whale Research, even offered to purchase her outright from the Miami Seaquarium in 1992. He had a plan to retire her to a sea pen in San Juan Island, Washington.20 But they refused to even discuss the sale of Lolita with Ken Balcomb’s group.
These movements began in the 1990s and have escalated since Southern Resident orcas were placed on the Endangered Species List in 2005. These organizations have had multiple campaigns, detailed retirement plans, lawsuits, and appeals filed on Lolita’s behalf. The best thing for this orca is to allow her to retire to an ocean sanctuary.
Florida. – Division of Tourism. View showing an animal trainer performing with an Orca whale at the Miami Seaquarium attraction. 20th century. State Archives of Florida, Florida Memory. <https://www.floridamemory.com/items/show/93509>, accessed 6 May 2021.
But the Miami Seaquarium has no such plans. In 2019, their general manager, Eric Eimstad, wrote to The Seattle Times: “There is no room for debate on what is best for Lolita … For almost 5 decades we have provided and cared for Lolita, and we will not allow her life to be treated as an experiment. We will not jeopardize her health by considering any move from her home here in Miami.”21 The argument against her retirement is that she will not survive in the wild.
However, biologists would not drop Lolita in the ocean and leave her to fend for herself. They would move her to a sanctuary where she could learn to swim great lengths and depths again, catch food, and socialize. They would monitor her and provide veterinary care. The hope would be that she could go back to the open ocean someday. Her pod, known as the L pod, is still active and in fact, orca biologists have even figured out who her motherly most likely is – L25 – and she’s still alive! Named Ocean Sun, she’s approximately age 90 now, and L25’s pod still lives in the same area of Lolita’s capture. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if we could reunite them someday?
#50YearsOfStolenFreedom #Retire Lolita
“When I heard the Lolita story, I imagined how amazing it’d be to bring her back to her mother decades after her capture…This singlular, feasible event could catapult us into such a dignified direction. We owe this species big time. And we could start with her.” -Gabriela Cowperthwaite, Blackfish director22
Hurricane Irma
During Hurricane Irma in 2017, when the storm was on track for Miami, the Seaquarium did not evacuate her – they left her there! That storm turned and went to Tampa instead, but she would have likely died if Irma had hit Miami directly. As Dr. Jeffrey Ventre, a former SeaWorld trainer, noted, “In the context of the original storm forecast, which predicted a CAT 4 or 5 direct strike on Miami, the Seaquarium’s decision to roll the dice with her life is certainly callous, immoral, and unjust.”23
The City of Miami declared that anyone who abandoned their pets during the storm could be charged with animal cruelty. But this did not include the Miami Seaquarium, and Lolita could have been injured or killed. “The threats to exposed captive killer whales include missile injuries, blunt force trauma, stress, and foreign objects in the pool, which can be swallowed. In nature the whales can ride out storms, spending their time predominantly below the surface and at greater depths,” said Dr. Jeffrey Ventre. Another former SeaWorld trainer and advocate of orcas, Samantha Berg, pointed out that Lolita’s “tank is not deep enough for her to submerge and find refuge from flying debris.”24 Further, debris can be toxic to the orca. And if caretakers evacuate, Lolita doesn’t have anyone to feed her.
According to the Case Against Marine Mammal Captivity, facilities frequently do not evacuate animals in advance of storms.25 In fact, in 1992, Hurricane Andrew flooded the Miami Seaquarium and six of their sea lions were electrocuted.26 So is this a larger problem that we should not ignore? It is not unreasonable to believe that any zoo, aquarium, or park that is responsible for other beings should protect them at all costs.
“If [the Seaquarium] has no plan or protocol during a storm other than leaving her behind, then Lolita shouldn’t live there,” O’Barry says. “It’s a death sentence.” -Ric O’Barry27
Why is Lolita still living in captivity?
Many people consider Lolita to be the prime candidate for removal from captivity. After Hurricane Irma, the Miami Beach City Commission “voted unanimously on a resolution urging the Seaquarium to release her. The proposal is only symbolic because the Seaquarium is located on Virginia Key, not under the jurisdiction of Miami Beach. But Miami Beach officials are asking the park to retire Lolita into the care of the Orca Network, a nonprofit based in Freeland, Washington, which has had plans for how to retire the creature since 1995.” The Seaquarium argued against the vote and insisted Lolita was safer at the marine park than she would have been in a sea enclosure.28
Lolita at the Miami Seaquarium, image by FrodeCJ from Pixabay
“It is Lolita, more than any other captive orca, who offers the potential to answer the big question that hovered around the Blackfish debate: Why not return wild-born orcas to their native waters and pods?” -David Neiwert29
As mentioned above, there are many organizations advocating for Lolita’s release. Several organizations propose moving her to a sea pen with human care since she likely cannot live without human care at this point. There’s also the Whale Sanctuary Project which is currently building an ocean sanctuary for former captive whales. I’ve listed links to all of these below if you want to learn more or support these projects. Please see my Update on Lolita/Tokitae article.
The best thing you can do, though, is to not visit marine theme parks that hold captive whales or other marine mammals that require the animals to perform for entertainment. I’ve only shared two stories about captive orcas in this post, and I’ll share a few others in my next post. Thank you for reading, and please subscribe!
Additional Resources:
Film, Lolita: Slave to Entertainment
Website, Lolita, The Orca Network, accessed February 4, 2021.
Website, The Whale Sanctuary Project, accessed February 4, 2021.
Film, A Day in the Life of Lolita, the Performing Orca:
Website, Action for Lolita, Ric O’Barry’s Dolphin Project, accessed February 4, 2021.
Book, “Of Orcas and Men: What Killer Whales Can Teach Us,” by David Neiwert, The Overlook Press, New York, 2015.
Article, “Photo Illustrates the Lesson We Should Have Learned About Orca Captivity in the 1980s,” One Green Planet, accessed February 4, 2021.
Website, Action for Lolita, Empty The Tanks, accessed February 4, 2021.
Article, “What Happens to Them Happens to Us,” Hakai Magazine, May 12, 2020.
Website, Save Lolita Organization, accessed February 4, 2021.
Film, “Window of the Living Sea,” Florida Memory State Library and Archives of Florida, 1970. Original film from the Miami Seaquarium, features Hugo and Lolita together in brief sections.
“Orkid” at SeaWorld San Diego, image by Bryce Bradford on Flickr, Creative Commons license (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)
In my last article, I explained how mother and calf separations are one of the greatest examples of why captivity is wrong for orcas. Today I want to look at their captive environments.
When visiting aquariums or zoos, we passively observe their habitats. For example, the sharks and sea turtles at the Tennessee Aquarium live in a tank that appears to mimic a natural environment: saltwater, a variety of other species and lifeforms, plants, coral, rocks, etc. At the Georgia Aquarium, shown below, whale sharks (which are sharks, not whales) live in a similar environment. At zoos, animals typically reside in an area that at least attempts to recreate the habitat native to the animal. Even if they’re too small, these exhibits include other animals, grass, trees, plant life, rocks, and water.
Whale shark at the Georgia Aquarium, photo by Pengxiao Xu on Unsplash
Unnatural environments
The environments of captive orcas at marine theme parks don’t even try to replicate what orcas experience in the wild. None of the interesting things found in a vast ocean exist in the tanks, as they are barren with concrete walls. There is no plant life and there are no other species. The tanks are too small and the water isn’t even saltwater. There is nothing for them to echolocate on, and nothing for them to examine up close except for the humans that walk by the underwater viewing windows.
“Killer Whale (Orcinus orca)” SeaWorld Orlando. Image by V.L. on Flickr, public domain (CC0 1.0)
“The tanks speak for themselves.” -Dr. Naomi A. Rose1
Captive environments alter the regular behaviors of many marine mammals. In the wild, they travel large distances in search of food. But in captivity, the animals eat and live in constricted spaces, so they lose natural feeding and foraging patterns. Worse, “stress-related conditions such as ulcers, stereotypical behaviors such as pacing and self-mutilation, and abnormal aggression within groups frequently develop in predators denied the opportunity to hunt.” Other natural behaviors altered in captivity include pod dominance, mating, and maternal care, which have negative impacts on the animals. “In most cases, these behaviors are strictly controlled by the needs of the facility and the availability of space. The needs of the animals are considered secondary.”2
Inadequate Size
Simply looking at an orca tank, one can see that it’s far too small and shallow for such a large animal. They are unable to get enough daily physical activity. In the wild, orcas swim up to 100 miles per day, but they cannot swim anything close to that in the pools. Orcas typically dive hundreds of feet deep and the deepest pools at SeaWorld and other marine parks are about 40 feet. “Even in the largest facilities, a cetacean’s room to move is decreased enormously, allowing the animal access to less than one ten-thousandth of 1 percent of its normal habitat size,” wrote Dr. Naomi A. Rose.3
In 1992, noted whale and dolphin researcher Erich Hoyt wrote about the small sizes of their tanks. “It is ironic when some of these establishments are surrounded by acres and acres of space in theme parks which include large areas devoted to boating, joy rides, and so forth.” Hoyt acknowledges that no pool can approach the size of space orcas use in the wild, the ocean. This is why so many marine biologists question keeping orcas in any size pool.4 The size of the tanks also impairs their ability to use echolocation.
Further, in the wild, orca pods have miles of space between them and other pods to avoid conflict. In captivity, there’s nowhere for the whales to go if they don’t fit in with their assigned pods (unlikely to be family members). “The stress of social disruption is compounded by the fact that orcas in captivity don’t have the ability to escape conflict with other orcas, or to engage in natural swimming behaviors in pools,” National Geographic noted.5
“The pools of SeaWorld are gigantic – if you are a human being.” -John Hargrove
“Lunch with Orca, SeaWorld San Diego.” Image by Thank You (20 millions+) views on Flickr. Creative Commons license (CC BY 2.0)
“No facility can simulate the vast reaches of the ocean that these animals traverse when they migrate, or can include in the enclosure oceanic flora and fauna. In short, in physical terms, the captive environment of these animals is profoundly limited and impoverished.”6
Climate and Sun Exposure
Most wild killer whales reside in much cooler climates than those of many of the marine parks. The three SeaWorld parks in Florida, Texas, and California, the Miami Seaquarium, Loro Parque, and Marineland of Antibes in southern France are all in hot, sunny places. Only SeaWorld San Antonio and Loro Parque feature a partially covered and shaded orca area, as you’ll see in the images below:
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Captive orcas spend hours resting at the surface of the water and spend a good deal of time jumping out of the water and up onto platforms. In nature, diving helps orca get out of the sun, and the depths of the water shade their skin from UV rays. Trainers use black zinc oxide on their skin, both to protect their skin and to cover up sunburns from public view. Jeffrey Ventre, a former orca trainer at SeaWorld’s Orlando park, told The Dodo that “zinc oxide is a way to paint over burns — like a mechanical coat — usually on [the] dorsal surface of the animal. It’s also for aesthetic reasons, to hide blistering peeling skin.”7 SeaWorld denies the latter part, but even if this were not true, these whales are exposed to far more sunlight at marine parks than in the wild.
“In any design of a dolphinarium or aquarium, satisfying the needs of the visiting public and the facility’s budget comes before meeting the needs of the animals. If every measure were taken to create comfortable, safe, and appropriate conditions, then the size, depth, shape, surroundings, props, colors, and textures of concrete enclosures would be different from those seen now.”8
Water Quality
The chlorinated water is nothing like the composition of the sea. Live plants and fish species cannot live in chlorinated water, one reason the tanks are devoid of other life. Chlorine can also cause skin, eye, and respiratory complications for marine mammals. According to former senior trainer John Hargrove, SeaWorld treats the water with two other caustic substances, both of which can cause skin, tissue, and eye irritations. One is ozone, which controls bacteria that can contaminate the pools. The other is aluminum sulfate, which is very acidic and helps keep the water visibly clear.
Despite the chemical treatments of the water, a common cause of illness and death in marine mammals are bacterial and viral infections. According to the Case Against Marine Mammal Captivity, “US federal regulations do not require monitoring of water quality for any potential bacterial or viral pathogens (or other possible sources of disease), other than general “coliforms” (rod-shaped bacteria such as E. coli normally present in the digestive system of most mammals).”9 Therefore, we just have to hope that marine parks regularly check the water quality.
“Humans cannot replicate the ocean…It is a paradoxical empire: the chemically processed water in the pools is purer than that of the ocean, but it is not anywhere near what is natural for the whales; the orcas cavort for the crowds but they do not get enough physical exercise because there is not enough room to allow them to swim normally.” -John Hargrove10
SeaWorld Orlando, image by Eduardo Neri Du from Pixabay
Auditory problems
Hearing is essential to orcas, as their primary sensory system is auditory. It is a highly-developed system that includes its ability to echolocate. Unfortunately, they cannot use echolocation the same way they do in the ocean. The sounds bounce off of the walls of the barren pools reflecting nothing.
Additionally, there is often a lot of noise at marine amusement parks from fireworks displays, musical events, and roller coasters. These unnatural loud sounds disturb marine mammals daily, if not several times per day.11
“The acoustic properties of concrete tanks are problematic for species that rely predominantly on sound and hearing to perceive and navigate through their underwater surroundings. Persistent noise from water pumps and filtration machinery, if not dampened sufficiently, and any activity nearby that transmits vibrations through a tank’s walls, such as construction or traffic, can increase stress and harm the welfare of these acoustically sensitive species.”12
Illnesses from Mosquitos
Two captive orcas died from mosquito-borne illnesses, one at SeaWorld Orlando and the other at SeaWorld San Antonio.13 This is extremely unlikely to happen in the wild since cetaceans are below the water most of the time. According to an article in the Journal of Marine Animals and Their Ecology: “Unlike their wild counterparts who are rarely stationary, captive orcas typically spend hours each day (mostly at night) floating motionless (logging) during which time biting mosquitoes access their exposed dorsal surfaces. Mosquitoes are attracted to exhaled carbon dioxide, heat and dark surfaces, all of which are present during logging behavior. Further, captive orcas are often housed in geographic locations receiving high ultraviolet radiation, which acts as an immunosuppressant. Unfortunately, many of these facilities offer the animals little shade protection.”14
Other Captive Ailments
Captive marine mammals suffer from a range of eye and dental problems that are unique to captivity. Many captive orcas experience dorsal fin collapse. This is likely caused by gravity from their fins being out of the water much more than in the wild. Overexposure to sunlight, stress and dietary changes contribute to these ailments as well.
Image by M W from Pixabay
End Captivity
The obvious conclusion is that humans should not keep captive orcas. We should not force them to live in large swimming pools for their entire lives. Nor should they be performing for humans for entertainment, as if it were the circus. Orcas and other marine mammals should be viewed in the ocean, either from boats, the Whale Trail,15 or a sanctuary. In my next post, I will show you some of the orcas currently living in captivity. Thank you for reading, and please subscribe!
Additional Resources:
Article, “Tanked: Killer Whales in Captivity,” Hakai Magazine, May 12, 2015.
Article, “Why killer whales should not be kept in captivity,” BBC Earth, March 10, 2016.
Website, Voice of the Orcas, accessed January 21, 2021.
Article, “Former Orca Trainer For SeaWorld Condemns Its Practices,” NPR, March 23, 2015.
“Baby Orca 3” at Marineland Antibes, image by marcovdz on Flickr, Creative Commons license (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)
“The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated.” -Mahatma Gandhi
In my last article about the plight of captive orcas, I presented some of the books and films I’ve seen and read in recent months about this subject. After all that I’ve learned, I can definitively say that orcas should not be held in captivity. As I was researching I was disappointed to discover that marine parks are not caring for them the way they should be. While there are many issues, I wanted to address the ones that illustrate the strongest arguments against captivity. Today, we will look at mother and calf separations.
Photo by Mike Doherty on Unsplash
Orca Pods are Families
In the wild, orcas live in large family groups called pods. Within these families, each has its own set of vocalizations and culture. Baby orcas stay with these pods for decades and often for life, and they learn everything from their family. As National Geographic documented: “In the wild, orcas live in tight-knit family groups that share a sophisticated, unique culture that is passed down through generations…In captivity, orcas are kept in artificial social groups. Captive-born orcas are often transferred between facilities, breaking up social relationships.”1 Additionally, ecotypes are mixed together with no respect for the cultural differences between them.
Orca performance at SeaWorld Orlando. Photo by Jo-Anne McArthur / We Animals (https://weanimalsmedia.org/)
Separating Mothers and Calves
I think what stuck with me most was the separation of whale mothers and calves. As I mentioned in my first post about orcas, their offspring, especially males, often stay with their mothers for life. The bonds orcas form are profound and they are disregarded in marine amusement parks. So it is appalling that SeaWorld and other marine parks separate the calves from their mothers and families as early as age 2. As Dr. Naomi A. Rose noted, taking an orca from their family at the age is the equivalent of separating a human toddler from their mother.2 As a mother myself, I cannot even imagine what they experience.
“In many orca populations, males spend their entire lives with their mothers, and in some populations, family ties are so persistent and well defined that all family members are usually within a 4 km (2.5 mile) radius of each other at all times.” -The Case Against Marine Mammal Captivity3
Grief is Mammalian
All mammals experience emotions, including grief. The studies of orca brains show that they likely have a greater emotional capacity than humans. This may mean they may feel emotions at a greater range than we do. In 2018, an orca made headlines when she carried the carcass of her dead calf around for more than two weeks.4 Many cetaceans have exhibited grief but this case caught international attention. Some speculate as to why this mother grieved for so long, but I ask, what mother doesn’t grieve the loss of a child? Regarding the separation of mothers and calves in captivity, Dr. Naomi A. Rose said:
“How can it be morally right for us to do to others, even when those others aren’t human, something we would consider devastating if it happened to us? That comparison isn’t anthropomorphism. It’s empathy.”5
“Katina and her calf” at SeaWorld Orlando, image by Bryce Bradford on Flickr, Creative Commons license (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)
SeaWorld Separations
As of 2016, nineteen calves in SeaWorld’s history, including calves captured at sea, have been separated from their mothers. In 1990, Kalina, SeaWorld’s first “Baby Shamu,” was separated from her mother (Katina) at age 4. SeaWorld later separated Kalina’s own calf Skyla, at age 2 or 3, sending her to Loro Parque in the Canary Islands. Some of the other orca calves separated from their mothers include:
Katerina, age 2
Keto, under age 4 years
Keet, 20 months old (still nursing)
Splash, 2.5 years old
Ikaika, age 4
Kohana, age 3
Trua, age 4
“Takara” at SeaWorld San Antonio, image by jordantea on Flickr, Creative Commons license (CC BY-NC 2.0). In 2004, SeaWorld moved twelve-year-old Takara (which was Kasatka’s firstborn calf) to another park. In 2006, they separated Takara’s own firstborn calf, Kohana, from her mother at age 3 and sent her to Loro Parque.“Trua” at SeaWorld Orlando, image by BrandyKregel on Flickr, Creative Commons license (CC BY-NC 2.0). He is Takara’s second calf, separated from his mother in 2009 when they moved Takara to SeaWorld San Antonio. Trua remains at SeaWorld Orlando.
SeaWorld’s Justifications
Both the capture and importation of wild whales is illegal in most parts of the West. So SeaWorld had to breed orcas in order to keep their pools stocked. In order to maximize profits and breeding efficiency, they must move animals around between their parks. Additionally, baby orcas are a huge draw to the parks, increasing attendance and profits. SeaWorld became a multi-billion dollar company largely credited to its orca shows.
SeaWorld claims they are not separating calves from mothers by changing the semantics. “What they’ve tried to do is redefine the word “calf” by saying a calf is no longer a calf once they’re not nursing with their mother anymore, and that’s simply not true,” said John Hargrove. “A calf is always a calf.”[efn_note]Interview, “Former Orca Trainer For SeaWorld Condemns Its Practices,” Fresh Air, NPR, March 23, 2015.[/efn_note] David Neiwert noted in Of Orcas and Men that SeaWorld “separates mothers from their offspring in a manner that is completely unnatural, with relative ease and no apparent pangs of conscience whatsoever.”6 Remember, many calves live with or near their mother for life.
When NPR asked Chuck Tompkins, SeaWorld’s curator of zoological operations, about the separations, he responded:
“We’ve never moved a calf from a mom…A calf is an animal young enough who is still dependent on the mom, still nursing with the mom, and still requires the mom’s leadership…You can’t put it in human years; you’ve got to put it in killer whale years. We think they’re probably dependent [at] 4 to 5 years. After that, they start to gain their independence.”
So what about the relocations of the calves younger than age 4 or 5? I have been unable to find any information about that from SeaWorld’s website. All the marine biological studies contradict separation. Tompkins also mentioned that they prepare the whales for the separations and that they’ve “trained them to be relaxed during that move.”7 What does that even mean? How do you prepare a mother to never see her child again?
Calf Rejections
Another justification marine parks sometimes use to separate orcas is when mothers reject or become aggressive with their calves. This is extremely rare in the wild. One example is when SeaWorld separated a male orca named Sumar, born at the Orlando park, at only 6 months of age. Then they moved him to California when he was less than 10 months old.8 Sumar’s mother, Taima, was aggressive with him and several of her other calves. This likely happened from being bred too young and not having had a full family to teach her how to care for offspring. Sadly, she died after giving birth to her fourth calf in 2010.
“Sumar & Kasatka” at SeaWorld San Diego, image by Bryce Bradford on Flickr, Creative Commons license (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)
Trainers Experience these Heartbreaks Firsthand
The trainers who have experienced these separations of mothers and calves watched the mothers grieve. They self-isolated, shook, and made unusual vocalizations. In fact, when senior research scientists analyzed the vocals, they described them as long-range vocals. This showed that the orcas were desperately trying to reach their calves despite being in concrete, enclosed surroundings. The calls went on for a long time. Describing his experience, former senior trainer John Hargrove said “obviously Takara was gone and [Kasatka] was trying anything she could to try to locate and communicate with Takara, which is absolutely heartbreaking.”9
In Blackfish, former orca trainer Carol Ray described Katina and Kalina’s separation. After SeaWorld removed Kalina, her mother swam to the side of the pool and stayed in one place, screaming, screeching, and crying. “There was nothing you could call that besides grief,” Ray explained sadly. “How can anyone look at that and think that that is morally acceptable?” said John Hargrove in Blackfish about the separations. These accounts brought me to tears.
“Unable to sense her daughter’s presence in any of the adjoining pools, Kasatka was sending sounds far into the world, as far as she could, to see if they would bounce back or elicit a response. It was heartbreaking for all who heard what easily be interpreted as crying.” -John Hargove, after Kasatka’s daughter was moved to another park10
SeaWorld Orlando, image by Morten Graae from Pixabay
End of Captive Breeding?
SeaWorld claims to have ended its captive orca breeding program, “making the orcas in our care the last generation,” according to their website. In California, state legislation forced SeaWorld to do this before the company decided to do it on its own. Even so, it is a step in the right direction if all of its parks follow suit. If they have truly ended their breeding program, will they still separate and move orcas between parks? Could SeaWorld and other marine amusement parks keep mothers and calves together? The short answer is yes, but as you’ll see in my next post, a swimming pool is no place for an orca to spend its entire life.
Thank you for reading, and please subscribe!
Additional Resources:
Video, “Let’s Throw Shamu a Retirement Party,” Dr. Naomi A. Rose, TEDxBend, May 25, 2015.
Article, “Op-Ed: SeaWorld was right to stop breeding orcas, but it should go further,” LA Times, February 23, 2017.
Report, Rose, N.A. and Parsons, E.C.M. (2019). The Case Against Marine Mammals in Captivity, 5th edition (Washington, DC: Animal Welfare Institute and World Animal Protection), 160 pp.
