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Keeping Orcas in captivity - Is it wrong?

Re: SeaWorld apply to release Tilikum back to the wild

What's all this "Orca" bollocks? They're called Killer Whales - for a reason.
 
Re: SeaWorld apply to release Tilikum back to the wild

Robbie said:
What's all this "Orca" bollocks? They're called Killer Whales - for a reason.
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Yup, because they prey on seals, sea lions, fish, octopus, Dolphins, squid, sharks etc.

NOT humans.

Have you ever seen an orca hunt in the wild? A little different from how they prey on their trainers.
 
Re: SeaWorld apply to release Tilikum back to the wild

Robbie said:
What's all this "Orca" bollocks? They're called Killer Whales - for a reason.
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Seriously, do research. Actually, watch that Blackfish documentary. It's very interesting...
Although I agree boycotting SW isn't the way forward, it's disgusting how they blamed here death on her, even though she wasn't alive to defend herself.

I know many businesses lie about things, but that is just disgusting. But I guess from the viewpoint of a business, the money is more important than the dignity of a dead employee.
 
Re: SeaWorld apply to release Tilikum back to the wild

Seen Blackfish, it's good. Shows that taking a bunch of Killer Whales in a traumatic way, totally changing their way of life, and keeping them locked up in spaces way too small doing things they shouldn't do, purely for business was and is completely wrong. But just because SeaWorld keep calling them Orcas doesn't mean the clue wasn't there all along.
 
Re: SeaWorld apply to release Tilikum back to the wild

Hmm, sad news, and that story was just taking off too. There was a lot of belief out there that it was actually SeaWorld that filled the request.

In other news that can relate to Tilikum, SeaWorld are closing down the Shamu show for 3 months starting in January 2014 for tank renovations. Part of this renovation will include an underwater treadmill, which is a fantastic idea, if they can get the Orca's to use it, and also a rising floor for the show tank, this part hasn't been confirmed but it's being used in SeaWorld's court case against OSHA in order to allow the trainers back into the water. The floor would rise in the event of an Orca acting out and putting a trainer in danger, the floor would take 30 seconds to rise.
 
Re: SeaWorld apply to release Tilikum back to the wild

marc said:
The damage is done, Blackstone are trying to sell their shares.

It's not just the deaths it's more than that.
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I have seen you post this a couple of times and I was wondering what insider info you had to back this up?

Blackstone is selling about 20% of their stake (if the underwriters pick up their portion), dropping them from 60% to 40%. It is also netting them about half a billion US $ and they still will be the largest shareholder of the company.

This has been there strategy on other properties, and follows their pattern pretty well. http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-06-0 ... llion.html

SeaWorld (and Blackstone) warned investors about this movie back when SeaWorld had its IPO. This did not come out of left field.
 
Watched blackfish.

I did not think it was that bad until they started showing whales bleeding and that they hurt each other as they are just put together and expected to get on.

I see music stars have pulled out the concert and film and sports stars now speaking out.

Some accidents were trainer faults as they were sloppy and tend to forget they are wild animals.

As the film shows It's not just a problem at Sea World.

The programme has so many facts I did not find it one sided at all. Sea World lied about the trainer death though so what else do they lie about.

I don't buy into this mental thing, I think it's just an animal doing what it does but they are big so people get hurt. My cats attack me they scratch and bite why? It's built in them simple really.

But yes it's time to stop this now and no longer have these shows, it's not fair on the whales or trainers.
 
I didn't think I was going to get dragged back in here, but here is a study recently released conducted by SW, more or less disproving the basic assumption of whale and dolphin metabolisms.

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1 ... 1/abstract

New research conducted at SeaWorld aims to help scientists answer a long-standing question: What is the resting metabolic rate of a killer whale? The answer to this seemingly basic question may upset conventionally held beliefs about the impact of killer whales, an apex predator, on their environment, and help biologists make more informed management decisions for endangered killer whales in the wild.
 
Have tbh I don't really believe what SW have to say seeing how much of the trainer death they lied about.

They told us she fell in, that was not true the whole things on tape.

Anyway just wanted to post my views after seeing the film.

It's not just SW at fault, it's been going on for years. As said the film contained facts and videos to back it all up. Sea World should have accepted the interview.

Yes that research is interesting, so we learnt a lot from all the shows then?

Killer whale shows are cancelled until April now for maintance, very short notice and great timing.
 
^^ Two things.

1. We can't actually access the full article to read it.

2. Based on the basic concept of the study, how is metabolic rate actually relevant to most of the issues raised with regard to killer whales in captivity? Short answer; it's not.

Sorry, but you've posted nothing in here that hasn't come directly from the mouths of Sea World. Your entire argument has been nothing more than a trainer's script, and now you're presenting this scientific article, carried out by Sea World, as if it actually means anything in relation to the main issues at hand, when all it will really do is show how much food and exercise a captive whale physically needs.

Using that article as a justification is nothing more than slight of hand. Most people either won't read it, or won't actually understand it. They'll just see lots of scientific words and references, and assume that it's a valid, scientific argument for keeping orcas in captivity. Based on what I can actually see, it isn't.
 
Yeah, at this point any research released by Sea World on this subject has o be looked at with a grain of skepticism.

Having seen the Shamu shows and Orcas in the wild up here in the PNW, I'm pretty confident that there can be virtually no meaningful research on killer whale behavior in captivity that hasn't already been done. There's just nothing natural about it. The whales in the wild travel around massive islands and have favorite locations and more. It's like keeping a dog in a kennel it's whole life: there's nothing to be learned and it's completely unfair to the animal. It sucks for Sea World because they've banked so much on the proposition of the Shamu shows, etc. but eventually they're going to have to modify the business model if they intend on remaining viable. Some of the stuff they do with rescue and rehabilitation is truly noble and worthwhile, but the captive large aquatic mammal programs were always sketchy at best.
 
Re: SeaWorld apply to release Tilikum back to the wild

Heart is the latest band to pull out of SeaWorld Orlando's annual Bands, Brew & BBQ Festival, set for 1 February, 2014. So far, Willie Nelson and Bare Naked Ladies also cancelled planned appearances at the festival due to the controversy CNN's Blackfish documentary has fueled. Joan Jett recently requested that SeaWorld cease using her song "I Love Rock N'Roll" during their killer whale shows.
 
SeaWorld apply to release Tilikum back to the wild

T Yearwood (whoever that is) pulled out now.

Lewis Hamilton and David Beckham have watched Blackfish and spoken out on fb about SW and keeping them in captivity.
 
Re: SeaWorld apply to release Tilikum back to the wild

^Trisha Yearwood is a popular country singer who had quite a few hits in the 1990's and is married to Grath Brooks, another popular American country singer/songwriter. Yearwood is best known for winning a 1997 Grammy for the song "How Do I Live" from the Con Air movie soundtrack.
 
Re: SeaWorld apply to release Tilikum back to the wild

It really is not good for the park with all these acts pulling out.

What I want to know is if all this news is actually affecting their attendance numbers.
 
Re: SeaWorld apply to release Tilikum back to the wild

You know what? These wanna-be animal activists piss me off. They slag off Seaworld and selected zoos for not being humane to the animals, yet they visit other aquariums and zoos as a lovely family day out. Hypocritical bastards. Using animals in a zoological format as a form of entertainment has been used since the early Regency Era and it will not be changing soon.

Seaworld is clearly creating this new media storm as a backlash to the Blackfish documentary by showing "How nice they are" by wanting to return Tilikum. It's actually far from the truth.

You see, I like to think about the whole story and not just the negatives or positives of anything. Has anybody forgot what good Seaworld actually does for animal rehabilitation? Nurturing them back to health before returning them into the wild, animals of all different kinds from seals and sharks through to pelicans and other exotic birds. IF you want to hit at Seaworld for the Tilikum incident and actually boycott the place, you're actually causing more harm than good.

Yes, Seaworld Orlando is **** gross, but this is just all getting out of hand with people and faux principles wanting to pipe up and have actually no clue about the drivel that's leaving their mouths. (I'm not in reference to this topic, just the topic overall).
 
Re: SeaWorld apply to release Tilikum back to the wild

^ There's definitely an element of bandwagon jumping since the whole Blackfish thing, which is in equal parts irritating and interesting as the whole topic has now been split wide open.

The acts pulling out care about their public image and there's no doubt an element of pressure from management and fans. Willy Nelson has played Sea World before for example.

The "doing good" argument doesn't really hold water unfortunately. Plenty of other marine parks, along with countless zoos and wildlife parks, do masses of conservation and rehabilitation work. They all manage to do it without keeping killer whales.
 
SeaWorld apply to release Tilikum back to the wild

A lot of the problem is us humans.

We never used to have a problem killing for our own good. Elephants killed to make instruments for example. But now we know it's wrong and tried to stop it.

We liked seeing caged animals at a circus, again now we don't.

For years no one cared about how animals were kept but now we do.

Mark and I stopped going to see the shows years before this news simply due to a show which we did not agree with, won't go into it as I've already posted about it.

These whales will not survive in the wild, they are not part of a pod and they won't form one as they don't get on.

Read about the free willy story, when they released that whale it did not last long.

Sea world should stop the breeding programme now and give what they have a good as they can life.

And yes lofty sea world has done a lot of good for Dolphins and Manatee which I've not forgotten. But they have actually done nothing for Killer Whales other than make them perform.

More has been learnt in the wild than at zoos.
 
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