The inspiration for this post. I understand that SeaWorld is a leader in wildlife rehabilitation and treatment and I believe that do plenty of positive work for the environment. Despite these truths I think that a response such as this is an admission of at least some guilt on their end for the events that have taken place in their pools. I think Seaworld needs to reevaluate some things with statements like these coming out:
SW: To promote its bias that killer whales should not be maintained in a zoological setting, the film paints a distorted picture that withholds from viewers key facts about SeaWorld -- among them, 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. Perhaps most important, the film fails to mention SeaWorld's commitment to the safety of its team members and guests and to the care and welfare of its animals, as demonstrated by the company's continual refinement and improvement to its killer whale facilities, equipment and procedures both before and after the death of Dawn Brancheau.
I'm calling BS SeaWorld.
So it's been about a week since the fallout from the CNN premiere of Blackfish has died down. I wanted to wait, gather some info, and see how the masses reacted before putting something up about it. It would make for a pretty boring read if at this point SeaWorld had already gone down in flames. Alas, it has not so there is still quite solid ground for debate on the issue of keeping orcas in captivity. This situation delves into several issues ranging from human-animal interaction, the pros and cons of captivity, and just how aware the public (and in some cases the employees themselves) is about the true function and operational practices of establishments such as SeaWorld. Now this analysis isn't an attempt to tear SeaWorld down brick by watery brick but more a chance for me to really gather some info and shed some light on what I think is a truly gripping issue. After watching Blackfish for the first time I was, as the writers had intended, yearning for a change and quite upset. Even with all that emotion swirling around and memories of Free Willy cropping up, I needed to hear both sides of the story. My inquisitive mind can only stay under the spell of directed emotion for so long.
I hope keep this at a respectable length while also broaching the topics with accuracy and proper scrutiny. I'll first speak to the events leading up to the film and the subsequent events surrounding the current controversy. The arguments from both sides have merit and despite popular opinion, SeaWorld is still afloat so they must have some legs to stand on. I'd like to include some data about what SeaWorld actually does because I'm afraid that most people, myself included, have a glazed over "ooo look at Shamoo" approach when it comes to the function of the establishment. And lastly I'll give my opinion about what I think is right as we move forward. The resolution of this predicament will likely have lasting implications for the future of animal rights and the national view of captivity practices.
The Deep Blue Sea
"Blackfish" focuses on the capture of a one Tilikum, an above average sized male Orca, and the ensuing events that have brought us to the firestorm currently being witnessed across the nation. Whaling has been in practice for a long time, dating back as far as the early 50s. Mainly in Russia, thousands of Orcas would be captured and killed per year. Russian sailers took over 3,000 and forced that International Whaling Commission to enact a ban, however this wouldn't fully be in effect for many years. (There is currently no location on the planet where these animals can be hunted purely for sport) Enter Tilikum. Fast forward to 1983 and a then 2 year old Tilikum is captured in Iceland. He was sent off to a less than desirable location in the form of Sealand of the Pacific. Now this isn't just my opinion running rampant, many people interviewed in documentaries and news articles mention that the facility was not up to snuff. Even the owner himself, shortly after closing down the park, mentioned that he didn't think the park should remain open due to lack of space and funding for proper care. All of these things are related to the functioning and well being of the animals held within the park. This brings me to the next point, an unfortunate recurring theme in this piece, the first death in relation to Orcas being kept in Captivity. This event has been well covered, but some of the dialogue surrounding it form the core of my opinion about Orcas being held in captivity.
Taken from Wikipedia:
"Keltie Byrne a 20-year old marine biology student and competitive swimmer, slipped into the tank of the three whales while she was working as a part-time trainer. Although Tilikum was not the orca who initially touched Byrne, he, orca Haida II and Nootka IV submerged Keltie below the water. The three whales began dragging her around the pool in their mouths, tossing her back and forth in the air, and submerging her. At one point she reached the side and tried to climb out but, as horrified visitors watched from the sidelines, the whales pulled her screaming back into the pool. The other trainers responding to her screams, throw her a life-ring, but the whales kept her away from it. She surfaced three times screaming. It was several hours before her body could be recovered from the whales. The whales had stripped the clothes off the body.
Both females were pregnant at the time, which was not known to the trainers.
In my opinion this horrific event should have been enough to halt the development of Orca captivity programs like forever, but I guess like they say where there is a bill there is a way to make it. Several of the factors that went into this tragedy disturb me and are in my opinion inherently disturbing.
Mistake #1: Capturing the damn animal in the first place, and opening a lower quality facility such as Sealand that houses these animals in tiny spaces. This lack of free space to play and explore in could very possibly have lead to the increased aggression or dementia shown in whales such as Tilkum. I went online to discover how vast the living range of Orcas is and they are found in all oceans. To do the math I again consulted the internet and came up with something to the tune of 343,423,668,428,484,681,262 gallons.
NNo
Now that is a large amount of gallons, but considering that these animals do not dive to the deepest parts I cut the number by two thirds accounting for the fact that the average ocean depth is around 12,000 feet. This bring the number to 114,474,556,142,833,000,000 gallons.
N
Now the reported volume of the show tank at SeaWorld Orlando is only 7 million gallons so to find what percentage of the potential free range the show pool is I simply divided the numbers and I got
.00000000000000611%.
Something tells me that housing these animals in pools this size and even smaller is a bad idea for the mental and physical health. Seeing the same set of walls day in and day out has been known to drive humans insane.
Mistake #2: The Orcas were reportedly had zero "water work" which meant they had no interaction with humans in the water and a reaction to a mishap such as a fall into the water could not have been predicted
.00000000000000611%.
Something tells me that housing these animals in pools this size and even smaller is a bad idea for the mental and physical health. Seeing the same set of walls day in and day out has been known to drive humans insane.
Mistake #2: The Orcas were reportedly had zero "water work" which meant they had no interaction with humans in the water and a reaction to a mishap such as a fall into the water could not have been predicted
Mistake #3: Having a part time employee anywhere near Orcas, or any animal for that matter, with no training
Mistake #4: Having three extremely large animals in one tank, especially when there had been clear documentation of aggression between them (I mean come on not one but three possibly agitated multi thousand animals in one tank)
Mistake #5: Apparently the two females were pregnant and the staff was unaware. I can understand being unaware for a spectator but for the people charged with the care of these animals this was unacceptable. If the trend of often aggressive behavior found in many other animal mothers carries over to orcas, hint it definitely does, that spells trouble for others entering the environment of expecting mothers
Mistake #6: The facility itself was comically unsafe given the nature of the inhabitants. An entire post could be dedicated to the lack of safety measures in place at the time. Again I must play devil's advocate in an attempt to be fare and say that this whole idea was new at the time so the trainers and staff were learning things every day. Even with that being said just looking at the recommended additions to safety at the part in the coroner's report are mind boggling. I'll let you look for yourself
The list goes on and on but unfortunately the sequence of events that transpired that day cannot be reversed. One would hope that even though the slip was an accident the ensuing events were worthy of enough caution to never place another person in that situation again. I mean accidents happen every single day and if your accident happens around an 8,000 pound animal there's not a whole lot people can do for you if the situation goes south.
Mistake #7: Not learning from dialogue such as this
Steve Huxter was head trainer at Sealand and had worked with Tilli before. He states, "The one person here in Victoria that he (Tilikum) had an accident with, it was purely excited, play behavior". Going on to add, "Tilikum was a very well balanced and a very gentle animal. They have personalities, they have good days, they have bad days, they have emotions."
The head trainer says here that like humans these animals have emotions and with that comes days both good and bad. I'm not debating that point whatsoever, but my issue comes with the idea that knowing that these animals are highly intelligent and have shown such mood swing ability, is that a risk we are willing to take. After I first saw "Blackfish" I posted on facebook saying that I didn't care how good a swimmer you are or how long you've been a trainer, are you willing to bet your life on it when things go south between you and the animal. Part of that argument can be found in this instance because Keltie was a very good competition level swimmer. It's almost comical that the one championship swimmer had to be the victim, only to further one point that no matter how strong a swimmer you are things can change in an instant.
Following these events Tilikum was transferred to SeaWorld in Orlando and Sealand closed down. Unfortunately this was only the beginning of a tumultuous life for Tilikum and even today he is still performing after a long life of unfortunate circumstances and being used as a breeder.
Blood in the Water
I will briefly mention the other casualties and near death experiences leading up to the event that has sparked the most controversy, that being the death of head SeaWorld trainer Dawn Brancheau.
It boggles my mind still that even after such a myriad of other instances including broken bones, fractures, stitches, near deaths, and deaths this practice continues. I honestly don't know how for so long the excuse of "the whale was just being curious/playful" has been sufficient. I can't speculate about the trainers loyalty to the parks they worked at or how much influence SeaWorld has in this arena but apparently its plentiful. If my life was threatened by an enormous animal in an element that I have basically zero control in I don't think "Cuddles was being playful" would be enough to get me back in the water yet alone sway people to believe that it's ok. Part of the defense for many of the incidents revolve around inexperience on the trainers part, but several of these occasions involve senior or even head trainers as in the case of Ms. Brancheau.
If you've clicked the link above about the extensive list of close calls related to Orcas and their trainers, you know that the body of evidence for dangerous scenarios is well documented. Having three highly publicized deaths is one thing, but to have this staggering yet relatively unknown number of injuries and near death situations is potentially more damaging to the industry's image.
I won't focus on all those situations listed above as wikipedia does a fine job listing them out, but I will select a few to mention as we move onto the data analysis portion of the story.
Incident #1: March 1987
I'm mentioning this incident as to refer to it later when addressing SeaWorld's "unaware of the risks" statement posed in response to the Brancheau incident. This occurrence involved a young SeaWorld trainer by the name of Jonathan Smith. The official report states that he was dragged to the bottom of the tank and while still bleeding brought back to the surface and "spat out." I'm not an expert in wild animal training but I do feel my common sense skills are of a commendable degree, and I believe one of your occupational hazards is "possibility of being eaten alive" there are some issues with that training field. The result in this case luckily was not another death, however Mr. Smith suffered cuts on his torso, a ruptured kidney, and a lacerated liver. These are not minor injuries and they occurred on SeaWorld property. How SeaWorld could claim negligence more than 20 years later is beyond me.
Incident #2: July 1999
The security at SeaWorld has been reported to be top notch due to the value of the park's inhabitants and the inherent danger to anyone that might find themselves in a restricted area after hours. I'm positive that the conditions were not as they were at Sealand, where posted safety placards were missing, because Seaworld is a multibillion dollar industry and I've seen them with my own eyes. This incident is telling of possible foul play because despite the man who lost life being homeless, possibly drunk, and more possibly on some sort of mind altering stimulant he managed to be in this state and bypass the state of the art (or maybe not) security at SeaWorld. The statement from staff after the fact made it clear that the man had to overcome some substantial obstacles to enter the Tank including a plexiglass barrier and some fences. I'm not doubting the hardware in this scenario, it's the human error that I'm more concerned about. According to statements from "Blackfish" there are also security cameras and guards on night watch that would undoubtedly have an eye on the park's main attraction and prized possession. I can give the benefit of the doubt to a certain extent but to tell me that this main in his condition bypassed the fences, plexiglass, cameras, and human eyes pushes me passed that point.
Incident #3: November 2006
I'm covering this event because to be honest it was one of the most horrifying few minutes I've ever witnessed. To see someone fighting for their life and knowing there is absolutely nothing you can do about it is frightening. I believe that is an issue lying at the crux of all this discussion and debate. In the end, when things go badly with these animals, there is quite literally nothing we can do. This time at an evening show in 2006 at the SeaWorld park in Orlando, experienced trainer Kenneth Peters found himself on the brink of death. The orca in question was named Kasatka and had been involved in another terrifying incident only weeks before. Perhaps he was feeling confident is his ability to keep control of situation, as I believe trainers can and should, especially because it was Peters who helped save a fellow trainer's life weeks before when a whale heeded his call to return to a separate area. How this show went on with the same whale so close the previous incident is bewildering and more proof against the statements put forth by SeaWorld that they were unaware of potential danger to trainers. On this night Peters was grabbed and dragged to the bottom of the pool for an extended period of time. This cycle was repeated several times as trainers and audience members looked on in horror. Luckily Peters was an experienced trainer and SCUBA diver, and was able to remain calm while also remembering to purge in an effort not to pass out. After nine long minues he was released but as he swam to safety the whale was clearly chasing him. He barely escaped with his life and suffered injuries to his legs. This is perhaps the most telling incident of all prior to the Brancheau case because even with all of his training and SCUBA experience the force of nature in the water with him nearly took his life.
Incident #4: February 2010
Let me preface this by saying the think that the Dawn Brancheau incident was a tragedy first and foremost. I think that some of that is forgotten as people shift focus to revenge on SeaWorld or the ramification of her death. I do not believe SeaWorld was at fault for this particular incident and I don't think Ms. Brancheau was in the wrong to a degree. There are things that could have been more intelligently on both sides but for SeaWorld to publicly state that they place blame on the deceased Brancheau is both a backhanded and hypocritical remark for which I believe is a clear sign of attempted deflection and guilt. How dare they criticize not only one of their most beloved staff members but someone who lost their life making money for the very company she loved so much.
This event is very complex and several factors go into what happened. The three aforementioned events are relatively more black and white, however thanks to the "Blackfish" movie we can see that things on this fateful day were not all as the should have been. First and foremost the whale in question had at this point already been involved in two other deaths so why trainers were still allowed to be in the water with him raise several questions about the ethical practices at SeaWorld. The event in question had been well rehearsed and Ms. Brancheau was a senior trainer so her experience was never in question. Some of here decisions that day however are open to interpretation and put in question her good judgement. According to the reports surrounding the incident Tilikum had begun to show diminishing levels of responsiveness to Brancheau's commands pre show as her reservoir of food was running dangerously low. The trainers use an action-reward system to accomplish the feats seen during the shows. This is where I believe that the show should have either been postponed or cancelled. If the head trainer cannot control the animal then she has no business entering the water. However, it was reported that she felt she had regained enough control by the time the show began to go on performing. I won't call into question her knowledge of the animal and the situation, but I still think that if all of the factors had been considered prior to this incident she would never have had to be there in the first place.
The show went on and it was not until after that the events in question transpired. Apparently after the show while on a water platform Brancheau was pulled into the water by her arm. SeaWorld initially reported that she was pulled in by her hair, despite several eyewitness accounts including their own staff, saying that it was in fact her arm. Tilikum did not release her until much later on and the cause of death was reported to be drowing, however the extent of her injuries are gruesome and much more likely the cause of mortality. I can condone the actions of Brancheau because she regained control and performed the show. I do not blame her for her death because you cannot predict the behavior of these large animals even though they are "trained." What I cannot condone is the behavior by SeaWorld after the fact. From blaming the death on Brancheau and misrepresenting the facts in an attempt to deflect from the truth is disgraceful. The ensuing trial revolved around OHSA's calling out of SeaWorld for displaying a "fundamental lack of safety and understanding of safety requirements." SeaWorld also remained steadfast in saying that they "had no knowledge that working with killer whales posed a hazard to employees." I haven't heard many lies as bold faced as this. I can't bring myself to defend them on this issue. I prefaced one of the incidents in this section by saying it would provide evidence attesting to this very claim. The Jonathan Smith incident happened at SeaWorld more than 20 years prior! Furthermore there had been nationally televised depictions of the events involving Kenneth Peters, and there had been trouble with orcas at a sister park just months earlier, with an Orca born at SeaWorld. Unless the higher ups at SeaWorld claim inability to read the news or view television then their argument is supremely invalid. Even after all of this fallout and trial, SeaWorld came away with a "slap on the wrist" in the form of a $12,000. It would seem more professional for them to pay the maximum fine in a show of respect for one of their fallen staff members, however at that point the level of professionalism expected from SeaWorld in things of this matter had diminished considerably.
What have we learned from this sampling of disastrous events? First there is a clear and present danger whenever trainers enter the water. To deny this is to lie. The trainers have reason to believe that they are safe and I completely support the effectiveness of training on these animals. The outliers/unknown variables are where the danger stems from. You can't predict how these animals will act at any given moment and you can't know when the line is crossed between playful behavior and aggression. What you do know about both of those scenarios is that both have taken human lives. We know that holding these large animals in tanks that contain We have also learned that SeaWorld is clearly at fault for not handling the situation in a clear and professional manner and will go to great lengths to ensure their image remains intact. Even with all of these incidences brought to light there are always two sides to every story. Even though the regulations and practices of SeaWorld management are very questionable, they do not represent SeaWorld as a whole. I hope to shed light on the good that SeaWorld does for the world's wildlife, that is often lost under the veil of tragedy and malpractice.
The Man Behind the Mask
It's easy to get caught up in the firestorm that is the controversy surrounding recent events, however the good and positive aspects of SeaWorld have been well documented. I'm not saying, in the least, that SeaWorld is excused of past transgressions against humans and animals alike. It's not like if the organization rescues 100 animals they get a free pass on an orca killing someone. That's just not valid argument and anyone using it should feel hefty amounts of shame.
I wanted to to dig a little deeper and scratch some dirt off the other side of the coin because I know that SeaWorld didn't become a leader in the industry of wildlife preservation by a stroke of luck.
0 comments: