Blackfish Attraction

Blackfish
Animal attractions a place where families come to spend the day with their children, or where people come just, because they are fascinated with animals. While there are many animal attractions there happens to be one that stood out amongst all its competitors. SeaWorld, SeaWorld was different and unique compared to your local zoo or aquarium it seemed to have showed us something a bit more different than your usual looking at a lion or a snake through a cage or glass. SeaWorld showed us how Energetic and loving the animals they had were. SeaWorld seemed to be such an amazing attraction due to the fact that you always were all given a great show. You could see the bond between these trainers and the orcas. The orcas almost always
obediently did as their trainers asked of them, and it was usually normal routine stuff such as waving to the crowd, giving a huge splash to the audience, or letting one of the trainers ride on them.
Now this all seemed fine until a documentary called “Blackfish” was released. On July 19th 2013. Blackfish was a documentary that showed us how SeaWorld truly was behind the scenes, they showed us what SeaWorld was really like when there wasn’t a show going on, or when there wasn’t an audience watching. It taught us to truly open our eyes and see that this attraction in reality wasn’t the amazing attraction most though it was. Evidently it showed us SeaWorld flaws a controversial issue has been whether the film “Blackfish” was a fair representation on SeaWorld and its animal
practices. On the one hand, some argue that the film “Blackfish” represents SeaWorld fairly, because in the sum of it all Blackfish does actually show us many things that were wrong with these practices and on top of that it shows us the many causalities that happened, because of this attraction. From this perspective most can agree that and attraction such as SeaWorld should be permanently shutdown and or banned. On the other hand, however others argue that the film “Blackfish” is an unfair representation of SeaWorld and its practices with animals, because simply stating all of the negative things that happened at SeaWorld and to the orcas and their trainers. My own view is that Orcas kept in captivity do not receive the proper diet they need in order to maintain a healthy life style, it is inhumane and unfair for these animals to be kept in such living conditions, and having such animals in captivity not only poses a threat to the animal it self, but it also poses a threat to the life of all trainers.
Now orcas can range anywhere from 23-32 feet in size, so it is fair to conclude that these animals can have quiet the appetite. However, in SeaWorld these animals are denied the proper diet in order for them to maintain a healthy lifestyle, “Because killer whales are, as their moniker implies, apex predators, they generally feed on other sea animals such as small whales, seals, and even the occasional shark. They feed on live prey, as they are hunters, not scavengers. In SeaWorld parks, orcas are fed frozen-thawed fish and generally eat the same meal every day with little to no variation” (Robertson). Now how is it even humane do such a thing to these creatures. These animals are used to roaming the vast ocean every single day, they are used to consuming what ever they please when every they please. Another problem is these animals are no different than us humans, some orcas might have a different appetite than others, so how is it fair that they all receive the same petty amount of food. Also in the documentary “Blackfish” there were times were the animals were getting frustrated, because they were not given the proper amount of food and were expected to still perform tasks obediently. The orcas diet in captivity is altered completely, “In the wild orcas are able to gain their nutrients, because they have a variety of things to chose from, however in SeaWorld they are given gelatin, a substance that is not natural for them in attempt to keep them hydrated” (“8 reasons why orcas don’t belong in SeaWorld” 1). So it comes to no surprise as to why so many premature deaths happen, and also why the orcas just seem so unhappy being there.
With orcas being such massive sea creatures it is safe to conclude that these animals are most definitely used to swimming many miles a day in the wild, however in the “Blackfish” documentary it states that these whales are stored in a 20 feet by 30 feet module. It is inhumane and unfair to have these animals kept in such living conditions. As a matter of fact, “SeaWorld confines orcas, who could swim up to 100 miles a day in the wild, to tanks that, to them, are the size of a bathtub. They would need to swim 1,208 laps (around the perimeter of the tank) or 3,105 lengths (back and forth at the longest part of the tank) in the park’s largest tank to equal what they’d swim in the wild” (“8 reasons orcas Don’t belong at SeaWorld” 1). Another issue with keeping these whales in such confined is that in the wild these animals have the freedom they can move around and station themselves were ever they best see fit, but in these modules they are forced to be in extremely tight spaces with other whales which has led to these whales constantly fighting and in some cases has led to the death of some whales. It’s sick the fact that SeaWorld didn’t taking precaution for the safety of these orcas. It seems that the only reason people did not take action sooner was, because these whales could not physically speak our language and plead for our help however they did other things “We witnessed stereotypic and obsessive compulsive behavior, such as banging their faces and heads against the pool walls and floor, obsessively picking at and peeling the paint on the pools, ultimately ingesting it. Often these behaviors were so obsessive they resulted in physical injury to the whale, but they still would not stop” (Allen).
It is actually shocking that people think that there is nothing wrong with having an Apex predator, the killer whale, and a trainer in the same tank.
In the “Blackfish” documentary there were many casualties shown, most of the time they described it as trainer error, however the true error was actually letting these trainers be in the same tank as the creatures. Literally every single day a trainer and killer whale shared the same tank that trainers’ life was on the line. Many trainers were often injured “Hargrove, who quit SeaWorld in 2012, suffered numerous broken bones and nearly destroyed his sinuses. It was a risk he ran with his eyes open, and one that, in the end, he seems to feel was almost worth it. "I owe those whales," he says in an interview. "They gave me so much in my life and my career." But the whales' physical and emotional well-being, he grew to believe, was incompatible with captivity. Confined to unnatural social groups for the convenience of their owners, bored and restless, forced to perform tricks for food that trainers withheld as punishment, they occasionally slipped, he writes, "into the dark side" (Adler). Now if we observed these animals in their own natural habitat that would be one thing, but brining these orcas into captivity forcing them to do things against their own will and then expecting them to be on cloud nine and not retaliate in anyway, it is sheer ignorance. It is impossible that human could have the same bond with and orca, then an
orca would have with one of its own. Since these orcas are kept locked up all day in such confined space it is no wonder that they lash out, in the “Blackfish” documentary it states that these animals would get depressed, yet trainers would still get into the tanks with these emotionally unstable animals. Some trainers truly did love those creatures and did try to have a bond with them, but SeaWorld destroyed these animals lives by robbing them of their families, their freedom and overall their life. All of the trainer casualties could have been avoided with one simple action, to not have kept these animals in captivity in the first place.
We may not know what SeaWorld true intentions were at the beginning of this attraction, while some saw that it brought happiness and just one more great attraction to this world. Others saw the real picture; they saw the true consequences to having these animals kept in captivity. “Blackfish” was a fair and accurate documentary, because it showed us that these whales did not have the proper diet in order to maintain a healthy lifestyle, it was inhumane to keep these animals kept and locked up in captivity, and also having these animals in captivity not only posed a threat to the animals’ life, but to the trainers as well.