on orcas
“Real. Amazing.”
This vague but real slogan belongs to none other than SeaWorld. A branch of SeaWorld Entertainment, Inc., SeaWorld has been a powerhouse theme park and entertainment company for over 50 years – its mission to bring personal, interactive, and educational experiences that foster creativity and imagination with nature and help people around the world celebrate and connect with the natural world. You can see shows with killer whales, dolphins, and sea lions. You can watch penguins, sea turtles, and even polar bears. And you can see them all for only 55 dollars per person.
On my fifth birthday, my parents took me and a few friends to SeaWorld in San Diego, California. To a freshly turned five-year-old, SeaWorld is its own wonder of the world, trumping even the likes of LEGOLAND, my top two theme parks at the time. We camped in the special, designated birthday section of the park, complete with tied down balloons, kazoos, and birthday streamers. My memory of the day is admittedly hazy – the memory of my fifth year on Earth is fragmented. Recounting a memory from my adolescent years is like swimming in a pool, when a drop of water slips underneath your goggles. That one drop of water obscures your vision just enough to make you question if you are really seeing the pool clearly.
One of the special accommodations SeaWorld provides for birthday guests is that they get to meet Shamu the Killer Whale. Not the real Shamu, a man in a Shamu costume.[1] It didn’t matter to me – in my eyes he was equal to the famous orca. We took a photo together – one that’ll be cherished forever – and he gave me a small, stuffed Shamu, one you could purchase at the gift shop. I still have that Shamu, and since then, killer whales have been one of my favorite animals.
I love their simple, sleek appearance. The water glides smoothly over their skin as it glistens under the sun. Killer whales can swim up to 30 miles per hour. They continually shed their skin while swimming to avoid drag and decrease water resistance. They are also made up of my two favorite colors, black and white.[2] Mostly black on the top halves of their bodies and white on the bottom half, I always forget that their eyes are not the two big white spots that look exactly like eyes.
They are smart animals that live, breed, migrate, and hunt together in pods. Twelve years later, when I watch the documentary Blackfish,[3] I have my heart slowly broken as I learn in detail the tragic lives of captive killer whales held in SeaWorld locations across the globe.
Killer whales, also called orcas, blackfish, or grampus, are the largest members of the dolphin family. They are grouped in the order Cetacea, which includes whales, dolphins, and porpoises. Their Latin name is Orcinus Orca, Orcinus derived from Orcus, a Roman god of the netherworld, referring to an orca’s killer instinct, and orca meaning whale. “Orca” literally means “the shape of a barrel or cask,” referring to an orca’s body shape. They live in extremely cold waters, most often found in Antarctica, Iceland, Norway, and in the Atlantic and Pacific Northwest.
A killer whale’s diet varies from pod to pod, but they usually eat all kinds of fish, seals, sea lions, dolphins, sharks, rays, octopi and squids, birds, and even other whales.[4] They hunt in groups, which is why they are they are also referred to as “the wolves of the sea.” Spanish natives call them Ballena asesina, which means “assassin whale.” So why does SeaWorld portray orcas as loving animals?
If you have not seen Blackfish, please watch it. This is not a sponsor or shameless plug for Blackfish - rather a strong, passionate recommendation. My eyes teared in certain moments in the film, and I am not one for getting misty-eyed, especially for a movie. It is disturbing to me how a film like Blackfish is made, hot news for a few months, then forgotten. Now the situation is arguably worse in that killer whale captivity remains a problem we are now aware of, but too impassionate to do anything about. Instead, the biggest news story since the release of Blackfish is not about how SeaWorld is being shut down, but that its longest tenured whale, Tillikum, has passed away.
On average, killer whales in captivity die around 13 years old. Male orcas can live up to 60 years old, and females up to 100.[5] They can swim up to 100 miles per day, which translates to about 1,208 laps around the perimeter of the tanks captive orcas are held in.[6] Captive orcas have been recorded and seen breaking their teeth gnawing at the iron bars of their tanks due to boredom, stress, and anxiety. For comparison, it’s as if a person lived their whole life in a regular-sized bathtub. Would you stay sane?
In the wild, orcas stay together all their lives. They are a family. In captivity, mothers are separated from their offspring shortly after birth – leading to longer and stronger bouts of depression, stress, and anxiety.[7]
It is something you can easily forget about, when orcas are giving SeaWorld trainers a piggyback ride, or splashing the audience on command, all for a few sardines. Killer whales are deceiving in that they do look like happy, friendly animals – at least to me. But they are quite scary.
They’re one of many dangerous animals that are portrayed as friendly, even though they are the opposite. Another example of this misunderstood perception is hippos. Hippopotamuses kill more people per year than sharks or crocodiles. In Africa, they can kill up to 3,000 people per year. They are not friendly creatures, yet games like “Hungry Hungry Hippos” instill a fun, loving quality in them. Beavers, raccoons, and deer also fall under this category. Beavers are extremely aggressive if they believe one is intruding upon their territory. Raccoons and deer, while generally docile, can be dangerous in the wrong situations. And to say killer whales are friendly is dangerous. Imagine swimming with a killer whale. The thought alone is scary, right? Ditto for hippopotamuses.
I would be lying to you if I said I am not biased toward killer whales. They hold a special place in my heart, ever since Shamu handed me a plush figurine of himself. I do not suppose people were swayed enough by the documentary, that they’d simply let killer whales roam free in the Arctic waters. Or seals, penguins, tigers, elephants, and giraffes for that matter. The only reason I can see keeping animals’ captive is for their preservation. To which point pandas, rhinoceroses, jaguars, and polar bears – all currently on the endangered species list - are all more justified in keeping. Most recently, the West African Black Rhinoceros was declared extinct by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN).[8]
Watching killer whales in the wild is astonishing. Their sheer size, intelligence, and elegance reminds me of the beautiful forms that life takes shape. Like any other animal, why shouldn’t they roam free among the Arctic waters? It’s a sad truth that human existence interferes with the natural Earth. It’s difficult for humans to coexist with the rest of the planet’s species without leaving destruction in its wake. But as powerful as we are, we must start applying ourselves to the right, humane efforts. Killer whales are only one example of how we can be better. I want someone else to grow up loving killer whales. Not from a SeaWorld show or commercial, but seeing them live among us. Planet Earth is one of many documentaries that offer a glimpse into a world we have no idea exists - a beautiful world not decorated with skyscrapers, landfills, and metropolises – one definitely not called SeaWorld.
Footnotes
[1] The original Shamu passed away in July 1971. Captured in August 1965, she was only the second female and fourth orca ever put in captivity.
[2] Killer whales have a bit of gray as well, a small patch behind their dorsal fin, referred to as their saddle or cape.
[3] Blackfish is a documentary, released in 2013, covering the life of Tillikum, SeaWorld’s longest tenured orca. The result is a startling reality that uncovers how unhealthy and ethically inhumane it is to keep these beasts in captivity – and why SeaWorld needs to be shut down. Unfortunately, Tillikum recently passed away, on January 6th, 2017. Male killer whales live up to 50-60 years old in the wild. Tillikum was 35.
[4] Recently, a pod of killer whales has been going on a whale killing spree in Monterey Bay. Humpback whales have migrated to Monterey Bay a few weeks earlier than usual this year, overlapping with the feeding season for orcas. For some reason, humpback whales interfere with killer whales when feeding – experts think it is a protective or altruistic instinct– but the killer whales rebel and attack the whales. As a result, seven whales have been found dead in a span of just 12 days.
[5] On SeaWorld’s website, they state that “the average life expectancy of southern and northern resident Killer Whales is about 29 years old for females and 17 years for males.”
[6] Per http://www.seaworldofhurt.com/features/8-reasons-orcas-dont-belong-seaworld/.
[7] In Blackfish, one of the stories told through recorded footage and data is SeaWorld’s attempt to transport one of the whale’s babies to another facility, separating the four-year old whale from her mother. When the baby was moved, the mother cried constantly throughout the night, attempting vocals nonstop for weeks. The vocals the mother voiced were never recorded or heard from a killer whale before, and it was concluded they were long range vocals.
[8] The IUCN is the world’s leading organization on endangered species, influencing, encouraging, and assisting societies around the world to conserve the integrity and diversity of nature and endangered animals.
