No more Killer Whale shows at SeaWorld

[O.Supreme]

[EricDent]

I have only been to Orlando Sea World once and it was decent.

I can see that people do get a bit carried away with all the conservation thing.
However keeping these animals safe from whalers (they are still active) is also important.

As a youngster I went to a mall in Tacoma, WA that had a gorilla in a really small enclosure.
This was brought up in the national news a couple years after that, and they eventually moved that gorilla to the Atlanta zoo. Yep, it was Willie B (I saw him at the zoo later as well).

[lhb412]

Even as a kid I felt an unease with animals being caged or confined or made to perform solely for the entertainment of humans. As I've gotten older it's matured into an outright dislike. I'll be glad to see it phased out.

I think it all started when I was a wee tyke read a Calvin and Hobbes strip with this exchange:

Calvin - Mom wants to know if we could visit the zoo later.
Hobbes - Could we visit a prison afterward?

[The Great MM]

If people dislike other people training animals to do tricks, they better not be teaching their dogs to sit, lay down, fetch, bark, and shake paws. Hell, they shouldn't even be training their dogs/pets to be house broken. Exact same concept as the SW trainers teaching Orcas to do tricks.

Now, as for cruelty to the animals themselves. No comment. I refuse to believe everything in a movie that is blatantly made to bash Sea World. Hell, I never even seen it. But I do agree that Sea World (and other zoos) should be constantly under a watchful eye of someone or some organization to prevent REAL harm and abuse. As far as I'm concerned, teaching an animal to perform and do tricks is not abuse. As long as it doesn't hurt the animal in the long run.

[2004Zilla]

Perhaps this is for the better. I have no doubt that those Killer Whales were

[DannyBeane]

Such a shame. I wonder what will be done with all that delicious whale meat.

[canofhumdingers]

I don't see anything wrong with training animals so long as it's done in a humane way (and yes I know it can become a can of worms trying to define what that means). But there are plenty or animals that actually like being trained and it actually benefits them as well as the trainers or other people. Dogs are the obvious example. Of course there's the professional dogs for search and rescue, bomb sniffing, etc. but even my dog at home loves to do tricks. And I mean LOVES it. And not just because he gets treats sometimes. It's a part of playing for him and he genuinely likes to learn new things and then be praised for doing it well. I have to believe there are plenty of other animals that also like this kind of activity. And we as the human race have learned an enormous amount of valuable information by training animals.

That being said, killer whales are predators. I think a lot ofpeople forget that training a killer whale is kind of akin to training a lion or a bear or something. It's just plain dangerous. And they are huge animals that need very large spaces. While I'm certainly not opposed to domesticating* and training animals, perhaps some animals are better suited to it than others? Maybe killer whales just aren't the best choice for this type of interaction? I don't know.

*as an aside, I think people get way to hung up on the whole "these are WILD animals, not domesticated house pets!" aspect of this kind of issue. Where do you think domesticated animals came from? All animals were wild at some point in the past... But again, I defer to my earlier statement about some animals being better suited to domesticating than others...

[Jared]

[The Great MM]

[Jared]

That's...very colorful and imaginative, but it's not what I was saying at all. The tricks themselves really aren't the issue - it's the means of getting those tricks, which in this case we're talking about a 12,000 lbs marine mammal that's biologically designed to roam thousands of miles...how is it even a conceivably good idea to throw them in a tiny tank? It's idiotic, especially knowing what we know now.

You don't even need to watch the documentary to sort out some basic facts:

A) A sign of poor health in male Orcas is the collapsed dorsal fin - less than 1% in the wild have it, while 100% of whales in captivity have it.

B) Orcas have human life spans in the wild, but only live thirty to forty years tops in captivity.

C) Unlike any other creature on earth, Orcas stay with their parents/siblings/pod for life, and as a result they suffer serious traumas when torn apart. Bringing them to Sea World and mixing several different "nations" of Orca from different parts of the world and putting them in a swimming pool has resulted in some brutal and atypical violence between them.

D) Wild Orcas generally don't attack people (there's only one reported injury in history and zero deaths), while Orcas in captivity attack repeatedly and have killed four people.

If you can't see the difference between that and teaching your dog (which has been successfully domesticated for thousands of years) to fetch in your backyard, then I don't even know what to tell you.

[The Great MM]

[Jared]

[Benjamin Haines]

Excellent news. I've been to SeaWorld and it's atrocious, the kind of googly-eyed exploitation tailored to the notion that animals exist to serve people. My status as the dominant species on the planet needs no reassurance through draconian "entertainment," nor am I the type of person to keep a dog locked up in my back yard for the duration of its life, so this is a pillar of American culture that can't collapse fast enough as far as I'm concerned.

[Jared]

^Right on, brotha...

[The Great MM]

[Jared]

[canofhumdingers]

[The Great MM]

[DannyBeane]

[The Great MM]

[Jared]