The fate of SeaWorld’s ‘Shamu’ show was forecast by the very first whale performers - The Washington Post The fate of SeaWorld’s ‘Shamu’ show was forecast by the very first whale performers The inside track on Washington politics. Be the first to know about new stories from PowerPost. Sign up to follow, and we’ll e-mail you free updates as they’re published. You’ll receive free e-mail news updates each time a new story is published. You’re all set! By Sarah Kaplan By Sarah Kaplan November 11, 2015 Follow @sarahkaplan48 SeaWorld plans to phase out its "Shamu" killer whale show at its San Diego park next year, SeaWorld executives say. (Reuters) Ted Griffin had a vision of himself on the sleek, black-and-white back of an adult orca, zipping through the sea spray along that faint blue line between water and sky. To Griffin, it was never only a dream — it was a plan. To the rest of the world, it was crazy. Until Griffin captured and displayed America’s first show orca 50 years ago, the sea creatures were something to be feared, not befriended.

“Killer whales” (which are actually a species of dolphin) were respected, even worshiped, by some native cultures, but for the most part they were viewed with deadly dread. Fishermen sometimes shot them because they interfered with their catch. Divers were taught that the whales would viciously attack any human on sight. One ancient Roman observer wrote that the creatures “cannot be properly depicted or described except as an enormous mass of flesh armed with savage teeth.” Then, in June of 1965, Griffin bought a 22-foot orca from a group of fisherman who had accidentally caught him near British Columbia (it cost him $8,000 and a win in an arm-wrestling contest). He gave the animal a name — “Namu” — a backstory and a host of human qualities, and by the time Griffin finally rode his whale several weeks later, the creatures had become a cause célèbre. Killer whales were now a lovable icon, a conservation imperative and the sudden stars of a spectacle everyone wanted to see.

In a March 7, 2011 photo, trainers Joe Sanchez, left, Brian Faulkner and Kelly Aldrich, right, work with killer whales Trua, front, Kayla, center, and Nalani during the Believe show in Shamu Stadium at the SeaWorld Orlando theme park in Orlando, Fla. (Phelan M. Ebenhack/AP) Half a century later, the world’s most famous keeper of captive killer whales, SeaWorld San Diego, has announced that it will be phasing out “theatrical” stunts like Griffin’s famous first ride. Amid plummeting profits, regulatory challenges, widespread criticism about the treatment of captive whales — not to mention the ethics of keeping them in the first place — and one very effective documentary , the park says it will unveil a new, more natural kind of “orca experience,” one without the antics and acrobatics. The change does not apply to SeaWorld’s 10 other U.S. parks, but it is perhaps a sign of things to come. American audiences are growing increasingly uncomfortable with animal entertainers, SeaWorld’s splashy shows — plagued by ailing animals and dangerous and sometimes deadly accidents involving human trainers — in particular.

Then again, the writing has been on the wall for 50 years. To understand what’s happening with SeaWorld San Diego’s last performing whales, you don’t have to look any further than what happened to the very first ones captured and displayed by Griffin. Namu, Griffin’s first captive orca, arrived at the Port of Seattle in July 1965 to unprecedented fanfare, according to Canadian magazine the Tyee . A flotilla of researchers, reporters and anyone else who could get their hands on a boat paddled out alongside the whale’s floating steel cage. Thousands of onlookers lined bridges and docks, cheering as the black-and-white behemoth was towed into the harbor. Namu appeared on the front page of every newspaper in the Pacific Northwest — and many outside it — as well as T-shirts, key chains, mugs and coloring books sold at the Seattle Aquarium, his new home. Namu wasn’t the first killer whale to be put on display, but he was the first to be put to work in the kind of acrobatics orcas are now known for.

Far from the “killers” of legend, orcas are playful, intelligent and unusually amenable to having small, enthusiastic two-legged creatures sitting astride their backs while clutching their dorsal fins. Griffin, Namu’s keeper and trainer, came to see Namu as a “pet,” he said, one that was very nearly human. “I had loved Namu passionately, perhaps with the same capacity and energy that often exists between women and men,” Griffin said in a memoir about his time with the whale. “I had wanted to spend every minute with my companion.” Shortly after Namu’s arrival, Griffin set out in search of a finned companion for Namu. In October 1965, he got what he was looking for: a 14-foot female orca he and a colleague were able to trap in a corner of the Puget Sound. They brought her back to Seattle, placed her in Namu’s enclosure and waited for sparks. They never came. Instead, the female whale became increasingly aggressive toward both Namu and Griffin. When SeaWorld came looking for an orca for its facility in San Diego, Griffin offered them the young female for $70,000, according to Outside magazine.

“They wanted to call the whale Namu, and they wanted the rights to the name, and I wouldn’t do that,” he recalled to PBS . Instead, the park settled on a portmanteau of “she” and “Namu.” (Apparently they weren’t interested in just giving the whale a name of her own.) Their new attraction would be named Shamu. “And that’s how it all started,” Griffin concluded. “It all” was several decades of aggressive whale trapping for theme parks and aquariums around the world, much of it done by Griffin himself. He and colleague Don Goldsberry sold some 30 whales during seven years of hunting, each of which sold for a $20,000 or $25,000, according to the Seattle Times . They may have rounded up as many as 10 times that number; the others escaped or were released. Or were killed. Of the dozens Griffin captured, 11 orcas died after being tangled in his nets or injured during a chase. Five of the deaths came in one fateful event at Penn Cove , a curve in Washington’s Whidbey Island where Griffin had set up a whale catching operation.

During the 1970 capture, more than 80 whales wound up in Griffin’s net — far more than he wanted. And a few of them died before he could free them. Rather than sell the animals to a rendering plant, as he usually did, Griffin ordered the creatures to be weighted and sunk, hoping to avoid bad press. But the plan didn’t work. Three of the bodies later washed ashore, their bellies slit and filled with rocks. Newspapers started asking questions, onlookers became outraged. Shortly afterward, Washington state passed legislation banning the capture of orcas in Puget Sound, and two years later, the federal Marine Mammal Protection Act ended almost all other orca captures. Meanwhile, orcas that had already been captured were surviving with only varying success. Namu, Griffin’s beloved first capture, died within a year of his arrival at the Seattle Aquarium; he fell ill after swimming in the polluted waters of the Puget Sound, Griffin told PBS , and, delirious, got tangled in the netting of his enclosure and drowned. At SeaWorld in San Diego, Shamu also ran into problems.

In her sixth year at the park, Shamu — who had previously been acting erratically — bit a young woman who fell off her back during a training session. According to legal documents , the trainer suffered 18 to 20 wounds requiring as many as 200 stitches. Shamu was taken off the performance circuit, and she died several months later. Dawn Brancheau, a whale trainer at SeaWorld Adventure Park, performing during a show in 2005. Brancheau was killed in an accident with a killer whale at the SeaWorld Shamu Stadium on Feb. 24, 2010. (Julie Fletcher/Orlando Sentinel/AP) Several of the subsequent stars of the park’s shows, all referred to as Shamu in honor of the original orca, have also behaved violently toward trainers. According to David Kirby, author of “ Death at SeaWorld ,” 15 percent of all orcas at SeaWorld parks have been involved in “acts of serious aggression” against trainers. The effects of captivity on orcas are still debated.

The Humane Society and other animal rights groups argue that the large and social animals fare poorly at aquariums and parks, where they lack companionship and are more susceptible to infection. Wild whales have a longer life expectancy, the group said in a 2011 report , and are less likely to exhibit “aberrant” behavior, including attacks on people. Captive orcas have been implicated in the deaths of at least four people since 1965; there are no records of wild orcas ever killing a human. But SeaWorld says that its captive whales connect people with nature on a scale that would be impossible if orcas only existed in the wild, and that the money it makes from exhibiting the animals goes back into protecting their habitat and preserving the species. “SeaWorld … contributes immensely to conservation through its effect on people’s thinking,” Brad Andrews, the park’s Chief Zoological Officer, told PBS .

“Conservation [has] to be a group effort, and if the public doesn’t receive the sensitivity, the education, the concern, then how is conservation going to happen?” A recent study of SeaWorld whales co-authored by researchers from SeaWorld and the Minnesota Zoo found that there is no significant difference between the survival rates of captive and free-ranging whales. That report was commissioned by SeaWorld. Regardless of the merits of SeaWorld’s arguments, people seem to have drawn their own conclusions. The 2010 killing of a beloved and highly qualified trainer by an orca that had already been involved in two other deaths, a focus of the 2013 documentary “Blackfish,” turned public opinion against the park’s circuslike spectacles. However intelligent, lovable and playful killer whales might be, they’re not “pets,” as Griffin described Namu. SeaWorld’s profits have plummeted 84 percent since “Blackfish” was released, according to Time . “We start everything by listening to our guests and evolving our shows to what we’re hearing,” SeaWorld chief executive Joel Manby told the San Diego Union-Tribune , “So far that’s what we’ve been hearing in California.

They want experiences that are more natural and experiences that look more natural in the environment.” As for Griffin, the man who started it all? He says that he wouldn’t take back any of the choices he made — not the orca captures; not the sale of Shamu; not that first, fateful voyage from British Columbia to the Port of Seattle with Namu in tow. But he doesn’t go near whales anymore, he told PBS in 1997 — the last time he gave a lengthy interview. He doesn’t even go in the water. Like SeaWorld’s, his association with whales has been tainted by decades of bad history. The closest he gets is in his boat, the orcas’ squeaks, screeches and clicks reverberating against his hull. “It’s because I know what whales do underwater,” he told PBS . “My boat follows the whales, and I ride with them.” national Killer Whale Captivity: Is Shamu Stressed? | Ian Somerhalder Foundation Killer Whale Captivity: Is Shamu Stressed? Candice Smith St. Louis University “15 St. Louis, Missouri Millions of people visit marine parks like SeaWorld every year.

They pay to come ride the roller coasters, visit the polar bears, pet the sting rays, and see the dolphin shows. There is one animal there, however, that seems to be at the center of everyone’s attention, and that is the killer whale Shamu. The big black and white whales captivate audiences with their size, power, and striking coloration. Ultimately, SeaWorld’s mascot is the orca and star of the show. However, after the show is over and everyone goes home, not many people give a second thought to what happens after the stadium is empty and the lights are turned out. After all, the animals seem happy to perform for their daily audiences, but are they? After the release of the documentary Blackfish, which examines the lives of orcas in captivity, many people are beginning to ask that exact question. The wild killer whale is truly a sight to behold: traveling in pods, swimming, and surfacing in unison, the male’s tall dorsal fin towering out of and slicing through the water. Orcas are apex predators in the ocean. Not even the mighty great white shark is a match for a killer whale.

Orcas are the second most widely distributed mammal, second only to humans, and can travel up to 100 miles a day. There are three main eco-types of killer whales or orcas: transients, residents, and offshores. Transient killer whales travel in smaller groups and feed on marine mammals such as seals, sea lions, porpoises, and dolphins. Their movements are sporadic and they tend to hunt in silence. Residents are extremely social, stay in larger family groups their whole lives, and eat mainly salmon. Their movements are more predictable when traveling. Not much is known about offshore killer whales, other than that they travel in groups of 25 or more and that they tend to eat Pacific Sleeper Sharks. All three of these different ecotypes have slightly different genetics, different vocalizations, and generally do not associate or communicate with each other. Orcas have roughly the same lifespan as humans. According to the Killer Controversy (Rose 2011), male killer whales live on average 30-50 years and females live on average 50 years, with some living into their 80s and 90s!

Research done by the Center for Whale Research estimates that one female killer whale known as ‘Granny’ in the southern resident orca population is believed to be 102 years old! Females reach sexual maturity at age 14 or 15, similar to humans, and also undergo menopause. Males will stay with their mothers their entire life, and it is the eldest female in the pod that will determine who mates with whom come breeding time. Killer whales are extremely intelligent and can figure out and adapt to different situations. It is these qualities that prompted the first killer whales to be brought into captivity. The first orca to ever be captured and put on display was Namu, captured in 1965. When it was discovered that people could work with these animals and form a relationship with them, a new business was born. Over the next few decades dozens of orcas were caught for SeaWorld and other marine parks. One capture in particular in 1970 at Penn Cove Washington, rounded up 80 orcas. The last survivor of that capture, Lolita, remains at the Miami SeaQuarium still performing daily. The southern resident orcas are still having issues recovering today because of those captures.

The capture process is brutal and includes bombs, planes, speed boats, and nets. Many orcas do not survive the ordeal. Captivity is very stressful on both wild caught and captive born orcas. A killer whale living in the wild has never seriously harmed or killed a human. In captivity their life spans are greatly shortened compared to their wild counterparts, only living on average 20 years. The orcas that have beaten that average were wild caught. One of the most visual handicaps a captive orca has is a floppy or drooped dorsal fin, seen in 100% of captive males. In the wild less than 1% have flopped over dorsal fins, and those that do are either sick or have a deformity. It is believed that the flopped over dorsal fin is caused by the lack of water pressure, flow, or depth in tanks to keep it upright. In the scientific paper “Killer Controversy” by Naomi Rose, it was also found that physically, captive orcas are not healthy animals. Many are on medications for depression, ulcers, and other illnesses.

Due to boredom, many orcas will rake (scrape their teeth against another orcas skin) and chew on the bars and concrete sides of their tanks, which can damage their teeth. In return, their teeth must be drilled, filed down, and then cleaned out every day, a procedure SeaWorld calls “exceptional dental care.” Orcas also end up ingesting hazardous materials such as paint chips and other substances from their artificial environment. Boredom and incompatibility amongst the animals can lead to aggression (Rose 2011). In the wild, orcas live in relative harmony because they are born within a strict matriarchal structure and know their place. In captivity killer whales from different eco-types are put together in the same tank. They speak different languages and exhibit different behaviors. The orcas in SeaWorld’s collection are constantly moved from park to park depending on where the company needs them. This leads to tension and ultimately to injuries and bullying. This is extremely stressful on the animals. SeaWorld and other parks also breed different eco-types together and currently have several hybrids (between resident and transient) in their collection, something that never happens in the wild.

Another unnatural event that takes place in captivity is the breeding and artificial insemination of females when they are still too young and immature to handle having a calf. Marine parks force young females at around the age of nine to get pregnant, when, as previously mentioned, the proper age of sexual maturity isn’t reached until their teens (orcahome.de). This leads to many calves being rejected, contributing to more unstable relationships and calves that need to be hand-raised. Tilikum, the largest killer whale in captivity, is the main male used in the captive breeding program and currently resides at SeaWorld Orlando. Currently, over half of the orcas in SeaWorld’s collection are related to him. This is currently causing some inbreeding issues within the captive population. Continuing to breed orcas without capturing more, and still maintaining a healthy population is becoming more and more difficult for SeaWorld parks. Presently there are 48 killer whales in captivity around the world. Capturing from the wild is illegal in the United States. However, in Russia, eight killer whales were recently captured this past month to be sold to marine parks.

There was also a young female killer whale named Morgan that was rescued, with the idea that she would be rehabilitated and released back into the wild. She now resides at Loro Parque, a marine park affiliated with SeaWorld, which has no intention of releasing her. Once an orca is taken to a park, it is very hard to advocate for its return to the wild, because the parks need these animals for their breeding programs. The documentary Blackfish is bringing the issue of captive killer whales back into the public eye. The film has played on CNN multiple times and is now available for streaming on Netflix, allowing millions of viewers and celebrities to engage in the debate as well. People are asking questions like, “is it ethical or moral to keep 6000+ pound animals in tanks for our entertainment?” “Are the benefits of seeing a killer whale up close, and possibly inspiring people to study the ocean, worth the risks to the trainers and the animals themselves?” Supporters of killer whale captivity believe so. SeaWorld says that the animals are inspiring, that they teach millions of people about the ocean and that without the orcas in tanks, people wouldn’t care enough to do anything to save their wild counterparts.

They also add that “their animals receive superior care and that SeaWorld is one of the world's most respected zoological institutions, that SeaWorld rescues, rehabilitates and returns to the wild hundreds of wild animals every year, and that SeaWorld commits millions of dollars annually to conservation and scientific research.” No one is arguing the fact that SeaWorld does great things for other animals in their parks, and spends a few million each year helping in the name of conserving certain species. Opponents to killer whale captivity are simply stating that some animals do better in captivity than others, and killer whales are not built to be one of those captive animals. No one is suggesting going out and “freeing the whales.” Many wouldn’t survive and it would not be in the best interest of the animals. However, SeaWorld could stop the breeding program and release the orcas to sea pens along the coast where the orcas could live out the rest of their lives feeling the natural rhythms of the ocean, be more stimulated, but still be cared for by humans. SeaWorld has enough money to do it, and people would still pay to come see animals be rehabilitated.

The only thing opponents of orca captivity are looking for is a shift in the way SeaWorld and other parks are handling their orcas. A shift from the circus like shows to an educational, sanctuary type setting where people can see these animals come and then go. So, are captive killer whales stressed? Is it that stress that is causing them to act out and attack, when orcas are generally peaceful beings towards humans? Activists for the rights of these animals and opponents to their captivity believe so. These animals have larger and possibly more complex brains than humans, are self-aware and deserve to live a better life. Killer whale captivity affects the animals already held captive, and it affects the wild populations that the individuals are taken from, such as the southern residents who only have 80 individuals left, and are endangered. Orca captivity is becoming a complex issue in our society, of which we have only seen the beginning. Please watch the documentary Blackfish, and visit to learn more. You can also like my page on Facebook if you would like to help Tilikum! Rose, N. A. 2011. Killer Controversy: Why Orcas Should No Longer Be Kept in Captivity.

Humane Society International and The Humane Society of the United States, Washington, D.C. 16 pp. We are continuing to email the “Get Involved” packets for ISF College. In this packet you will find all the tools necessary to begin getting involved. If you are interested in receiving a packet please send an email to college@isfoundation.net . Please include the school you are attending and what you are studying. If you have sent us an email but have not received a packet please check your Spam folder and if it is not there then send us another email and we will get right on it! We are always looking for article contributors! These are people just like you who are sharing their passions and raising awareness. Please keep those articles coming! Send your ideas or your article to college@isfoundation.net . Readers, please remember that this article is being provided subject to the ISF Terms and Conditions. Is the original Shamu alive? | Reference.com Is the original Shamu alive? A: Quick Answer The original Shamu died on August 23, 1971.

Since then the name has been used by a variety of male and female killer whales performing at SeaWorld's Shamu show, which is the theme park's most popular event. Full Answer Shamu was caught in October 1965, according to PBS, and was the first intentional live capture of a female killer whale. She was sold to SeaWorld San Diego later that year. During her final year of performing, Shamu was retired after attacking a SeaWorld employee who was attempting to ride her. SeaWorld currently operates three theme parks with locations in Orlando, Fla., San Diego, Calif. and San Antonio, Texas. The fate of SeaWorld's 'Shamu' was forecast by the very first whale performers | US | November 11, 2015 11:28 AM The fate of SeaWorld's 'Shamu' was forecast by the very first whale performers Sarah Kaplan | Washington Post Ted Griffin had a vision of himself on the sleek, black-and-white back of an adult orca, zipping through the sea spray along that faint blue line between water and sky. To Griffin, it was never only a dream - it was a plan. To the rest of the world, it was crazy.

Until Griffin captured and displayed America's first show orca 50 years ago, the sea creatures were something to be feared, not befriended. "Killer whales" (which are actually a species of dolphin) were respected, even worshiped, by some native cultures, but for the most part they were viewed with deadly dread. Fishermen sometimes shot them because they interfered with their catch. Divers were taught that the whales would viciously attack any human on sight. One ancient Roman observer wrote that the creatures "cannot be properly depicted or described except as an enormous mass of flesh armed with savage teeth." Then, in June of 1965, Griffin bought a 22-foot orca from a group of fisherman who had accidentally caught him near British Columbia (it cost him $8,000 and a win in an arm-wrestling contest). He gave the animal a name - "Namu" - a backstory and a host of human qualities, and by the time Griffin finally rode his whale several weeks later, the creatures had become a cause célèbre. Killer whales were now a lovable icon, a conservation imperative and the sudden stars of a spectacle everyone wanted to see.

Half a century later, the world's most famous keeper of captive killer whales, SeaWorld San Diego, has announced that it will be phasing out "theatrical" stunts like Griffin's famous first ride. Amid plummeting profits, regulatory challenges, widespread criticism about the treatment of captive whales - not to mention the ethics of keeping them in the first place - and one very effective documentary, the park says it will unveil a new, more natural kind of "orca experience," one without the antics and acrobatics. The change does not apply to SeaWorld's 10 other U.S. parks, but it is perhaps a sign of things to come. American audiences are growing increasingly uncomfortable with animal entertainers, SeaWorld's splashy shows - plagued by ailing animals and dangerous and sometimes deadly accidents involving human trainers - in particular. Then again, the writing has been on the wall for 50 years. To understand what's happening with SeaWorld San Diego's last performing whales, you don't have to look any further than what happened to the very first ones captured and displayed by Griffin.

"Namu," Ted Griffin's first captive orca arrived at the Port of Seattle in July 1965 to unprecedented fanfare, according to Canadian magazine the Tyee. A flotilla of researchers, reporters and anyone else who could get their hands on a boat paddled out alongside the whale's floating steel cage. Thousands of onlookers lined bridges and docks, cheering as the black-and-white behemoth was towed into the harbor. Namu appeared on the front page of every newspaper in the Pacific Northwest - and many outside it - as well as t-shirts, key chains, mugs and coloring books sold at the Seattle Aquarium, his new home. Namu wasn't the first killer whale to be put on display, but he was the first to be put to work in the kind of acrobatics orcas are now known for. Far from the "killers" of legend, orcas are playful, intelligent and unusually amenable to having small, enthusiastic two-legged creatures sitting astride their backs while clutching their dorsal fins. Griffin, Namu's keeper and trainer, came to see Namu as a "pet," he said, one that was very nearly human.

"I had loved Namu passionately, perhaps with the same capacity and energy that often exists between women and men," Griffin wrote in a memoir about his time with the whale. "I had wanted to spend every minute with my companion." Shortly after Namu's arrival, Griffin set out in search of a finned companion for Namu. In October 1965, he got what he was looking for: a 14-foot female orca he and a colleague were able to trap in a corner of the Puget Sound. They brought her back to Seattle, placed her in Namu's enclosure and waited for sparks. They never came. Instead, the female whale became increasingly aggressive toward both Namu and Griffin. When SeaWorld came looking for an orca for its facility in San Diego, Griffin offered them the young female for $70,000, according to Outside magazine. "They wanted to call the whale Namu and they wanted the rights to the name, and I wouldn't do that," he recalled to PBS. Instead, the park settled on a portmanteau of "she" and "Namu" (apparently they weren't interested in just giving the whale a name of her own).

Their new attraction would be named Shamu. "And that's how it all started," Griffin concluded. "It all" was several decades of aggressive whale trapping for theme parks and aquariums around the world, much of it done by Griffin himself. He and colleague Don Goldsberry sold some 30 whales during seven years of hunting, each of which sold for a $20,000 or $25,000, according to the Seattle Times. They may have rounded up as many as 10 times that number; the others escaped or were released. Or were killed. Of the dozens Griffin captured, 11 orcas died after being tangled in his nets or injured during a chase. Five of the deaths came in one fateful event at Penn Cove, a curve in Washington's Whidbey Island where Griffin had set up a whale catching operation. During the 1970 capture, more than 80 whales wound up in Griffin's net - far more than he wanted. And a few of them died before he could free them. Rather than sell the animals to a rendering plant, as he usually did, Griffin ordered the creatures to be weighted and sunk, hoping to avoid bad press.

But the plan didn't work. Three of the bodies later washed ashore, their bellies slit and filled with rocks. Newspapers started asking questions, onlookers became outraged. Shortly afterward, Washington State passed legislation banning the capture of orcas in Puget Sound and two years later the federal Marine Mammal Protection Act ended almost all other orca captures. Meanwhile, orcas that had already been captured were surviving with only varying success. Namu, Griffin's beloved first capture, died within a year of his arrival at the Seattle Aquarium; he fell ill after swimming in the polluted waters of the Puget Sound, Griffin told PBS, and, delirious, got tangled in the netting of his enclosure and drowned. At SeaWorld in San Diego, Shamu also ran into problems. In her sixth year at the park, Shamu - who had previously been acting erratically - bit a young woman who fell off her back during a training session. According to legal documents, the trainer suffered 18 to 20 wounds requiring as many as 200 stitches. Shamu was taken off the performance circuit and she died several months later.

Several of the subsequent stars of the park's shows, all referred to as "Shamu" in honor of the original orca, have also behaved violently toward trainers. According to David Kirby, author of "Death at SeaWorld," 15 percent of all orcas at SeaWorld parks have been involved in "acts of serious aggression" against trainers. The effects of captivity on orcas are still debated. The Humane Society and other animal rights groups argue that the large and social animals fare poorly at aquariums and parks, where they lack companionship and are more susceptible to infection. Wild whales have a longer life expectancy, the group said in a 2011 report, and are less likely to exhibit "aberrant" behavior, including attacks on people. Captive orcas have been implicated in the deaths of at least four people since 1965; there are no records of wild orcas ever killing a human. But SeaWorld says that its captive whales connect people with nature on a scale that would be impossible if orcas only existed in the wild, and that the money it makes from exhibiting the animals goes back into protecting their habitat and preserving the species. "SeaWorld . . .

contributes immensely to conservation through its effect on people's thinking," Brad Andrews, the park's Chief Zoological Officer, told PBS. "Conservation [has] to be a group effort, and if the public doesn't receive the sensitivity, the education, the concern, then how is conservation going to happen?" A recent study of SeaWorld whales coauthored by researchers from SeaWorld and the Minnesota Zoo found that there is no significant difference between the survival rates of captive and free ranging whales. That report was commissioned by SeaWorld. Regardless of the merits of SeaWorld's arguments, people seem to have drawn their own conclusions. The 2010 killing of a beloved and highly qualified trainer by an orca that had already been involved in two other deaths, a focus of the 2013 documentary "Blackfish," turned public opinion against the park's circus-like spectacles. However intelligent, lovable and playful killer whales might be, they're not "pets," as Griffin described Namu. SeaWorld's profits have plummeted 84 percent since "Blackfish" was released, according to Time.

"We start everything by listening to our guests and evolving our shows to what we're hearing, " CEO Joel Manby told the San Diego Union-Tribune, "So far that's what we've been hearing in California, they want experiences that are more natural and experiences that look more natural in the environment." As for Ted Griffin, the man who started it all? He wouldn't take back any of the choices he made - not the orca captures; not the sale of Shamu; not that first, fateful voyage from British Columbia to the Port of Seattle with Namu in tow. But he doesn't go near whales any more, he told PBS in 1997 - the last time he gave a lengthy interview. He doesn't even go in the water. Like SeaWorld's, his association with whales has been tainted by decades of bad history. The closest he gets is out in his boat, the orca's' squeaks, screeches and clicks reverberating against his hull. "It's because I know what whales do underwater," he told PBS.

"My boat follows the whales and I ride with them." ---------- Stories Of Captive Killer Whales | A Whale Of A Business | FRONTLINE | PBS WATCH SCHEDULE TOPICS ABOUT FRONTLINE SHOP TEACHER CENTER ...the first live orca exhibited in captivity.Vancouver Aquarium commissioned 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. He 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. "Immediately, 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, according to observers, 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 whale...but the orca did not die. 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 Drydocks, 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...would not eat.

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 begins 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 dies 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." Postscript: the autopsy revealed Moby Doll to be a male, not a female. (Source: "ORCA: The Whale Called Killer," by Erich Hoyt, 1990 edition) the bull killer whale is accidentally caught in a gill net near Namu, British Columbia, Canada. Fisherman 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 bull and a calf. "The first day, ...the bull 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 the bull returned. Two days later, the calf was gone, but for some reason, the bull remained." Namu is 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"). He eats 375 pounds of dead fish a day--five percent of his body weight. He 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. It is July, 1966. He had survived 11 months in captivity. ...Caught by Ted Griffin and Don Goldsberry in Carr Inlet, Washington, Shamu was their first successful live-capture orca whale, and the first in a long succession of ' Shamus' - the stage name given to performing orcas in the U.S. Sea World chain of parks. They put her in the pen with Namu for a short time, they were apparently good companions, then she was flown to Sea World San Diego in December, 1965. According to Erich Hoyt's book, Shamu made distress calls throughout her first day at Sea World. Not always nice, on one occasion, she bit a girl's leg and played tug-of-war with her, reports Hoyt. Shamu died at Sea World San Diego in August, 1971, after six years in captivity. ...Lolita is caught during a highly controversial 1970 whale roundup at Penn Cove, Washington.

Several whales die during this roundup and later wash up on a beach, with bellies slit and weighed down by steel chains. Several other whales from that set were sent to aquariums. Lolita alone survives. She lives and performs at the Miami Seaquarium in Florida. (Note: "Lolita's Legion" was formed in 1996. It is a group of schoolchildren working to free Lolita and includes 3000 children in six countries. For information, email Carl Dortch: lkitto@gfk.auracom.com.) ...Keiko is caught off Iceland. A calf, barely 2 years old, he gets caught in a herring fishing net and is shipped on a cargo plane from Iceland to Marineland of Ontario, Canada. One of six orcas being trained by the park, he is the youngest and most timid. 1985--Keiko is bought by Reino Aventura, an amusement park in Mexico City, Mexico. 1992--Keiko is cast in the Warner Brother's film, "Free Willy," by producers Lauren Shuler-Donner and Jenny Lew Tugend.

1993--"Free Willy" is released, and becomes Warner Brothers' second highest-grossing movie that year at the box office. After the film is over, more than 300,000 people from around the world call an 800 number at the end of the film, expressing their wish that Keiko be released, like the Willy character he played in the film. 1995--"Free Willy II" is released to the theaters. 1996 January --Keiko moves to Oregon Coast Aquarium in Newport to begin his rehabilitation, after two years of negotiations between the Free Willy Keiko Foundation and Reino Aventura. The goal: to teach him to eat live fish again, to increase his vigor, muscle tone, skin condition, and weight, so that he may be released to the wild and hopefully, reunited with his family. 1997-98 Training Keiko to capture and eat live fish continues, together with overall conditioning.

The current plan is to relocate Keiko to a protected sea pen in the North Atlantic, possibly in 1998, where he can continue to receive care and begin a final phase of rehabilitation, until it's decided whether he can be released to the wild. Possible sea-pen sites under consideration include Iceland, Ireland and Scotland. In 1977, Corky had her first calf, the first killer whale to be conceived and born in captivity. But the calf was brain damaged, and soon died--and so did at least four more of Corky's calves. Corky's calf born in 1986 failed to nurse, so every six hours, around the clock, Marineland employees hand-fed the baby. Corky II is believed to be from the A5 pod, which lives in the waters off northern Washington and southern British Columbia. She was caught in Pender Harbor, B.C, Canada, in December, 1969, sent to Marineland in California until 1987, then to Sea World, California, where she is still alive, performing, and producing today, under the "stage name" Shamu.

When a tape of Corky's family vocalizations (recorded by orca expert Paul Spong) is played for Corky, she shudders long and visibly. Junior spent his first two years post-capture in Saedyrasafnid, Iceland. At the end of 1986, he went to Marineland of Ontario in Canada. Zoocheck Canada Inc wrote this memorial for Junior: "Junior was a male Icelandic orca whale who languished in a tiny tank inside a 'warehouse' at Marineland for more than four years, cut off from outside air, sunlight and normal companionship. Junior died at Marineland in 1994." According to whale expert Erich Hoyt, other orcas who have died at Marineland include: Kandu II, Kandy, 'No name' and 'No Name.'" (Source: Zoocheck Canada Inc., in Toronto; "ORCA: The Whale Called Killer," by Erich Hoyt, 1990 edition) Captured in November, 1983, in the waters of Iceland.

He was at Saedyrasafnid, Iceland, until November, 1984, and then was moved to Sealand of the Pacific, a marine park in Victoria, British Columbia. In November, 1991, Tillikum is an estimated 20 feet long, and 11 years old. Sea World, Inc., applies to U.S. National Marine Fisheries Service for a permit to import the male orca, noting that Sealand of the Pacific plans to discontinue the display of killer whales in its facility in 1992. It also notes that the two female orcas at Sealand with Tillikum are pregnant. Sea World's application reads: "Due to the disruptive and potentially harmful impact this male may have on the success of mother/calf nursing and bonding, authorization is requested for the relocation of this animal to Sea World of Florida as soon as possible."January, 1992: To separate him from the other orcas, Sealand places Tillikum in a tiny holding pool, where his health is undermined to such a degree, that Sea World applies for, and receives, a permit to import Tillikum on a medical emergency basis.

SeaWorld - Killer whales - Pictures - CBS News Killer whales Next Killer whales The orca is beloved by many. Many Americans, in particular, came of age watching the "Free Willy" films and attending the popular Shamu Shows at SeaWorld. Killer whales have long been the subject of fascination. In recent years, however, they have also become the subject of much debate, as news reports and critically acclaimed documentaries examine the potentially averse effects of captivity on these majestic animals. So, how much do we really know about them? Credit: Valery Hache/AFP/Getty Images 40 peas in a pod Killer whales hunt in deadly groups of up to 40 animals, called pods. Within these groups, they utilize cooperative hunting techniques, like those of wolf packs. Credit: Valery Hache/AFP/Getty Images Pods on the hunt There are two types of orca pods: those with resident populations and those with transient populations. And the population of the pod tends to determine what it hunts. Resident pods generally hunt fish, while transient pods have been known to hunt everything from seals and sea lions, to penguins and blue whales. Orcas in New Zealand even eat stingrays. That's a pretty mean diet.

Credit: Elaine Thompson/AP Life expectancy In the wild, killer whales can live between 50 and 80 years. One female orca even lived to 103. In captivity, however, orcas' life expectancies are often cut short. While the actual numbers are highly disputed, PETA argues that the average age of whales who have died in captivity since 1965 (when orcas were first captured and displayed in exhibitions) is just 12-years-old. Credit: Bob Couey/SeaWorld San Diego via Getty Images Big man on campus The largest killer whale on record was 32 feet long and weighed 22,000 pounds. Credit: Robin Utrecht/AFP/Getty Images Unique dialects Every pod has a unique dialect of sounds. So, orcas can recognize calls from members of their own pod, up to several miles away. Credit: Mike Aguilera/SeaWorld San Diego via Getty Images Aggression Though orcas have occasionally shown aggression to humans and each other in captivity, they are not considered a threat to humans in the wild. There have been very few documented cases of orcas attacking people in their natural habitat, none of which were fatal encounters.

Credit: Elaine Thompson/AP Back in the saddle Orcas have a squiggly gray patch, just below the dorsal fin, called a saddle. Saddles can either be closed (uniformly gray) or open, with patches of black at their center. The shape and color variations of these saddle patches, however, are totally unique, and can be used to identify individual orcas in the wild. Credit: Lionel Cironneau/AP Kings of the food chain Killer whales are apex predators. That means that, much like lions in Africa, they sit at the very top of the food chain, and have no natural predators in the ocean. That is, of course, until humans started hunting them, contaminating their waters, and affecting their food supply. Now, certain groups of killer whales -- like the Southern Resident population, which inhabits the waters near British Columbia and Washington state -- are considered endangered. Credit: Elaine Thompson/AP A killer pregnancy Female orcas give birth every three to ten years, after pregnancies that last 17 months. This photo was taken just moments after a 28-year-old female orca, named Kasatka, gave birth to a newborn killer whale at SeaWorld San Diego's Shamu Stadium in December 2004.

The calf was born weighing between 300 and 350 pounds, measuring between 6 and 7 feet. And we thought humans had it bad! Credit: SeaWorld via Getty Images Families Orcas are social animals that essentially live in stable families. So, after a mother gives birth, she isn't alone in taking care of her calf. The other adolescent females in the pod help out as well. Credit: Sandra Mu/Getty Images Teeth fit for a killer A killer whale's teeth can be up to four inches long. Credit: Valery Hache/AFP/Getty Images A whale of a meal The average orca weighs about 6 tons, eats approximately 300 pounds of food per day, and clocks in at about three-quarters the length of a school bus. Credit: Valery Hache/AFP/Getty Images/iStock UV rays Due to the shallow nature of tanks at marine parks, orcas in captivity spend far more time at the water's surface than their counterparts in the wild. Many experts believe that this increased exposure to UV rays may play a part in shortening captive orcas' life expectancy. Credit: Phelan M.

Ebenhack/AP Collapsed dorsal fins One hundred percent of male orcas in captivity have dorsal fins that are partially or completely collapsed to one side, like the one on Tilikum pictured here. Many of the female orcas in captivity have these collapsed dorsal fins as well. Though SeaWorld claims, "Neither the shape nor the droop of a whale's dorsal fin are indicators of a killer whale's health or well-being," collapsed dorsal fins are extremely rare in the wild. When they do occur, they are the result of serious injury or environmental contamination. Two male orcas were found with collapsed dorsal fins after they were exposed to the Exxon Valdez oil spill, for example. They both died shortly after. Credit: Phelan M. Ebenhack/AP While we call them killer whales, orcas are actually members of the dolphin family. Credit: Elaine Thompson/AP Echolocation Orcas communicate using echolocation during hunts. That means they make distinct sounds, which travel underwater until they encounter the object the orcas are looking for. Then, the sounds bounce back, revealing the object's shape, size and location. Credit: Chris Park/AP Killer whales Orcas are extremely versatile animals.

They prefer cold, coastal waters, but can be found everywhere from the polar regions to the Equator. Credit: Sea World Australia via Getty Images Mama's boys Killer whales stick close to their mothers, living and traveling in her pod, even after they are full-grown. In captivity, however, financial decisions often sever those family bonds. The documentary, "Blackfish," even highlights one case in which a mother orca was recorded emitting long range calls in a desperate attempt to communicate with a child who had been transferred. Credit: Phelan M. Ebenhack/AP Killer whales As of October 2015, 58 orcas are living in captivity, in over a dozen different theme parks in eight different countries. Here, Orca Morgan swims in her tank at the Dolfinarium in Harderwijk, Netherlands. Animal rights activists lost a last ditch appeal in an Amsterdam court to release her back into the wild. As a result, Morgan was transferred to Spanish marine park Loro Parque on Tenerife island instead. Credit: Peter Dejong/AP SeaWorld SeaWorld has three marine mammal parks in the U.S., located in California, Florida and Texas.

Killer whales are its main attraction because they are so intelligent that they can be trained to perform amazing tricks during shows. In 2013, however, a film, called "Blackfish," exposed millions of people to the story of Tilikum, one of SeaWorld's captive orcas, who has been involved in the deaths of three people. Since then, SeaWorld has been bleeding money and seen drastically decreased attendance. Now, in late 2015, they are responding to the public's widespread scrutiny by beginning to phase out the Shamu show at their San Diego location. Animal activists, however, believe the move may be too little too late. Credit: Bob Couey/SeaWorld San Diego via Getty Images SeaWorld's future In 2017, SeaWorld intends to replace the longstanding whale shows at its San Diego park with a different orca experience that would bring with it "a conservation message inspiring people to act," according to a company document posted on its website. It remains unclear if the productions will continue at the company's other parks in Orlando, Florida, and San Antonio, Texas. The decision to phase out the shows in San Diego is the result of customer feedback, a company representative said.

"People love companies that have a purpose, even public companies -- I don't have to tell you what Whole Foods stands for. I don't see any reason SeaWorld can't be one of those brands," Joel Manby, SeaWorld's president and CEO, said at an investor's day conference on November 9, 2015. "We're not there today," he added. Credit: AP Blackfish: when killer whales attack Blackfish: when killer whales attack Feature Dawn Brancheau performing at SeaWorld on December 30 2005, five years before she was killed Credit: AP Photo/Orlando Sentinel/Julie Fletcher Philip Hoare 11 March 2016 • 6:41pm Killer whale Tilikum - who is now seriously ill and believed to be close to death - was driven mad in captivity. Read his story here This article was first published on July 15 2013. In March 2016, it was reported that captive killer whale Tilikum, the subject of Gabriela Cowperthwaite's 2013 documentary Blackfish, was dying after contracting a bacterial lung infection.

Cowperthwaite described his story as "profoundly tragic in every way". On February 24 2010, news channels across the world reported that Dawn Brancheau, an experienced trainer of killer whales at SeaWorld Orlando, had been found dead in the pool . A huge male orca, Tilikum, had leapt out of the water as Brancheau had been talking about the creature to a group of visitors, grabbed her with its jaws and dragged her under the water, where she drowned. Initially, there were calls for the “rogue” whale to be put down. But as the facts began to emerge, the story grew darker and more complicated, as revealed by Gabriela Cowperthwaite’s astonishing documentary, Blackfish . “I first heard about the story on the news,” the director told me, on a visit to London. “I didn’t understand it. I had a lot of questions.” Those questions led Cowperthwaite to an extraordinary human drama, framed by the greater drama of our troubled relationship with animals that we claim to love, yet which we allow to be treated in appalling ways.

Brancheau was a marathon runner; she’d been growing her hair to donate as wigs for cancer sufferers. Tied in a ponytail that day, her hair became a toy to Tilikum. As the whale grabbed it, Brancheau broke free. But he grabbed her again, dragging her to the bottom of the pool. The audience were quickly led away as the horror played out. Tilikum scalped Brancheau. Her fellow trainers had to prise open the whale’s jaws to release her body. Part of her arm came off in the animal’s mouth, which he then swallowed. It was a terrible scene. SeaWorld reported it as a tragic accident. But Cowperthwaite’s film suggests it was more than that. I saw my first whale in the unlikely surroundings of Windsor Safari Park in the early Seventies. In those days of the “Save the Whale” campaigns, my sisters and I had become obsessed with whales, and pestered our parents to take us to Windsor. We arrived in time to watch the opening act, a troupe of bottlenose dolphins. I remember feeling uneasy as they balanced balls on their beaks, jumped through hoops, and caught their reward, a fresh fish.

The sight of these wild animals in what amounted to an overgrown municipal pool disturbed me. But not as much as what came next. A big black gate opened up at one end of the pool, and in swam Ramu. Winnie the orca performing at Windsor Safari Park, May 1989 The killer whale – or orca – is a truly magnificent creature. It can reach 30ft in length, and with its black-and-white markings and conical, sharp teeth, it is a beautiful, highly intelligent and social animal. In the wild, orca swim in close-knit family pods. Their society is matriarchal; males stay with their mothers all their lives, and females may outlive males by two decades, reaching 80 or more. As my sisters and I watched, this alpha predator patrolled the pool. Then it went through the same routine as the dolphins: jumping through a hoop, balancing a ball on its nose, catching fish in its fearsome mouth. Most pathetic of all, Ramu’s 6ft dorsal fin flopped over its back, a symbol of its emasculation.

In the wild, only one per cent of males suffer dorsal collapse; in captivity, 100 per cent do. As Tim Zimmermann, who wrote the screenplay for Blackfish, notes, the trade in orca began in 1965 when Ted Griffin of Seattle Marine Aquarium spent $8,000 on a 22ft killer whale that had been accidentally caught in fishing nets off Namu, British Columbia. As Griffin and his team towed “Namu” south in a floating pen, the rest of the whale’s pod, including his mother, followed behind. Young whales were taken because they were easier to manage. Namu performs at the Seattle Marine Aquarium in 1966 In Cowperthwaite’s film, men who took part in similar “kidnappings” weep on camera as they recall separating young whales from their families. Later, in an even more upsetting scene, an infant orca born at SeaWorld is taken from its mother, who then begins to make sounds never heard before. Analysed by experts, they were found to be long-distance calls: she was trying to reach her calf, now hundreds of miles away in another oceanarium.

Namu died within a year, but that did not deter Don Goldsberry, Griffin’s partner. “A blunt, hard-driving man”, he saw a business opportunity. Setting up his operation in the North-West Pacific, he trapped 15 orca in Puget Sound, selling one female, named Shamu, to SeaWorld in San Diego for $70,000. Goldsberry’s trade “helped SeaWorld turn killer whales into killer profits”, says Zimmermann. But the dealer went too far when he used explosives to drive orca into his nets at Olympia, Washington state, in 1976. Public outcry at reports of the terrified whales and their screams led to a lawsuit, filed by the State of Washington, contending that Goldsberry and SeaWorld had violated permits that required humane capture and, as the bad publicity built, Goldsberry switched operations to Iceland, where killer whales were plentiful. It was there, in 1983, that Goldsberry caught the young whale that would kill Brancheau.

Dawn Brancheau performing with Tilikum shortly before her death on February 24 2010 Credit: Todd Connell Tilikum – which means “friend” in Chinook, the language of the North-West Native Americans – was kept in a tank near Reykjavik for a year. As Zimmermann says, all he could do was “cruise slowly in circles or lie still on the surface. He could hear no ocean sounds, only the mechanical rush of filtration.” It was the equivalent of solitary confinement for a human – and probably the start of the whale’s psychosis. In 1984 Tilikum was shipped to Sealand, Vancouver Island, along with two females, Haida and Nootka. But the “attraction” lost money, and Sealand sold its whales to SeaWorld. Tilikum’s transfer fee was $1million. He was as valuable as a football player – not for his ball skills, but for his semen. His future was as a stud whale: today, 90 per cent of SeaWorld’s captive-bred orca bear Tilikum’s genes. Conditions for Tilikum seemed much better in Orlando.

But, according to Cowperthwaite’s film, he was bullied by Haida and Nootka, and left wounded, trailing bloody “sky-writing” as he swam around. He was then moved to a smaller pool, on his own, which also added to his stress. John Jett, a former trainer, told me how, like me, he fell in love with cetaceans as a boy. After acquiring a science degree, he applied for a job at SeaWorld, where he became an apprentice trainer. “You learnt on the job,” he says. But Jett was soon disabused of his idealism. He claims SeaWorld was more concerned with training its staff in how to respond to “sceptical guests” than in encouraging scientific research. “You got media training on how to deflect awkward questions – told how to put a positive spin on things,” he says. He felt intimidated and was convinced that if he complained he’d be punished by being moved to work with the sea lions. SeaWorld says this is simply not true. Credit: Handout In Jett’s account the organisation’s hold over its employees was akin to that of a cult.

Dedicated young trainers were emotionally blackmailed, he claims, by being told that the whales would suffer if they made a fuss. SeaWorld, again, says this has “no basis in fact”. But another former trainer to whom I spoke, John Hargrove, echoed much of what Jett told me. The company, he said, “used us to craft their image. The public would see how much we loved the animals – so they left happy, under that illusion.” They claim that the reality was rather different. Jett spent a lot of time working with Tilikum, who he says was already in a bad state. “Many of his teeth were broken and infected – he was on antibiotics most of the time. He got the c--- beaten out of him by the other animals. He actually dragged his flukes on the floor of the pool – he was longer than the pool is deep. SeaWorld admits Tilikum has tooth problems but says he is only given antibiotics “when his condition requires it”. He is not a “regular target of aggression by other whales” and “experiences the full range of social interaction”.

Nevertheless, Jett was so appalled by what he witnessed at SeaWorld that he resigned in 1996. KILLER WHALES (Orcinus orca) - Longevity & Causes of Death Longevity & Causes of Death Longevity Survivorship in the wild. Different methods exist for estimating the life spans of killer whales. While some researchers believe they know conclusively how long killer whales live, the scientific community does not yet fully agree on this topic. By counting growth layers in teeth, scientists find that killer whales in the North Atlantic may live to 35 years. Studies are still refining this method of aging. The photo-identification of killer whales in the Pacific Northwest began in 1973 and provides one of the longest cetacean field studies ever. When factored in at birth, the average life expectancy of southern and northern resident killer whales is about 29 years for females and 17 years for males. If a killer whale survives the first six months, a female's average life expectancy is within the range of 46 to 50 years and a male's is 30 to 38 years. Survivorship in marine life parks.

New research shows there is no difference in life expectancy between killer whales born at SeaWorld and a well-studied population of wild killer whales. Data collected on life-history parameters of known-age animals from the northern (NR) and southern resident (SR) killer whales of the eastern North Pacific were compared with life-history traits of killer whales located at SeaWorld (SEA) facilities. Annual survival rate (ASR) for SEA increased over approximately 15-year increments with rates in the most recent period (2000-2015 ASR: 0.976) improved over the first 2 periods of captivity (1965-1985: 0.906; 1985-2000: 0.941). The survival rate (SR) (0.966) and ASR for the combined data for both the southern residents and whales of the eastern North Pacific (0.977) were higher than that of SEA until 2000, after which there were no inter-population differences.

Based on ASR, median and average life expectancy were 28.8 and 41.6 years (SEA: 2000-2015), 20.1 and 29.0 years (SR), and 29.3 and 42.3 years (NR), respectively. The ASR for animals born at SEA (0.979) was higher than that of wild-caught SEA animals (0.944) with a median and average life expectancy of 33.1 and 47.7 years, respectively. These data present evidence for similar life-history parameters of free-ranging and captive killer whale populations and the reproductive potential and survivorship patterns established herein have application for use in future research concerning the overall health of both populations. Currently at SeaWorld, five killer whales are older than 30 with one being close to 50. At SeaWorld parks, animal trainers routinely take a variety of measurements — including length, girth, and fin height — of killer whales. For a whale born at SeaWorld, experts are able to relate these measurements to the known age of the whale. This information helps provide a baseline for growth studies on wild killer whales.

Calf survivorship. For unknown reasons, researchers suspect killer whale calf mortality within the first six months to be "very high". In the Pacific Northwest, for example, an estimated 43% of all calves die in the first six months. In other killer whale populations, calf mortality may be as high as 50% during the first year. Data collected on life-history parameters of known-age animals from the northern (NR) and southern resident (SR) killer whales of the eastern North Pacific were compared with life-history traits of killer whales located at SeaWorld (SEA) facilities. Average calf survival rate to 2 years of age for SEA animals (0.966) was significantly greater than that for SR killer whale populations (0.799). Diseases, Parasites, and Predators Killer whales and other whales develop stomach ulcers, skin diseases, tumors, heart disease, and respiratory disorders. Hodgkin's disease has been seen in killer whales and stranded killer whales have shown severe atherosclerosis of the coronary arteries. Recently described disease conditions include Salmonellosis in a neonatal stranded calf and West Nile Virus in an adult. Endogenous retroviruses have also been documented within the killer whale genome.

The significance of these viruses on the health of killer whale populations is yet unknown. Killer whales suffer from viral, bacterial, and fungal infections. Parasites — including roundworms, tapeworms, and flukes — may affect a killer whale's health. In most cases, parasite infestations alone are unlikely to debilitate otherwise healthy animals, but they may harm animals that are already weakened by other illnesses or injuries. Killer whales in New Zealand have evidence of small, non-fatal cookiecutter shark bites in their skin. Killer whales are a top predator. Healthy adult killer whales have no natural predators of note. Stranding A marine animal may strand if it is affected by a severe, debilitating illness or injury, or if it is too weak to swim or hunt for food. Killer whales have stranded in Alaska due to rapidly receding tides. On rare occasions, killer whales strand, individually or in groups (called mass stranding). Mass strandings of whales and dolphins are natural phenomena that are largely unexplained. In many cases, the stranded animals are ill. SeaWorld has helped in the rescue of many types of cetaceans, including killer whales.

SeaWorld aided killer whales trapped in Barnes Lake, Alaska, and was part of the team that helped "Springer", an orphaned two-year-old found off Canada's northern Vancouver Island in 2002. SeaWorld assisted the Dolfinarium in Holland with veterinary care and husbandry for an orphaned and hearing-impaired rescued juvenile killer whale. 10 Things You Didn't Know About SeaWorld - SeaWorld of Hurt 10 Things You Didn’t Know About SeaWorld 1. Their Sunburns Are Covered Up With Black Zinc Oxide Orcas at SeaWorld spend most of their time floating listlessly at the surface of the water with little to no shade from the hot blistering sun. In the wild, orcas spend up to 95 percent of their time submerged and would find shade in the depths of the ocean, but at SeaWorld their tanks are far too shallow. Their deepest tank is 40 feet deep —not nearly deep enough to give them a reprieve from the harsh elements. Because of this, orcas have perpetual sunburns, which are shielded from the public eye with the help of black zinc oxide, which matches their skin.

Although zinc oxide is also used as a sunblock, orcas almost always have sunburn before it is applied. 2. Some Orcas Were Kidnapped and Sent to SeaWorld Five orcas currently at SeaWorld were kidnapped from their ocean homes, as were others who have since died. For example, Tilikum , a 32-year-old orca, was captured at the age of 2 by a marine “cowboy.” Tilikum wasn’t taken from his natural environment because he was injured—instead, he was torn away from his family against his will and confined to a small concrete tank for a hefty profit. 3. Killed If Not Captured In 1965, the first-ever orca show at SeaWorld was performed by a female orca named Shamu at SeaWorld San Diego. During Shamu’s capture, her mother was shot with a harpoon and killed before the young orca’s very eyes by a marine “cowboy” named Ted Griffin. Griffin’s partner, Don Goldsberry, later worked for SeaWorld and was assigned to bring orcas into the park.

He continued kidnapping and slaughtering orcas, and at one point, he hired divers to slit open the bellies of four orcas, fill them with rocks, put anchors around their tails, and sink them to the bottom of the ocean so that their deaths would not be discovered. © Dr. Newby 4. Trainers Masturbate the Whales to Collect Sperm In nature, orcas choose their own mates. But at SeaWorld, orcas are forced to breed on a regular basis. Male orcas are trained to float on their backs, and their trainers masturbate them to collect their sperm. Females are artificially inseminated and forced to breed at a much younger age than they would in nature. Katina is used as a virtual breeding machine and is even being inbred with her own sons. 5. Unsafe For SeaWorld’s Trainers SeaWorld’s corporate incident log contains reports of more than 100 incidents of orca aggression at its parks, often resulting in injuries to humans and even causing one death by extensive internal bleeding.

Following a 2006 attack by an orca on a trainer at SeaWorld in San Diego, the California Division of Occupational Safety and Health concluded that it was “only a matter of time” before someone was killed while interacting with the orcas. A further investigation into these attacks could have prevented injuries and deaths. 6. Orcas In Captivity Have A Shorter Lifespan Orcas in the wild have an average life expectancy of 30 to 50 years—their estimated maximum life span is 60 to 70 years for males and 80 to more than 100 for females. The median age of orcas in captivity is only 9. © Free Morgan Foundation 7. Collapsed Dorsal Fins Are Not Normal or Healthy In captivity, all male orcas have collapsed dorsal fins as adults, which is a sign of an unhealthy orca. SeaWorld claims that this condition is common and natural for all orcas. However, collapsed dorsal fins are caused by the unnatural environment of captivity and are rarely seen in the wild. Only 1 to 5 percent of male orcas in some populations (and none in others) have fully collapsed dorsal fins.

"Shamu" (Tilikum) | Milan Boers | CC BY 2.0 8. Trainers are Performers, not Biologists Contrary to popular belief, trainers often have no formal education in marine biology. Their main purpose is to entertain and put on a “good” show for visitors, not educate people about the intelligence, social nature, or natural families, foraging behavior, and habitats of the animals held at SeaWorld. Photo credit: eschipul | CC by 2.0 9. SeaWorld Fails to Care for Animals On January 11, 2012, the USDA issued an official warning to SeaWorld San Antonio for its “repeated failure to provide drain covers that are securely fastened in order to minimize the potential risk of animal entrapment”—a violation that resulted in the death of a sea lion.In March 2013, prompted by PETA’s complaint about a child who had been bitten by a dolphin at SeaWorld, the USDA conducted an investigation and cited the marine park for several violations of the Animal Welfare Act, including the use of expired surgical materials, some almost a decade old.

The USDA also documented that a dolphin tank and the areas surrounding the orca performance tank were in disrepair and contained cracked and crumbling concrete and rusty beams that could pose a threat to the health and safety of both the animals and workers. The USDA pointed out that the unsafe conditions “might create a health risk if these pieces of concrete fall off into the pool and get ingested, or if they become abrasive” and that they “do not facilitate cleaning and disinfection.” © Ingrid N. Visser, Ph.D. 10. Animals Suffer in Cramped, Unnatural Living Conditions SeaWorld confines whales and dolphins—who often swim up to 100 miles a day in the wild—to tanks that, to them, are the size of a bathtub. SeaWorld presents itself as a family establishment full of fun “educational” activities. However, these activities harm animals physically and emotionally. SeaWorld has the financial means and ability to create coastal sanctuaries, where the orcas would have a more natural and less stressful life and where they could feel the tides and waves; see, sense, and communicate with their wild relatives and other ocean animals; and engage in other natural behavior that they are now denied.

However, the park instead chooses to stick with the same inhumane business model that it has used for 50 years, despite all the violent and deadly incidents and evidence of harm. Please say NO to SeaWorld and its enslavement of animals by refusing to buy a ticket to this abusement park, and ask the marine park to release these animals to sanctuaries.

Question: Shamu, caught in 1965, was what type of animal?
Answer: Orca