rtotheizzo17 said:
That being said, if it wasn't for the SeaWorld marine parks the average person would probably never know Killer Whales existed.
Absolute garbage.
The whole jump through hoops argument, at least in SeaWorld's case, is ignorant. No animal, in any of the parks are forced to do anything they are not up for. It is strictly positive reinforcement and their food intake is not dependent on any display.
Obviously they're not going to starve their main source of income, but when they're being trained, they absolutely DO withhold food if they don't perform the trick correectly. No, it's not the main diet that they're withholding, but it's also not "positive reinforcement", whichever way they want to spin it.
Not sure what artificial insemination has to do with anything?
They don't naturally breed well in captivity, which is, usually, a sign of contentment with captive animals. The whole "happy family" of orcas that Sea World like to display with their constant forced births is total bulls**t. They like to spin the whole "conserving the species" crap, when in actual fact, people like to fawn over baby animals, and they need to keep their supply up.
SeaWorld is one of the leaders in conservation. If it wasn't for Killer Whales (and all of the animals they own) in captivity they wouldn't have a program as successful as this:
http://www.swbg-conservationfund.org/
They've been operating that fund for 10 years. How long have they been operational? They pretty much
have to be seen as some kind of ecolological charity. $1 million dollars a year, as a percentage of their profits, is laughable. I'm waiting for the "it's better than nothing" argument, but that won't wash.
To say things like the whole of SeaWorld is wrong, or SeaWorld is only looking for profit is just as ignorant as saying all gays are child touching pedophiles.
I'm not even going to dignify that ridiculous analogy with a response, other than to highlight how stupid it is.
For those who care enough to look up some of the practices of SeaWorld:
http://www.seaworldcares.com/caring-marine-mammals
For anyone else who's interested in the actual facts of the matter, try looking anywhere else other than Sea World's own website. Seriously, what do you
expect to see on there?
There are hundreds of zoological experts that work for SeaWorld
Thanks for stating the obvious.
Their qualifications are decades of study and work alongside these creatures, and they are inspired every day to work to promote these creatures.
What's that got to do with the argument at hand, which is keeping orcas in capitivity? There are far more marine biologists who
don't work for Seaworld, and if you asked them about the keeping of killer whales for entertainment, I'm sure you'd get a very different response.
What are your qualifications in this argument?
The ability to read more than what Seaworld tells me, which seems like a good start.