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SeaWorld meltdown

To be fair, there's no such thing as an unbiased documentary. If you want proof, just look at the drivel the History Channel pump out.
 
Yup, we've had both sides of the argument now. Can't say fairer than that.

I'm sure we all have our own opinions. Exciting stuff.
 
Find it strange when other forums shoot down those against sea world... Are they not discussion forums too?

I'm no massive PETA supporter (I have no problem eating meat and I have no problem with well justified medical (not cosmetic) animal testing) but I don't find seaworld making animals perform at all tasteful.
 
The thing about TPR and even Screamscape, is that they are US sites. We dont have any capitve cetaceans in this country (thankfully) and indeed people power helped to close them down or at least get them moved, whereas in the US they have MANY facilites holding these animals. So maybe its that or maybe that they are just defending a park because its a theme park?

As mentioned previously by myself, everyone can make up their own minds on this, buts its really refreshing to be able to have a balanced discussion here on Towersstreet rather than a biased view as seems to be on other sites.
 
I won't pretend to post an informed opinion on this because I really don't know all of the details, but it's not going to be as simple as some are making it out to be.


What I do know if that these creatures, besides simply being too large, are far from stupid. They can't just be forced to do anything that they don't want to do, like so many people believe. There's an article here on these so called "tricks".

Also, while everyone focuses on Seaworld, Miami Seaquarium down the road keeps an orca in a tank the size of less than two lengths of its body. SeaWorld's tanks are huge. I stood next to the window of the orca tank after one of the shows to see how they behaved in a different environment. The member of staff told us that they were in the tank, but it's that big that we still couldn't see them (far bigger than what the minimum size for tanks should be that the US government set).


Anyway, I'm neither for or against this. I won't pretend to know everything about it, though I do believe that whatever is best for these creatures is what should happen. They can't be released because they'd effectively be sending them all to their deaths, and SeaWorld can't simply let them sit in their tanks and fester just because people object to them being rewarded for doing things which they would do themselves in the wild anyway (if someone gave me treats for doing something I'm good at, I'd certainly do it more frequently :p ). I visit zoos like Chester Zoo which look after their animals and do amazing work looking after animals all over the world, so for me to not visit SeaWorld when they do the same work and look after their animals just as well as Chester Zoo does would be hypocritical. If SeaWorld are abusing their animals, that is when I'll stop visiting.
 
Thought I'd check out SeaWorld on Google maps. You can actually see the orcas in their tank, and I have to admit, that relative to the size of the whales, the tank is a lot bigger than I expected.
It could be bigger still, however.
 
DiogoJ42 said:
Thought I'd check out SeaWorld on Google maps. You can actually see the orcas in their tank, and I have to admit, that relative to the size of the whales, the tank is a lot bigger than I expected.
It could be bigger still, however.
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Ahh yes. The old comparison of this:

SW_zpsc77152d2.png



To this:

ocean_zpsed6dcda7.png
 
Dont forget that due to bullying / incompatible family groups they cannot keep the Orcas in one pen. They have to separate them as well.

This images shows the tiny pen that Tilikum was confined to after the death of Dawn Blancheau

278x228-tilly.jpg


Shocking !!!
 
Shocking? It would be, except that's not a tank that they're kept in for an extended length of time.


Here's the layout of the orca area:

sw-orlando-pool-layout.png



The orca swim into tank 'F' which PETA circled, then the gates are locked off and one is opened, releasing them into one of the larger tanks. You can see that there's another killer whale swimming from one of the two training tanks into that tank in the image.

Tilikum was mainly kept in the large covered tank ('E'), next to tank 'D' (medical), only while the death of Dawn Brancheau was looked at by crime scene investigators. During that time he was also able to move into tank 'G', the dinning pool, when it was his feeding time.
 
Out of interest, how long was it confined to the small tank? I would say an isolation tank is a common thing throughout zoos in the world, used for various reasons as well... An assumption here about that would be done to keeping that whale separate from the others and trainers as a result of the incident to reduce the stress levels of everyone... Is it completely right? Maybe, maybe not... I've not had any experience of working with animals or in a zoo, but isolation pens are definitely commonplace...

(BigAl posted a diagram of the pool layout during my creation of this post, which backs up my thought of that particular tank)


It's always gonna be a tricky subject... The key is for the animals to be treated suitably... For every good zoo/aquarium there will be bad ones (Drayton's Zoo is a horrid zoo, Chessie's is mixed between good and bad sections, Mingoland is similar)...

But at the same time, without these zoos, breeding programmes and the like many species would completely go extinct, is this the preferred idea to let natural selection go to work, or to ensure some species survive in order to promote education for the future generations? The trainer's opinion on the matter is in-line with many zoos and their training procedures they do with animals... To me, it's nothing out of the ordinary for animals to be performing and training, I don't think it's a bad thing and it certainly promotes an interest for kids to garner an interest in animals and their welfare... It all boils down to whether or not the animals when backstage are treated in an appropriate manner...

As they say, zoos are primarily an entertainment place, with educational/conservational undertones behind it... I doubt the SeaWorld incident is the only example of such in the world over the history of having captive animals capable of killing (something most animals are capable of in some form, even stressed horses can trample humans it has bonded with, as natural instincts kick in)...

There are positives and negatives for both sides of the case... But I dread to think what people would think of really dodgy zoos if SeaWorld are getting such a backlash...
 
Same place as Pete mentioned posted a letter back to SeaWorld in response to their own press release, which was rather similar to the one mentioned above.

I, like others, maintain the stance of being no expert, and deal with enough animal welfare issues without adding Blackfish to it. That being said, here is a response that covers the kinds of points raised above.

http://theorcaproject.wordpress.com/2013/12/20/open-letter-seaworld/
 
PeteA said:
All I can add is if anyone wants to read this then please do... Its about Tilikums life since the death of Dawn, viewed from a patron of SeaWorld....

http://theorcaproject.wordpress.com/2010/09/03/seeing-is-believing-tilikums-lonely-life-after-dawn/
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Did that person at the end really state that he should be put back into the wild?

That in itself shows a lack of knowledge about zoo based animals...

There was also a whole paragraph about how a vet can conclude a specific plan for a whale or other animal should the situation require, how do we know that the isolation and non-performing wasn't part of such a remit?


As for the lawyer one, are museums full of dead animals really better than being able to see or in some cases interact with them directly? Children do have interest in dinosaurs, but of course, giant killer lizards are possibly the coolest things that ever existed, so of course kids love them (I know I did)... Should we not try and conserve parts of nature for the benefit of ourselves and the species?


Both of those have flawed parts of their arguments, in the same way SeaWorld does as well (not providing some definitive answers to the state of the whales, following the typical park mantra of no guest is allowed to know of our problems)...

If SeaWorld were involved in the Sochi stuff referred to (why is there a want/need for killer whales at an Olympic event?), then that's a different matter and should be treated as unlinked to the Blackfish stuff...
 
Screamscape has posted more news on this matter today:

Park News - (1/14/14) Apparently the whole Blackfish maelstrom the SeaWorld parks have found themselves in has done nothing to curb the public’s desire to visit the parks. According to the pre-announced Q4 results, SeaWorld was not only pleased with their performance, but reported that the Orlando and San Diego parks helped them achieve record setting revenue for the year. The full results announcement will be released in March 2014.
Speaking of Blackfish, another former SeaWorld trainer who was actually used in the film itself, Mark Simmons, has now come forward to say that he regrets his association with the film, but that his first reaction upon seeing the final cut absolutely sickened him. According to Mark, “It was masterfully woven with lies and disinformation and just enough truth to convince almost anyone that didn’t know better. Worse, not an ounce of the counterpoints I provided for the film were used. In fact, what Gabriela used made my position appear congruent to that of the film’s claim. I was embarrassed and, to some degree, initially I was angry.”
The complete interview can be read over at MiceChat and is quite the eye opener, as Mark openly talks about the other people involved in the film, what tales were told to get him to participate and how he wasn’t even allowed access to see the finished film until it was aired on CNN for the world to see. Then he was shocked to find that his 3 hour interview on camera has been trimmed down to almost nothing, altered and his 27 years of experience taken out of context, while Samantha Berg who only has 1 year of time with the whales and absolutely no experience with Tilikum at all, became one of the dominating voices of the finished film. Why? “Because the things I said flew in the face of the movie’s clear agenda. What I contributed did not support Gabriela or Tim Zimmerman’s intent with the film. I worked with Tilikum, cumulatively, much more than all of the other trainers put together.”
According to Simmons, other lies and complete fabrications in the film include:
Dawn’s arm was not swallowed by Tilikum, the story told by Jeff Venture about how he was asked to destroy a video tape of the show, the issue of how baby whales are separated from their mothers and the events leading up to the accident with Dawn. Please do give the interview a read.
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Blackfish hasn't been nominated for the Oscars.

The lack of nomination will certainly prevent an inevitable extra round of backlash occurring. Sea World will be happy.

Sent from my GT-I9300 using Tapatalk
 
Wilsy said:
The lack of nomination will certainly prevent an inevitable extra round of backlash occurring. Sea World will be happy.
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Tillikum himself is also been absent from the Best Actor shortlist, reassuringly, given that he's really been phoning it in as of late.
 
I'm hopefully going to Orlando next year and me and my Mum have agreed not to go to SeaWorld.
I've watched Blackfish and it really moved me, It does clearly have some flaws in it though.
Tilikum is a beautiful Orca, but it is sadly very unlikely that he would survive in the wild after his 30 years of captivity. Keiko the Killer Whale that was famously used in the movie "Free Willy" was actually freed in July 2002 but didn't like it and went to a Norwegian Fjord six weeks later searching for human contact and allowing children have rides on his back. He followed boats and never integrated into the wild. He later died of pneumonia in late 2003.

At SeaWorld when you go and ask staff about the orca's e.g "why has the dorsal fin collapsed"
A member of staff will probably respond with "Around 30% - 40% of wild killer whale's have this" which isn't true it's about 3% or 4% of collapsed dorsal fins occur naturally it only increases in the wild if the orca has a deformity if a large percentage of dorsal fins on orcs are collapsed that usually means they also have another deformity.

There are nine reported incidents involving Orcas during "Shamu" shows with only one including Tilikum (the other two were not during show's) which was when he killed Dawn Brancheau by grabbing her arm and flipping her around repeatedly because he made a mistake by doing a wave round the pool twice when only asking once, so wasn't given a treat as they were running out. Dawn did NOT slip into the water she went in to perform a trick and he was frustrated. (I would be too) And killed her (SeaWorld's fault for not providing enough fish and saying that it was Dawn's fault and she slipped. Also that her hair was caught in his mouth)

Thank you if you managed to read this here is a link to Blackfish- http://putlocker.bz/watch-blackfish-online-free-putlocker-205971.html
 
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