Last updated June 16, 2021.

For as long as there have been stories and records about it, whale hunting has always been brutal, barbaric, and gory. Capturing orcas and other marine mammals for sale to aquariums and amusement parks is just as violent and brutal. Whale hunters have used explosives, helicopters, and other fear tactics to separate orcas from their pod. Many orcas have been killed accidentally in the process. Even more reprehensible was the cover-up of those deaths. Whale hunters posthumously cut open dead orcas and stuffed them with rocks to sink their bodies. Additionally, these captures in the 1960s and 1970s greatly reduced the populations of orcas, particularly the Southern Resident orcas.

At least 166 orcas have been taken into captivity from the wild since 1961, and 129 of these orcas are now dead.¹ Eventually, laws ended these practices and captures. But this directly led to the establishment of breeding programs at SeaWorld and other marine amusement parks.

Whale Capture

“Most cetacean capture methods are extremely traumatizing, involving high-speed boat chases and capture teams violently wrestling animals into submission before hauling them onto a boat in a sling and then dumping them into shallow temporary holding tanks or pens.”²

The Vancouver Aquarium

In 1964, the Vancouver Aquarium captured an orca named Moby Doll, a male that they first believed was female. Originally, the aquarium had no intention of capturing an orca. They actually commissioned an artist to kill an orca to use as a body model for a killer whale sculpture. However, after harpooning a young whale and then shooting it several times, the whale did not die. Instead, the orca followed its captors as if on a leash for 16 hours in order to avoid the pain of resistance with the harpoon in his back. The aquarium put Moby Doll on display for scientists and the public to view. He did not eat for 55 days. When he started eating finally, he consumed 200 pounds of fish per day. But he never fully recovered and died after 87 total days of captivity.

“Moby Doll was the first orca ever held in captivity, and his amazing qualities, seen by humans for only those hard last months of his life, started both a new appreciation for orcas and a new industry of catching and displaying the whales for entertainment.”³

The Vancouver Aquarium no longer keeps captive whales. “After Moby Doll, [they] got more orcas and kept at least one in captivity until 2001, when its last orca, an Icelandic whale nicknamed ‘Bjossa,’ was shipped away to SeaWorld in San Diego, where she soon died.”⁴

Seattle Marine Aquarium at Pier 56

In 1965, Fishermen accidentally caught Namu the orca in their net in Canadian waters. Namu was the first captive performing killer whale. They contacted the owner of the Seattle Marine Aquarium, Ted Griffin, who bought Namu for $8,000. Griffin put him on display. “Crowds flocked to Pier 56 to watch Griffin ride the whale and to see Namu jump on command,” according to The Seattle Times.⁵ Downtown shops sold Namu souvenirs. There are two songs and a film about Namu.⁶

“Within a month, Griffin made history, becoming the first human ever known to ride a killer whale…Visitors and the press were crazy for the story of Griffin and Namu.”⁷

Griffin intended to capture another whale so that Namu would have a mate. Activists and scientists protested. Then two female whales died during Griffin’s effort, which exacerbated the issue. In the midst of that, Griffin received approval to build a new marine park as a new home for Namu. But the project never came to be.⁸

Namu’s legacy

The success of the aquarium from having Namu “spark[ed] a period of orca captures in the region, when a generation of southern resident killer whales was taken and shipped to aquariums around the world.”⁹ Other marine amusement parks sought the financial success of having captive performing orcas. Unfortunately, it became an established practice.

“Namu fever stoked an international craze for killer whales to put on exhibit all over the nation and the world. Captors particularly targeted the young, the cheapest to ship.”¹⁰

Sadly, Namu died within one year. He drowned after he became entangled in the netting of his pen. The autopsy revealed a massive bacterial infection caused by the raw sewage polluting the bay,¹¹ and this likely contributed to the whale’s disorientation and drowning.¹²

Ted Griffin continued pursuing orcas and was part of the famous Penn Cove massacre in August 1970 when four orcas were drowned in their nets. In a failed effort to cover up the deaths, Griffin ordered workers to cut the whales open and weigh them down with chains and rocks to sink them. But the corpses were caught in a fisherman’s net and hauled to shore a few months later, and news reporters captured the event. “Griffin lost the stomach for orca captures after the Penn Cove debacle and dropped out after 1972.”¹³ 

“Every one of the fifty Southern Resident whales captured by Ted Griffin and Don Goldsberry from the Puget Sound is now dead, with one exception…Lolita.” -David Neiwert¹⁴ 

The Marine Mammal Protection Act in 1972

In the 1960s and early 1970s, whale captures were largely unregulated and were completely legal. Humans captured hundreds of orcas and thousands of marine mammals during those decades for all types of purposes. Congress passed the Marine Mammal Protection Act in 1972 (MMPA) in direct response to concerns about the effects of human activity on marine mammals. But at the insistence of the theme park industry, Congress gave an exemption for marine mammals in zoos and aquariums, under the facade of ‘for educational purposes.’¹⁵ Conservation was the term used to claim these exemptions.

“When drafting the Marine Mammal Protection Act of 1972 (MMPA), members of the US Congress believed, or were lobbied into  promoting, the long-accepted view that the public display of wildlife (at facilities such as zoos and aquaria) serves a necessary educational and conservation purpose.”¹⁶

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) granted SeaWorld an economic-hardship exemption in 1974. This allowed them to continue the practice of hunting orcas.¹⁷ All of this affected the Southern Resident populations.

NOAA grants other exceptions under the MMPA. Examples include scientific research, photography, capture, or first-time imports for public display in aquariums, or rescues.

Washington State

In 1975, Washington State filed a lawsuit against SeaWorld and in 1976, closed its waters to killer whale captures, a direct reaction to the ridiculous craze for capturing them. “By 1976 some 270 orcas were captured — many multiple times — in the Salish Sea, the transboundary waters between the U.S. and Canada, according to historian Jason Colby at the University of Victoria. At least 12 of those orcas died during capture, and more than 50, mostly Puget Sound’s critically endangered southern residents, were kept for captive display. All are dead by now but one,” referring to Lolita at the Miami Seaquarium.¹⁸ Southern Resident orcas lost a third of their population to capture by 1975 and the ecotype has never fully recovered. “Nearly a whole generation of reproduction was represented in the whales captured and killed,” wrote David Neiwert.¹⁹ The Southern Residents were classified as endangered in 2005.

Icelandic and North Atlantic captures

Less than 8 months later, SeaWorld and other marine parks moved their capture operations to Icelandic and North Atlantic waters. SeaWorld hired Don Goldsberry, who had been a part of the Puget Sound massacre, to go to those areas.²⁰ “Between 1976 and 1989, at least 54 orcas were captured from Icelandic waters and sold to marine parks around the world. [Seventeen] of those whales ended up at SeaWorld parks.”²¹ Forty-eight of these orcas have died in captivity.²² Killer whale capture in Iceland ended in 1989 (but whale hunting, in general, began again in 2003).

Tilikum was one of the wild captures from Iceland and the North Atlantic.²³ Tilikum was the whale who killed his trainer in 2010 at SeaWorld Orlando and may have been responsible for two other human deaths during his captive history. He passed away in 2017. Whale hunters captured Keiko, the star of Free Willy, from the same area. Kiska, whom I wrote about previously, was also captured there.

“All cetacean capture methods are invasive, stressful, and can potentially be lethal.” -Dr. Naomi A. Rose²⁴

After 1989

Laws prohibiting wild captures led to the establishment of captive breeding programs at marine amusement parks. Over the last 40 years, this practice has become the new standard for replenishing orca stock. “One of the keys to SeaWorld’s success was its ability to move away from controversial wild orca captures to captive births in its marine parks. The first captive birth that produced a surviving calf took place at SeaWorld Orlando in 1985. Since then, SeaWorld has relied mostly on captive breeding to stock its parks with killer whales, even mastering the art of artificial insemination.”²⁵

Thankfully, the practice of captive breeding is now ending in the western world. But in other parts of the world, marine amusement parks are growing in popularity. This means wild captures are now on the rise in those areas. In my next article, I’ll share some of this information with you. Thanks for reading, and please share and subscribe!

 

Additional Resources:

Article, “A Whale of a Business: Laws, Marine Mammal Legislation,” Frontline Online, PBS, accessed March 3, 2021.

Video, “Choosing between hunting & saving whales,” CNN.com, November 18, 2014.

Footnotes:

1. Article, “The Fate of Orcas in Captivity,” The Whale and Dolphin Conservation organization, accessed March 6, 2021.
2. 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.
3. Book, The Lost Whale: The True Story of an Orca Named Luna, by Michael Parfit and Suzanne Chisholm, St. Martin’s Press, 2013.
4. Book, The Lost Whale: The True Story of an Orca Named Luna, by Michael Parfit and Suzanne Chisholm, St. Martin’s Press, 2013.
5. Article, “Namu Was First Killer Whale Put On Public Display — It Called Seattle Marine Aquarium Home Until Its Death In 1966 Shocked The City,” The Seattle Times, September 4, 1998.
6. Article, “Namu the orca sparked whale fever in 1965 Seattle — and a local band planned to cash in,” The Seattle Times, May 20, 2019.
7. Article, “The orca and the orca catcher: How a generation of killer whales was taken from Puget Sound,” The Seattle Times, updated June 26, 2020.
8. Article, “A ‘whale bathtub’ at Seattle Center,” Seattle Municipal Archives, May 2018.
9. Article, “Namu the orca sparked whale fever in 1965 Seattle — and a local band planned to cash in,” The Seattle Times, May 20, 2019.
10. Article, “The orca and the orca catcher: How a generation of killer whales was taken from Puget Sound,” The Seattle Times, updated June 26, 2020.
11. Article, “The orca and the orca catcher: How a generation of killer whales was taken from Puget Sound,” The Seattle Times, updated June 26, 2020.
12. Article, “Namu Was First Killer Whale Put On Public Display — It Called Seattle Marine Aquarium Home Until Its Death In 1966 Shocked The City,” The Seattle Times, September 4, 1998.
13. Book, “Of Orcas and Men: What Killer Whales Can Teach Us,” by David Neiwert, The Overlook Press, New York, 2015.
14. Book, “Of Orcas and Men: What Killer Whales Can Teach Us,” by David Neiwert, The Overlook Press, New York, 2015.
15. Article, “Whale of a Problem: Captive Marine Mammals,” The Humane Society of the United States, August 26, 2010.
16. 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.
17. Article, “The orca and the orca catcher: How a generation of killer whales was taken from Puget Sound,” The Seattle Times, updated June 26, 2020.
18. Article, “The orca and the orca catcher: How a generation of killer whales was taken from Puget Sound,” The Seattle Times, updated June 26, 2020.
19. Book, “Of Orcas and Men: What Killer Whales Can Teach Us,” by David Neiwert, The Overlook Press, New York, 2015.
20. Book, “Of Orcas and Men: What Killer Whales Can Teach Us,” by David Neiwert, The Overlook Press, New York, 2015.
21. Article, “Tilikum and the history of wild orca captures,” The Whale and Dolphin Conservation of North America, April 9, 2016.
22. Article, “Icelandic Orca In Captivity,” Orca Aware, March 9, 2014.
23. Article, “Tilikum and the history of wild orca captures,” The Whale and Dolphin Conservation of North America, April 9, 2016.
24. 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.
25. Article, “The Killer in the Pool,” by Tim Zimmerman, Outside Online, July 30, 2010.