12

A V ision for
the Future

The prospect of a SeaWorld in financial decline does not fill me with glee.
The company may be motivated by greed and it may have exploited
both orcas and trainers, but SeaWorld is, paradoxically, the best hope
for the 30 killer whales that it owns.
In its confrontation with orca advocates over proposed legislation
to ensure the well-being of its killer whales, SeaWorld does little to
hide the fact that it is, first and foremost, a business and more interested in conserving its assets and profits than in conserving species. During testimony for Californias proposed orca law, a lobbyist
representing SeaWorld said that if Assemblyman Blooms bill passed,
SeaWorld would simply move its whales out of California because it
could no longer make money on them in the state. Or else, the lobbyist threatened, if California forced SeaWorld to change its killer whale
policies, then California itself should foot the bill. You ban them, you
buy them.
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Be n e at h t h e S u r fac e

The corporation lined up witness after witness to testify to the

economic losses the San Diego area would suffer if SeaWorld decided
to decamp. The core of the companys arguments to keep things as
they are was financial and economic.
SeaWorld is missing an opportunity here. If it had a true vision
of the future, the company could argue that it is the only institution
that can afford to take care of most, if not all, of the 30 whales it
ownsbecause those whales cannot be released into the wild. They
have become so dysfunctional due to years of captivity that they would
likely not survive in nature. Their socializations are abnormal; they are
also hybrids of orcas that would never have occurred in nature; and
they are now increasingly inbred. The responsible way to free captive
whales is to reinsert them into the family units they were originally
taken from. But the whales in the system who were taken that way
are a small number: Kasatka, Katina, Ulises, Corky, Tilikum. I do
not know whether the records of their pods of descent have enough
information to determine where they could be reintroducedand
whether their families will even take them back. We dont even know
if Kasatkas mother survived her capture.
The remaining whales were born in captivity. SeaWorld has so
tampered with the fertility cycles of its female killer whaleswho
are fertilized at abnormally young agesthat they may never be able
to adjust to the society of free matriarchal whales. Furthermore, true
freedom would be a difficult adjustment because the orcas of SeaWorld
dont know how to hunt for their own food. They have also been conditioned psychologically to interact with humans in complex rewardfor-behavior scenarios that could make integration into the wild world
of the ocean frightening. Their healththeir teeth especiallyhas
been badly compromised. Without the constant pulpotomies that we
performed to relieve their tooth abscesses, they would become even
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A V i sion f or t h e F u t u r e

more susceptible to infection or die of hunger and malnourishment.

Only SeaWorld has the staff and the know-how to pay close attention
to the ills of captivity.
The problem is that SeaWorld cant make that argument because
it would contradict the current image it projects of itself as the benign
protector of the orcas in its care. All of the reasons its orcas cannot be
returned to nature stem from the fact that they have been psychologically and physically damaged by captivity.
So what can SeaWorld do? It can take responsibility and revolutionize its business model to appeal to the burgeoning generation
of Americans and people around the world who are increasingly
convinced that keeping orcasor any animalin circus-performer
captivity is morally and ethically wrong. SeaWorld can accede to the
prescription of Californias orca bill and build out sea pens that the
public can visitfor the price of admissionto learn how captivity
transforms cetaceans. A sea pen is an open ocean enclosure anchored
to the ocean floor that provides a vastly more natural environment for
the orcas. It is the closest sanctuary that human beings can construct
for orcas whose lives and behavior have been compromised by captivity. SeaWorld cannot fully make up for its sins but it can atoneand
teach the rest of humankind about its mistakes in the process.
At the very least, there should be an attempt to gather up all the
solitary killer whales in captivitythat is, from marine parks that
own only a single orcaand put them in a more social environment.
Kshamenk, the Argentine orca whose sperm was used to inseminate
both Kasatka and Takara, is one such lonely whale, swimming in
Mundo Marino, a marine park outside Buenos Aires. Lolita lives alone
in the Miami Seaquarium; Kiska in Marineland in Ontario. The sizes
of their tanks are constricting. The conditions under which these solitary whales live are sickeningand all for greed.
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