Seaworld’s first orca show took place in 1965, starring Shamu. Throughout her career, Shamu lived in artificial water pools created by Seaworld. Shamu’s final shows took place prior to 1971 following her death. She only performed for nearly 6 years. If female killer whales have an average lifespan of 80 to over 100 years, why did Shamu die early.

Cetaceans at SeaWorld should not be used for entertainment purposes. SeaWorld holds ocean-life as prisoners in order to host performances and attempt rehabilitation and repopulation. Although they strive towards serving both parties equally, humans have an obvious wage over animal counterparts.

SeaWorld abuses the rights of animals for human entertainment purposes, and us, humans, think that it’s morally justified. Is it justified separating orcas from their families, or holding them captive from their natural habitats? If none of these actions are morally or lawfully justified in human society, why is it “okay” when it comes to the ocean-life? The SeaWorld animals never agreed to be held in SeaWorld facilities.

The documentary, Blackfish, goes into further detail about the flaws in which SeaWorld treats their cetaceans. Blackfish explores the life of Tilikum, a killer whale, and the traumatic effect of living in aquatic parks as a cetacean. Former SeaWorld trainers, discussed how killer whales are separated from their packs and family, captured, and placed in pools with different killer whales from different regions just because they looked alike. The cultural miscommunication between the whales caused them to hurt each other. Tilikum’s day-to-day abuse caused him to become aggressive towards whales and humans, and put their lives at higher risks. During his lifetime, Tilikum has drowned 3 humans to death and injured numerous whales.

Since Blackfish, SeaWorld has been trying to make their company more equally educational and entertainment based,  rather than focusing on full entertainment purposes.

Although many claim that SeaWorld’s performances are essential towards education, hardly any information is really obtained that will last throughout the rest of one’s life. In “Pros and Cons of Marine Zoological Parks According to Marine Conservationists,” Kayla Patama states that “education and conservation are secondary to families” while planning exciting weekends. Even though SeaWorld offers youths pamphlets and coloring pages full of information, it's still not worth harming these animals in order to provide “education” to youths if only little information is received.  

Blackfish also recognized that killer whales almost have deeper complex emotional and cognitive abilities than humans. Take L72, a female killer whale, spotted off the coast of San Juan Island, Washington for example. Moments after giving birth to her stillborn calf, Robin Baird, of Cascadia Research Collective, reported to National Geographics: L72 “was trying to keep the [dead] calf up at the surface the entire time” in order to care for and grieve it. We, humans, also express grief when a loved one dies. Instead of treating them as equals, why are we treating them differently? After all killer whales have existed for about three hundred thousand years more than homo sapiens.

In addition, SeaWorld imprisons whales in small water pools causing them crucial physical development compared to those found in their natural habitats. For example: the pool size causes their dorsal fins to bend because they are constantly swimming in circles. In the wild their fins are straight because they have larger ranges to swim in. The unnatural habitat also decreases their lifespan.

If SeaWorld claims they use the parks to research, “observe and record behaviors that would be difficult or impossible to study in the wild,” why do they rely on these inaccurate observations?

SeaWorld is an amusement park with cetacean performances, not a conservation. Conservations shouldn’t consist of performances and entertainment towards humans. They should focus on the animals that they are trying to save. Instead trying to combine both aspects to create the best of both worlds, Seaworld should pick one. Their past attempts have been unsuccessful, so why aren’t the working to break the cycle of abuse?

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