Orcas: Killer Beauties

The Debate

Some people actually believe that it's beneficial for humans to have these amazing creatures in captivity to educate us. Some others won’t believe that. Even the world's most revered marine wildlife expert, Mr. Jacques Cousteau found it to be so disgusting to have them captive in the so-called "Marine Amusement Parks".

Movies like "Flipper" and "Free Willy" promotes animal kindness and freedom, but in reality, those animals are prisoners of the Amusement park business. We should educate the public of what really goes on behind the scenes at these so-called "Marine Amusement parks."

Marine Mammals = Endless Money.

When humans break the law and commit a crime they're sent to a prison cell. But what kind of crime do this mammals had done like to be sentenced to a life in prison?

No one except that we, the human being, pay generous amounts of money to watch them do tricks, and people who has found that they can learn tricks, also found that they’re a great money source. This has lead to even more captures today, without thinking how many animals have to die to satisfy our endless money needs.

Also when we, humans, are put on display in a circus or any other show, we do so by our own will and we are not in any danger except that which we’re put on to ourselves. However the Marine mammals are forced to perform what we want, in order to get their dinner, which is not always the best dinner they can have. They are not asked if they want a life in captivity, and they are not asked if they want to perform.

These animals have no right being in a cage any more than people do, but the poor "rescued" animals from Japan have been sentenced to a life of captivity in just a few minutes. These animals are selected for their sex, age and nothing more. They are not selected to be "saved" but to be used.

So how can Marine Parks say they're saving the animals? Just come to think and you will find that buying whales from the Japanese Kill-Drives, are only going to give them more reasons to get more animals to trade for great amounts of money.

- "All of the things we inflict on cetaceans in captivity are by definition stressful. Such stress cannot possibly be avoided when the animals are removed from their natural environment"

Dr. Paul Spong from The Bellerive Symposium on Whales and Dolphins in Captivity.

Unless a marine animal is injured or in danger, it should not be removed from the wild. It is known that too many animals have already given their lives for human pleasure. We do not have the right to violently capture and imprison this animals and force them to perform absurd tricks for us.

Approved in 1972, the Marine Mammals Protection Act, MMPA, prohibits the taking of any marine mammal from US waters or by US citizens in international waters except by special permit. Permits for capture or importation may be granted by the National Marine Fisheries Service, NMFS, for the purposes of scientific work, public display, or standings or accidental captures by fishermen.

A marine park wishing to capture or import a marine mammal must file an application, under one of the listed exemptions, with NMFS. This application must list the following:

The application is then published in the Federal Register and open for public comment for 30 days. NMFS usually makes a decision on the application within four or five months. The most recent amendments to the MMPA in 1994 stripped NMFS of its authority to deny applications to export marine mammals or transport them among states.

Previously, animal owners wishing to sell or transport animals had to submit an application to NMFS showing that the facility to which the animals were being transferred and the method of transport were acceptable under standards set by the Animal Welfare Act.

The 1994 amendments changed the requirements so that the individual seeking to transfer animals need only file a letter with NMFS stating that the procedures and facilities meet the standard. NMFS no longer has authority to deny these applications or inspect or oversee the destination facilities.

The Animal Welfare Act delegates the responsibility for setting standards for the handling, care, treatment and transport of animals to the Department of Agriculture's Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS). APHIS issues regulations for the minimum standards for keeping captive marine mammals:

The AWA provides for inspection of marine parks and other facilities holding captive marine mammals by government veterinarians. Such inspections have been criticized for not being frequent or rigorous enough.

Laws against shows.

Actually, South Carolina is the only state in the U.S., which has prohibited the public display of cetaceans. But some day the number may grow up, due to the enormous public pressure against helding Marine Mammals captive.

Moby Doll’s History.
The first live orca exhibited in captivity.
Source: "ORCA: The Whale Called Killer,"
by Erich Hoyt, 1990 edition.

Vancouver Aquarium commissioned a 38-year-old sculptor, Samuel Burich, to find and kill an orca whale, and to fashion a life-sized model for the aquarium's new British Columbia Hall. Samuel Burich got ready and set up a harpoon gun on Saturna Island in British Columbia's Gulf Islands. Two months later, a pod of 13 killer whales approaches the shore. Burich harpoons a young whale, injuring but not killing it.

According eye witness, two pod members came to the aid of the stunned whale, pushing it to the surface to breathe. Then the whale seemed to come to life and struggled to free itself, jumping and smashing its tail and, uttering shrill whistles so intense that they could easily be heard above the surface of the water 300 feet away. Burich set off in a small boat to finish the job. He fired several rifle shells at the animal, but the orca did not died.

The aquarium director, Murray A. Newman, soon arrived from Vancouver by float plane and decided to try to save the 15-foot-long 1-ton whale. Using the line attached to the harpoon in its back, Burich and Bauer towed the whale to Vancouver. It took 16 hours "through choppy seas and blinding squalls" to drag the whale to Vancouver. Moby Doll is put into a makeshift pen at Burrard Dry-docks, and becomes an international celebrity and a magnet for scientists. Killer whales had been recorded by the Royal Canadian Navy in 1956, but no study was made of their sounds until Moby Doll's capture.

William Schevill and William A. Watkins of Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute in Massachusetts visit Moby Doll to study and record her sounds. Scientists and others who observe the whale comment on the whale's docility, tameness. "The whale seemed to be suffering from shock. For a long time, Moby Doll did not would not ate anything. She was offered everything from salmon to horse hearts, but the whale only circled the pool night and day in a counterclockwise pattern”

After 55 days in captivity, Moby Doll began eating up to 200 pounds of fish a day. But the whale has developed a skin disease from the low salinity of the harbor water, and continues to appear exhausted. The whale died a month later, after 87 days in captivity. Newspapers around the world chronicle Moby Doll's death.

The Times of London gives the whale's obituary a two-column heading, the same size given to the outbreak of World War II. "The widespread publicity --some of it the first positive press ever about killer whales--marked the beginning of an important change in the public attitude toward the species." A post-mortem autopsy revealed that Moby Doll was a male, not a female.

This male Orca, was accidentally caught in a gill net near British Columbia, Canada. Bill Lechkobit's gill net had become entangled in a reef, so he cut the net loose. In the morning, two killer whales, "blackfish" as the fishermen called them, were found in the net: A male and a calf. "The first day, the male slipped out through a place between the net and the rocks, as if showing the calf the route to freedom. The baby stayed put, so he "Namu" returned. Two days later, the calf was gone, but for some reason, he stayed there."

Namu was brought to the Seattle Public Aquarium by Ted Griffin, swimming roughly 450 miles behind Griffin's boat in a floating sea pen. The public falls in love with him: a rock 'n roll song is written and a popular movie is made with him, called "Namu the Killer Whale".

Eating 375 pounds of dead fish per day, a 5% of his body weight, is the first killer whale to perform for the public. Yet, despite his rapport with Griffin, and his acceptance of his new performance and feeding routines, Namu is heard to issue "loud, strident screams' regularly from his Rich Cove pen. At time, his cries were picked up by passing Puget Sound whales, who apparently returned his calls." Then, with no warning, Namu dies due to an infection from polluted water in his pen.

Namu, who was captured near British Columbia, Canada, died from an infection caused by the polluted water in his pen. He only survived 11 months in captivity.

The question is still present, but so far we had learned something: Captivity must be a word only present on the oldest dictionaries in the world. Captivity means nothing more than pain, deaths, bad life, skin diseases, entire families broken, suffering, and not enough laws to keep them free.

As human beings we think we own the world and destroy most of it in the name of greed. God gave human beings a highly evolved brain, yet we tend to use so little of it. What gives us the right to enslave any species for any reason, whether it be money, research or entertainment, etc. The only time it seems necessary at all is when we as the intelligent beings we are suppose to be, try to save an endangered species from disappearing from this earth. We are, after all, all God's creatures.

When are humans going to understand that they are neither the only, nor the most important creatures that reside on the planet? Until we adopt this basic philosophy, we will never truly respect other creatures.

In my own opinion, any cetacean must not be held in captivity. They have shown to be very intelligent, highly social animals, very curious, and even very specialized species, adapted to swim great lengths, dive to great depths, and they can survive where we can only go with the aid of high technology suits.

They had showed us that they can’t use any of this features in the so small prison tanks they are kept in. It is a sad reflection of us as an species. Us capturing these animals and, even worse, people that will actually pay out money to see them.

Is this all the space Marine Parks can assign to an animal who used to swim in any ocean of the World ?

If this is all what learn when we pay to see them performing tricks then, shame on us, because we have learned absolutely nothing about this marvelous creatures but how to make money from them. Let's face the problem and let’s try all to help end this slave trade in marine mammals.


Captivity: Shame on us !