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I think that sea life should be let free in the ocean and let nature take it's course.

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I think animals should by out in the wild because they probably feel scared. we should keep them in the wild.

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In my opinion I think that should try to make a tank on shore so that the animals could go back to the ocean instead of keeping them in a tank because if you were a sea animal and they took you from your normal habitat wouldn't you want to go back there. Anyways even if they did make a tank on shore it would be a step forward to getting them used to the ocean. Also scientist have stated even if the animal is almost extinct other sea animals wouldn't be able to get to them because they will be in a tank.

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in my opinion i think that they should not keep sea life in because what if there family misses him or her and the baby will miss her family to.

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i say no because if you really like/love wildlife I wouldn't just put them in a cage i would just go out on an adventure and see them freely and doing they're thing in the wild and having the carnivores do they're hunting skills and the herbs do they're stuff........

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I think animal should be held captive because if an animal is going extinct they can save the animal. I also think they should be held captive so scientists can research them even more. My last reason is I think they should be held captive because they can help them get better if they are sick.

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I think that marine animals shouldn’t be kept in captivity because when a sea animal is in captivity for a long time it decreases how long the animal lives by a lot.. It’s very rare for a sea animal to survive teen age years in captivity. It takes the freedom away from swimming in the ocean. There is a common deformation that happens to all female and male orca’s in captivity. It’s when the fin collapses. Only 1% of the orca population has it’s fin collapsed. They would need to know how to survive in the wild. Captivity takes away the marine animal from their home and their family. It makes them feel uncomfortable in an aquarium. Instead of keeping them in captivity you could go on a boat ride or whale watching to actually see them in the wild.

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i think animals should be held captive because it would be safe from the hunters and other animals.

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I think that sea life should keep captivity beacuse when they are in thier tank the water thta they get it might give like a disesse to the animals and it also shortenss animals life.

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in my opinion i say no because even though they might do better. They should be able to see the sea. So they can know what it's like there because they might have been rescued when they were babies. Captivity shortens animal life span, not increases them. Wild dolphins can live 40 years in the wild and orcas can live 90years but when held captivity they rarely survive their teens.

If i said Yes i would say yes because fish do better in a fish tank and they eat feed and if there sick people while help the fish.

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I think that no because then the fish will feel sad and mad that they will start killing trainers

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i think that sea life should  not be held captive because  they basically
just taking baby  orcas   and then placing theme inside of those  small
tanks and orcas in the wild swim about 150 miles on a daily to stay in shape so that is kind of affecting there health

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In my opinion, I think that sea life should not be held captive because if sea life is held captive it can cause them to die. Also, keeping sea life captive means separating families from one another. DO YOU AGREE?

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I say no because sea life might get worse if you keep the animal captive.My fact is "Captivity shortens animals lifespan, not increase them.Wild dolphins can live 40 years in the wild but when held in captivity they rarely survive their teen.

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My opinion is no, because when wild animals are in the captivity. Wild animals (dolphins ex.) don't live in captivity.In the wild dolphins live up to 40 years . Wlid orcas can live up to 90 years.

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©Shedd Aquarium/Brenna Hernandez

The orphaned baby sea otter was as sad and winsome as any cartoon animal Disney ever put on screen. Last October, the California Department of Fish and Wildlife and the Monterey Bay Aquarium rescued a tiny pup that appeared to be abandoned by her mother on a beach near Santa Cruz. Stranded and crying, she was thought to be less than a week old and weighed just over 2 pounds, the smallest baby otter found in years.

The aquarium gave pup 681 (she was the 681st rescued in the facility's history) intensive care for four weeks, but its Sea Otter Program does not provide long-term animal care. At the end of the month, mammal trainers and veterinarians took her to Chicago's Shedd Aquarium, one of the few U.S. facilities with the available space and staff to care for infant otters.

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In December, the Shedd staff started a naming campaign, hosting a vote online with names for the public to choose: Cali, Ellie, Luna, Poppy, Ana, Anya. Meanwhile, trainers ministered to the pup 24/7, ensuring she developed certain behaviors like grooming, foraging, feeding and even regulating her own body temperature. Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling tweeted her choice: "Luna, of course." Luna Lovegood, after all, is a heroine at the Hogwarts school of wizardry. Like magic, the name won.

Luna appeared on lots of news outlet lists of the cutest animals of 2014. But it's not just about cute. "Luna has captured the attention of millions of people and highlighted the plight of sea otters," says Tim Binder, who oversees animal care and the rescue rehab program at Shedd. "She's become a great ambassador for research and been a great ambassador for the conservation work not just for Shedd but for all zoos and aquariums."

Luna was a rare occasion when public opinion seemed to turn, if just slightly, toward supporting a belief that many in the animal conservation world hold: that captivity, when done right, is a valuable conservation tool.

See all of the best photos of the week in these slideshows

It's a hot button issue, to be sure. SeaWorld is perhaps the biggest red target for those who say animal captivity is inherently wrong. The criticism of SeaWorld's theme parks-from the influential 2013 documentary Blackfish to Harry Styles of the British boy band One Direction shouting "Does anybody like dolphins?" and then "Don't go to SeaWorld" onstage in San Diego on July 9-has set in motion plenty of public outcry. For the past few years, attendance and revenue have generally declined, although earlier in 2015 there were signs of a potential bounce-back.

But it's also caused waves of consternation in nonprofit aquariums and zoos. "The film is not fully accurate, and it portrays events that happened 30 years ago as contemporary," says Binder. "The unfortunate thing is that people are taking that film at face value."

Their concern is that aquariumgoers now feel conflicted and confused when they see sea mammals in captivity and with animal trainers, after seeing and hearing emotion-evoking claims about poor treatment of "captive" animals. But many of the animals and fish in facilities accredited by the Association of Zoos and Aquariums (AZA) are rehab and rescue animals, some deemed "non-releasable" by wildlife officials.

"Almost all black bears, brown-grizzly and Kodiak-bears, puma, bobcat, harbor seals, walrus, sea otters and moose are rehab animals," says AZA executive Rob Vernon. With a few zoo and aquarium-born exceptions, most sea lions and gray seals in accredited AZA facilities are non-releasable, rehabilitated animals. Fish like sturgeon or pupfish in AZA tanks are part of zoo and aquarium-based breeding and release programs for the federal or state endangered species recovery program.

"No matter what rescue animal you see at the Shedd-Luna, Nickel the sea turtle or our blind sea lion-they've all survived because the trainers have taught them how to help them live," says Ken Ramirez, animal care and training adviser at Shedd.

Shedd's otter program was launched in 1989 as an emergency rescue during the Exxon Valdez oil spill. Over the years, all but one of its otters have been rescued as pups. And indeed, the study of Luna by Shedd's aquarists has directly contributed to the preservation of her species. The Southern California population from which Luna came is threatened. By studying her, Shedd scientists have gleaned new information about otters and their upkeep-for example, we now know exactly what's required for an otter to grow from 2 to a healthy 30 pounds, from the caloric intake to the activity levels needed. Wildlife managers can use that information to help manage otter populations in the wild.

The majority of public zoos and aquariums consider conservation and research to be their key missions. For example, last year the New England Aquarium rehabilitated and released 733 sea turtles (of both threatened and endangered species) stranded on the beaches of Cape Cod. It was part of an annual event that typically releases 90 of the creatures (2014 was a banner year). The New England Aquarium has also been studying the North Atlantic right whale in the wild for the past 40 years and is involved in changing government policy to decrease human-caused mortality by entanglement, marine gear and vessel collision. On top of that, the aquarium has designed fishing gear that's less likely to snare whales.

Last summer, the Vancouver Aquarium rescued a marooned false killer whale (not directly related to the killer whale) calf that it named Chester. The aquarium has been rehabbing Chester, who was deemed non-releasable by the Fisheries and Oceans Canada. In a YouTube-worthy tale of animal friendship, Chester is now rooming with Helen, a rescued Pacific white-sided dolphin. Vancouver animal care staff say the integration has exceeded their expectations. "I am extremely impressed by his medical behaviors already," reports head veterinarian Dr. Martin Haulena.

SeaWorld is an interesting case study. The organization has a documented history of poor environmental stewardship-killer whales and their pods were disrupted by the repeated SeaWorld captures of the same Puget Sound pods in the 1960s and 1970s-but also a pretty good track record of conservation. SeaWorld says it has not taken any whales or dolphins from the wild in the past 35 years.

Over the past 50 years, SeaWorld has rescued more than 26,000 ocean animals. SeaWorld scientists have published some 300 research papers that have been shared with the scientific community, including ones on killer whales' metabolism, reproduction and vocal learning. SeaWorld is an institution accredited by the AZA. The SeaWorld park in San Diego was first accredited by the AZA in 1981, and each of its other parks has continually met AZA standards in a vetting process that takes place every five years.

Critics contend that for a long time, SeaWorld didn't take conservation seriously enough. "While SeaWorld has done good work over the years with marine mammal rescues off Florida and California, its record with regard to research and conservation work that helps wild orca populations is not very impressive," says Tim Zimmerman, the associate producer of Blackfish and writer of the Outside feature " Killer in the Pool" on which the documentary was based.

"Prior to Blackfish, as best we could calculate, SeaWorld spent considerably less than 1 percent of its annual revenues on conservation work," Zimmerman says. "And very little, if any, of that was devoted to helping the endangered southern resident killer whales, which are a threatened population in part because of the generation of young female breeders that SeaWorld and other marine parks removed from the population in the 1960s and 1970s."

Similarly, he argues, most of the research SeaWorld conducted on killer whales didn't benefit wild populations. Rather, it was directed toward captive husbandry and breeding that "could help SeaWorld better care for and expand its captive killer whale population. In short, Blackfish helped push SeaWorld to start matching its actions on conservation and research with its long-standing claims regarding conservation and research."

After Blackfish was released, SeaWorld promised to donate $10 million to fund research and conservation for killer whales in the wild. (SeaWorld says that the announcement was unrelated to the film.) Recently, it committed $1.5 million to the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation as part of that pledge. And earlier this month the company announced it will no longer accept any of the 18 captured Russian beluga whales it had planned on housing as part of a breeding loan from the Georgia Aquarium, which, in turn, has been trying to import them from their home at Russia's Utrish Marine Mammal Research Station. A statement from SeaWorld says the decision not to accept the animals "reflects an evolution in SeaWorld's position since this project began more than eight years ago."

Many of SeaWorld's online critics see this about-face as a vindication of recent protests. Blackfish director Gabriela Cowperthwaite says that since the film's release, SeaWorld has been in "damage control mode." However, she adds, "although we consider that progress, we continue to wonder why SeaWorld needs performing orcas to continue conservation work."

Meanwhile, the Blackfish backlash has affected not only how people view animals in captivity at both for-profit water parks and conservation centers like SeaWorld but also nonprofit zoos and aquariums, particularly when these latter programs are designed to entertain animals as well as humans. Consider Shedd, which was targeted in a Blackfish-inspired " Empty the Tanks " protest in 2013, during which activists called for the release of captive whales and dolphins. Shedd's long history of marine wildlife rescue and rehab programs includes extensive studies of its beluga whales; aquarists there say that their training program is essential for the beluga's welfare. Though some people might view the training process of the whales as abuse for human entertainment, the aquarists say this is a misunderstanding.

"Sometimes someone might say, 'Aww, you made him do something he didn't want to do,'" says Ramirez, who has been training animals for 30 years. "But if you see someone throw a tennis ball and a dog chases it, you wouldn't say, 'The dog didn't want to do that.' That's dog behavior."

He adds, "A lot of people aren't aware that in modern training at zoos and aquariums today there is no punishment. Most training is done through gaining the cooperation of the animal and building that relationship through positive reinforcement."

In the larger scheme of things, keeping wildlife in captivity poses little threat to the survival of the species. The Dolphin Research Center and the World Wildlife Foundation have stated that the main menaces to whales and dolphins are climate change, whaling, ship strikes, entanglement in fishing gear, pollutants, toxic contamination and the oil industry. Aquariums and research institutes do not make their lists. The main immediate dangers to the mammals are "almost certainly entanglement or entrapment in fishing gear," says Randall Reeves, the chair of the International Union for Conservation of Nature.

Of course, the practice of purposefully capturing sea mammals for display, study and entertainment raises ethical issues, many of which are still being heatedly debated. The wild killer whales that were the subject of Blackfish are still being disrupted by captures in Russia today and sent to new aquariums in China and Moscow, says Erich Hoyt of Whale and Dolphin Conservation, in England, and the Far East Russia Orca Project.

But aquariums that host and study rescued marine mammals might have a role to play in saving, for example, New Zealand's Maui dolphin and West Africa's Atlantic humpbacked dolphin, which are so endangered that Reeves warns they could disappear within a decade. As Bindi Irwin, a SeaWorld "youth ambassador" and daughter of the late Australian naturalist and TV personality Steve Irwin, asks, "If we didn't have animals in captivity, would we be inspired to save them?"
Correction: A previous version of this article said Luna was brought to Shedd Aquarium in December. Luna was named in December, but arrived in October.

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How Aquariums Can Actually Save Animals in the Wild

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The orphaned baby sea otter was as sad and winsome as any cartoon animal Disney ever put on screen. Last October, the California Department of Fish and Wildlife and the Monterey Bay Aquarium rescued a tiny pup that appeared to be abandoned by her mother on a beach near Santa Cruz.

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In my opinion, I think Sea life should not be held captive because they need to learn how to be grown up and how to get food.
1. Animals life span can be very long to like 40 or 90 years old dolphins live 40 and killer whales live 90 years in the wild
2. Those animals can live that long but when they are captive it is harder to live their teenage years.

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My opinion is that sea creatures shouldn't be kept in the captivity because they should be free in their groups. It also shortens the sea creature's life span. In addition, when kept at the places, they can barely live to their teens. Also, their high intelligence, sensitivity and social beings are suffering from captivity. Finally, the things that are used to clean the water causes the dolphin's skin to peel or even make them blind.

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In my opinion, I think animals should sea life should be help captive because it keeps sea life safe,It makes children happy to see the animals, they wont get killed, they have a better chance on not becoming extinct, helps animals get a long healthy life,  and lastly people helps animals that have gotten hurt.

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In my opinion sea life shouldn't be in captivity because they should be able to roam around an hunt
for there own if they are in captivity just extend it a couple of miles so they can roam around and swim. Also when fish and other sea creatures are in captivity they have a shorter life span.

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In my opinion sea life should not be held captive. I say this because some zoos or aquariums can not afford to take care of them. And think of it like you just got taken from your home, you would want to go home, right? Well that's how the sealife feels.

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My opinion is no because wild dolphins can live 40 years in the wild and orca can live 90 years but when held in captivity they rarely survive their teen years.

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In my opinion I think sea life should not be held in captivity because, in the wild, (for example) Dolphins all day can socialize and eat fresh food with their pods and use their intelligence and brain power and echolocation.. But in captivity, Dolphins can get into fight because they don't know who the other dolphins are. Also, instead of fresh food, they get frozen dead fish which could cause health problems. Dolphins and other sea life can get taken away from their pods so they can be with people they don't know. Instead of using their brain power and intelligence, they use their intelligence to entertain people all day and don't use any brain power like they should and are unable to use their echolocation.

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In my opinion killer whales could not be held in captivity because they grow bigger and bigger so if they stay longer their gonna get crowded and not gonna be happy.

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should sea life be held in captivity?
In my opinion i think that sea life should not be kept held in captivity. Firstly i think this because sea animals live in a large complex area and they can swim long distances in the ocean. In addition If sea animals are being held in captivity they can only swim in endless circles.Lastly if sea life is being held in captivity this also mean that some sea animals are torn away from their families. And sometimes these animals from the sea/ocean are forced to perform meaningless tricks for our amusement/entertainment

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In my opinion I think sea life/animals should not be held captive. One reason why is because the mental, emotional, and physical stress that sea animal/life suffer can weaken their immune systems and make them prone to disease. Another reason why is because you are taking the animals from their home and where they belong. One last reason why is because when the animals are took from their home you are not only hurting them mentally but physically. This is why I think sea animals/life should not be held in captivity.

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In my opinion I think they shouldn't be held captivity. Firstly they shouldn't because It shortens there lives. Secondly, they shouldn't because they need a lot of room if their big.Lastly, they shouldn't because dolphins have navigate echolocation and can makes the go insane. Clearly, this is my opinion on if sea life should be kept captivity

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In my opinion sea life shouldn't be held captive because sea creatures should have more space and roam around in the ocean instead of being held captive in a pool. Next, sea creatures deserve to live a better life and be in the ocean with their families. Also, sea creatures that are held captive are just used to entertain people and preform for audiences. Lastly, sea creatures that are held captive and they get let go back into the wild they won't last long because they were captive for a long time. This is why i think sea life shouldn't be held captive

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I think no because then more trainers die and that will cost a lot of money.

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I don't think sea life should be held in captivity i think it is vary wrong to keep and animal in captivity and make t do shows and trix for us and not get its food when it does not do something right and when I look at that wale to me its saying why am I surfing for your own amusement?

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i say no because sea life animals are in danger and the sea life animals can not move around as much in the ocean life and fish can not do that much in the tank.

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no because if you REALLY love nature and sea life you don't have to put them in zoo's, you can just go out to the wild life and check them out yourself!. you don't want to see them in a SMALL space of room in a cage it makes them feel lonl'y so im just

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first opinion i think they should and shouldn't be held captive
they should because if they're hurt they can't do anything but just be there. second opinion is that they shouldn't because in a little space they can't go around they need more space

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in my opinion i say no because they should be able to live free and you cant really pet or hold most sea animals at all. And plus if they rub their nose they can loose their sence of smell.

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My opinion is no because if we are talking about sharks they die very fast in enclosures.

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i tink we sud not cep tem in smal plasis so i agrey wit jakub he sed tat we sud just mayk the tayks on the bay or at see war tay can hunt nacutel but in a areu of 1 miyel

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in my opinion i think that they should be held captive because if they get hurt or something and they are in the wild then they wont be able to get better but if they are in a cage and they get hurt then the people that work there can help the animal and it will b all better.