Seaworld a Killer Whale Prison

Essay

By

Mathieu Rioux

Presented to

Sheila Cleroux

In the course

ESE1003

English Communication

March 30th 2016

Collège Boréal

SeaWorld: A Killer Whale Prison

Killer whales are known to be the largest dolphin, amongst the dolphin species. They are also known to be the top predator of their ecosystem. They are the most intelligent marine creature known to man, they’re such beautiful animals. But for some Killer Whales, captivity cuts their freedom and enjoyment of life short. Captivity can cause serious damage to these animals, it can cause serious mental illnesses and also physical damage but it’s not only a risk to the animals but a risk to the trainers but yet people keep profiting from Killer Whales. In captivity many Killer Whales can suffer from poor physical health. In fact, in the wild Killer whales can easily travel up to 50 to 100 miles a day. However, in captivity the Killer Whales are put in a small tank which is most likely 2 times to 3 times their size and they are forced to swim around in circle and to even sit there and float which in fact terrible for a Killer Whales health to float motionless in a tank.

The stress of captivity can cause Killer Whales to display strange behavior, which could lead to terrible consequences. These result can include a premature death of the animal, depression, and of course as we have seen it on the news injury of trainers. Science can place a confirmation on the fact that captivity makes a Killer Whale suffer from high mortality rates, low breeding success and may cause physical and psychological damage to the animal. In fact, in the wild, Killer Whales can travel in pods of between 5 to 30 other Killer Whales. Pods can sometimes combine themselves with other pods and make a big pod of 100 Killer Whales if not more, many researchers have proven that, different pods of Killer whales have different ways of communication, but in captivity Killer Whales are isolated for most of their times, except for when they performed and when they train. Which makes them unable to communicate with each other what so ever as they should be in the wild. Another terrible thing we do as human beings is practice mass breeding of Killer Whales. Many of the Killer Whales in captivity today are being overbred, crossbred and even inbred. Tilikum is the largest Killer Whale in captivity, he is used as the main source of sperm at SeaWorld and for that, people believe that is the reason why he will not be released into the wild. This can cause serious damage, because in the wild Killer Whales choose their own mate, and those families stay together for a lifetime, Killer Whale families never separate. Babies stay with their mothers until the mother passes. But in that case, this isn’t what’s going on. The lifespan of a Killer Whale in captivity is about

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