Orca Captivity

Animals have been an obvious source of entertainment for humans for centuries. From ancient bull fighters to the lion tamers at circuses to modern day movies, animals have played a vital role in human entertainment. In modern day documentaries where one sees a dramatic close up of a wild cougar wandering ever closer to the camera, they are being deceived. It is a common tactic in documentary filming to use ‘wild’ trained animals that have been trained to perform certain actions on command. However, to get these animals to perform exactly how the director wants to get results, these trick animals are often beaten if they don’t behave exactly how the trainers ask them to. These tactics to provide entertainment to paying customers aren’t a recent development, starting in the early 1900s, the travelling circuses became popular and also
In the case of Miracle, the Orca, who was found near the British Columbia Islands, her fate of captivity ended up getting her killed. A very well-known animal performer, Miracle was originally found when she was very young and separated from her pod; this situation caused many side effects as she grew older including aggression towards her human handlers, hitting her head repeatedly in a particular corner of her enclosure, and biting through nets that were her enclosure. This behavior of biting through nets forced the park to create multiple layers of fencing that she would one day eventually die in as she got stuck attempting to swim through. Unfortunately, Miracle isn’t the only example of Orcas dying due to being in captivity. In the same park that held Miracle, other orcas who were held there committed suicide, banging their heads on the cement walls until they eventually died. Although some species may appear to cope with captivity well, others retaliate