In Fairness, My Last Word

In the interest of fairness, I went to Sea World’s Website to check them out, and I did learn a few things. Since 1965 they have rescued and rehabilitated over 17,000 stranded, sick, or injured animals, and they do conduct an endangered species breeding program. You may be interested to know that Tilikum (I’ve been misspelling his name), also affectionately known as Tily, was caught in November, 1983 near Iceland—remember the US Marine Mammal Protection Act of 1972? Apparently other nations don’t feel shy about violating it and then selling the whales to us (while the Marine Mammal Protection act put a stop to Pacific Ocean captures, it didn’t end those occurring near Iceland). Tily is currently the largest orca in captivity, weighing in at around 13,000 lb., or about six-and-a -half tons. At this moment, there are 42 captive orca whales (according to Wikipedia), and Tily is the sire of 15 of them per the most recent head count.

Blog posts at Sea World’s site are full of comments about the recent incident, but what interested me was that a number of people, including youngsters, stated how inspired they had been by the work being done there. One young person wanted to become a veterinarian, for example. I can honestly say I can applaud much of what the people at Sea World are doing. It is not cheap to rescue and rehabilitate wild animals, but that is not what is happening with the orca population there—or if whales are being rehabbed, that does not seem to be the main thrust of the program. Also, I wonder how much it costs to keep 29 orca trainers employed, not counting the staff required to take care of the animals. That can’t be cheap either. Trained killer whale shows are big business, and many people don't want to admit it.

I would sincerely like to know what kind of conditions these animals live in? Are they happy? Do they engage in a healthy social life, or are they isolated from each other-and if so, why and how often? These are questions I can’t answer without going there and seeing first-hand, and frankly, that won’t be happening, because I can’t afford it!

I could not find out how many shows are done weekly at Sea World in Orlando, Florida, but the (on-line only) purchase of a ticket to Sea World guarantees you one visit anytime within one year from the date of purchase. With that ticket you can visit a second time free within seven days of your initial visit. The price of an adult ticket on-line is $78.95, and a child’s ticket is $68.95. If you buy a ticket good for two parks, it will cost $109.95 for one adult and $99.95 for one child. The bonus is that with a multipark ticket, you get unlimited admission, plus free round-trip transportation between Sea World and Busch Gardens. Wow! That’s a pretty good deal, but at the same time, only available to people with the time and money to go there, and that leaves a lot of us out.

You might be interested to know that there is an effort being mounted to return Lolita, the solitary remaining whale at the Miami Seaquarium, to the wild in her native waters off Puget Sound. According to researchers, she still vocalizes in the unique language shared by the Puget Sound orcas—which NOAA has listed as endangered. Apparently the Board of the Seaquarium has not yet ratified the agreement put forward by the Orca Network ( http://www.orcanetwork.org/) , and based on what happened with Keiko, I question whether it is the right way to go. She should not have to remain isolated where she is, however, and I doubt many people would disagree with that.

Addendum: The Tragedy of Captive Killer Whales

I did not mention this, but one thing I cannot emphasize enough is that $$MONEY$$ is the real motivator for much of what is happening with the captive killer whale population in the United States. People can excuse having them by the need to study and understand them—which I personally can agree is important. The fact remains, however, that if Grandpa and little Suzie weren’t willing to cough up the big bucks for those Sea World tickets, the shows would not be happening. If you disagree with me, let me remind you that three movies and a TV series were made about Keiko (or a fictional killer whale in part patterned after him), and another one is due out soon. If we were truly interested in learning how to communicate with them and in what they are really like as creatures, it seems to me that we’d be studying them more in their natural environment, and we certainly wouldn’t be training them to do tricks.

While SETI (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence) is a noteworthy endeavor, what will happen if we ever do find someone out there? We’d better know how to communicate with someone other than ourselves (which we don’t do well either) if we have any dreams of it ending other than badly—for us. Remember The Day the Earth Stood Still starring Michael Rennie (1951), War of the Worlds starring Gene Barry (1953), or how about The Arrival, starring Charlie Sheen (1996)? I remember a Gahan Wilson cartoon in Playboy Magazine many years ago when I was in college that showed a huge gray amoeba-like alien oozing down the highway in the middle of a Southwestern desert scene, heading for a little restaurant on the horizon with a huge neon sign above it that said, “EAT.” If we do find intelligent alien life somewhere, we have a good chance of ending up just like our killer whales, unless they happen to be a benevolent species, such as the Vulcans in Star Trek: First Contact (1996).

The other thing I need to say is that I was taught from a very early age when working with the horses we had on our ranch not to EVER turn my back on a stallion. And, it’s never a good idea to turn your back on any animal that is larger, stronger, and faster than you. If they should decide to attack, then you have no clue it is coming until it is far too late. I was taught to never underestimate them, and to never take them for granted—no matter how much I loved them or thought they might love me. I ignored that advice a couple of times and was injured because I was foolhardy enough to do so. Lucky for me, I was not killed, but I have a hunch that Ms. Brancheau made this fatal error and paid dearly for it. A hunting animal will always look for the moment when the prey animal’s guard is down to move in, and who knows how Tillikum really regarded his trainers? An animal will never go against its true nature, and we disregard this fact at our peril.

Another thing to remember is that what may be play to them will harm us. I well remember one time when my six-month-old Arabian filly Mafdiy (whom I had been around since the moment of her birth) suddenly whirled around in front of me, kicked up her heels, and struck me on the point of the hip. I was her human "Mom," and I know it was intended as play, since we had been playing a version of Tag in the pasture, but she forgot that I was not just another horse. It was nothing more than a tap, but I was brought my knees in pain. It could have been far worse, and even then it was enough to hurt a great deal. She expressed afterwards that she was very sorry, but we never played like that again, and both of us learned a lesson.

I am reminded of an old Indian story which tells of a scorpion who wanted to cross a river, but he couldn’t unless he persuaded another animal to carry him across. None were willing to take him though, because he was a scorpion and would sting them and kill them. He was about to give up when finally a fox agreed to take him across, but he had to promise that he would not sting the fox. The scorpion said, “Well of course I won’t sting you! We’d both drown in the river and neither of us would get to the other side!” So the fox let the scorpion get on his back and swam into the river. All was going well, and they were about halfway across, when suddenly the fox felt a sharp prick in his back. In shock, he realized that the scorpion had stung him after all, and in a rage he screamed, “Scorpion, why did you sting me when you promised not to? Now we will both die, and it’s all your fault!” The scorpion said, “I know Fox, and I’m truly sorry; but you see, I’m a scorpion, it’s my nature to sting, and I couldn’t help myself.”

The Tragedy of Captive Killer Whales

The death of Dawn Brancheau, erstwhile trainer of Tillikum the Killer Whale, at Sea World on February 24, 2010 prompted a great deal of outrage on both sides of the question regarding wild animals performing in captivity, in particular killer whales. People wondered how an animal obviously beloved by its trainer could turn on her so unpredictably. According to her sister, Diane Gross, Dawn was living her dream and would never want any harm to come to the animal. She loved working with him.

Tillikum had in fact been implicated in the deaths of two other people prior to this incident, but Chuck Tompkins, head of animal training at all SeaWorld parks, in an interview with the CBS Early Show stated, “There wasn't anything to indicate to us that there was a problem.” Oh really? While with Sealand of the Pacific in British Columbia, a trainer drowned in his enclosure, before he was sold as a breeding animal to Sea World in Orlando, Florida. Then in 1999 a man, who snuck into the facility during the night, was found dead of hypothermia in Tillicum’s tank one morning. There was no sign the whale actually killed him, though he did have bumps and bruises on his body. Neither of these deaths may have been “his fault”, but due to his blemished history, only a dozen of Sea World’s 29 trainers were allowed to work with him, and none were supposed to be in the water with him.

Remember Keiko? The killer whale who starred in the 1993 Warner Brothers movies Free Willy? The original movie was a blockbuster and was followed by Free Willy 2, and Free Willy 3, plus a short-lived animated TV series. A fourth movie is projected for release in 2010. Keiko was rescued from life in a dinky little swimming pool at Reino Aventura in Mexico City, his hide rotting away from skin lesions he’d developed due to poor health. Donations from Warner Brothers’ studio and Craig McCaw led to the establishment of the Free Willy Keiko Foundation in 1995 and with money sent in by thousands of school kids (and many others) in the U.S. who felt moved to help him, Keiko came to the U.S. where he received top-level care and where he became the star-in-residence for several years at the Oregon Coast Aquarium in Newport, Oregon. Over $7 million dollars was spent to build a facility to house him and return him to health, and while at his home in Oregon, he regained over a ton in weight. People flocked to see him, and the country fell in love. Eventually an effort was mounted to return Keiko to the wild, where the hope was he could live out his days as Nature intended, and he was flown to Klettsvik Bay in Vestmannaeyjar in Iceland, where he was installed in a specially-built sea pen, to be re-trained to hunt for himself so he could be released to live with his own kind one day. Many felt that these efforts were misguided, if not downright ludicrous, and millions more dollars were spent in the effort to help him have a normal life.

Well, it was a fine and noble dream—but it failed, and Keiko, even though he was finally released, never joined up with a pod to live out his days as everyone hoped. Steinar Bastesen, a Norwegian politician of the time made International news when he said that Keiko should be killed and the meat sent to Africa as foreign aid! I believe the Norwegians realized it would be a huge PR faux pas if they followed up on this threat, but it does highlight how outrageous the entire venture had become. The fact remains that Keiko never learned to hunt again in order to feed himself, and he eventually died of pneumonia, beaching himself on December 12, 2003 at the age of 26 years. He was buried in a cairn of stones in Halsa, Norway, made by local Norwegian school children, and a memorial site remains there. In all, it was a very sad end for an animal much-beloved by millions of people—including me.

Fortunately, the US Marine Mammal Protection Act in 1972 made trapping wild killer whales illegal, because some people at least realized it was a mistake to take these creatures out of their element (many never survived being caught in the first place), stick them in little pools, oftentimes in complete isolation from others of their own kind, and then “train” them to perform for our pleasure. Nearly all of the killer whales seen performing now are bred in captivity—and Tillikum has sired a number of them, making him a very valuable commodity. The one figure I saw quoted regarding his worth was $2 million dollars.

The environment these creatures inhabit leaves much to be desired. Imagine being cooped up in a barren little room all alone for years at a time, with no contact with anyone but an alien creature that you can’t talk to. Then these beings engage you in training, so you can perform on command for treats, which is somewhat better than being bored out of your mind. What a complete and total insult to creatures of high intelligence with a complex social structure! The rest of the time they do things to you that you can’t understand. Don’t you think you’d go a little nuts? Don’t you think you’d be insulted, get angry, and rebel? I can say that, if I were placed in that situation, I’d probably have lost it long before Tillikum did—if that is truly what happened. In fact, taking a good look at this whole scenario is animal cruelty in my book.

The thing that annoys me most, however, is that of course the animal is always at fault when bad things happen. Anytime an animal does something to hurt or injure a human being, it is labeled as “bad,” a criminal, and since it is guilty of the ultimate sin, it must be destroyed. No matter who is really at fault, the animal is ALWAYS the one to suffer.

People forget entirely the nature of the creatures who share our lives—the majority of whom have had no choice whatsoever in the matter. We have taken them out of their natural habitat (sometimes even destroyed it), made them totally dependent on us, invested them with all sorts of unnatural thoughts and feelings we’ve projected on them, and then we are horrified when something bad happens. We forget too, that “just because we love them,” what the animal feels toward us is not necessarily love at all—and that they may be utterly mystified or frightened by what we do to them and act to defend themselves. Many of us think of them as little furry humans or our children. Heck, I’m a pet parent myself, but at least I realize that my dog is not a child—and my horse isn’t either. I don’t know why animals seem to like us, but for some strange reason they often do—at least until we prove we can’t be trusted and drive them over the edge to insanity.

I sincerely hope that a humane solution (what a euphemism!) can be found for Tillikum and the others of his kind in captivity, so they may live with others of their own kind and not be expected to perform tricks for the gratification of our children. Let them be what they are: killer whales—Orcas, for Pete’s sake—and stop vilifying Tillikum. Regardless of why he did what he did—and we may never know the real answer, it’s time to back off. As one researcher (I’m sorry, but I don’t know his name) said in a TV interview this past week, there are no recorded incidents of killer whales attacking human beings in the wild—where they belong. And, who wouldn’t rather see them there, swimming and hunting fish or seals with their pods? I know I sure would. Let’s clean up the environment where they ought to live!