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"We don't put any animal in any stressful situation," -Chuck Tompkins, SeaWorld's curator of zoological operations.

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"We don't put any animal in any stressful situation," -Chuck Tompkins, SeaWorld's curator of zoological operations.

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There are many issues that arise in the life of a captive animal, many of which are seemingly ignored in order to paint a pretty picture. For starters, many are taken from their families in the wild, or separated from their mother's at a young age if born in captivity. Mammals like orcas and dolphins have evolved to swim in groups, travelling long distances each day in order to hunt. They have internal schedules of migration that cannot be fulfilled. None of that can occur when they're put into small, single tanks and fed dead fish. The drastic change in lifestyle results in heavy stress on the animal, and trainers have been know to use drugs in order to quiet the aggression that results from this unnatural way of life. It's been shown that many dolphins and orcas break their teeth from chewing on parts of their tank, exposing nerves and creating infection. Studies have shown that 70% of orcas have some manner of tooth damage, where many have resulted in death. Many interactive activities with humans can expose them to disease, and not to mention it's generally overwhelming for the mammals.

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Dawn Brancheau, a former trainer at SeaWorld, died on February 24th, 2010 from an unexpected orca attack. After a performance, Brancheau moved to a shallow ledge of water and socialized with the massive, six-ton Tilikum. She had just fed him some herring, and now lay in the water talking to him while he rest next to her. The two were said to have a great relationship, as it was clear in this image of the two. However, within the next moment it all seemed to change. Tilikum was supposed to dive down and swim towards viewing glass for families to see as a fun photo op. Instead, Tili grabbed Brancheau and dragged her underwater. "He dismembered her. He tore off her left arm and scalped her. Her scalp and full head of hair were on the bottom of the pool. He severed her spinal cord. And he never gave her body up," states witness Jeff Andrews. SeaWorld denied the intensity of the event, but it struck hard with its employees. "Every safety protocol that we have failed," says Kelly Flaherty Clark, SeaWorld director of animal training.

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California has recently proposed a bill that would ban marine mammal captivity and shut down SeaWorld. Senator Cathleen Galgiani (D-Stockton) is a sponsor of this bill, known as the Dolphin Protection Act. This bill is said to be almost an expansion of the current Orca Protection Act that bans these killer whales from being bred or held in captivity. All cetaceans would be protected and banned from use in entertainment or captivity. The goal of this bill is to transfer the current captive mammals to facilities for rehabilitation. “We should not rely on cruel and inhumane treatment of any creature simply for our entertainment,” Senator Galgiani says, in support of the bill.

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Source: Mike Aguilera/SeaWorld San Diego via Getty Images

By Sophie Hirsh

Updated

California could soon ban marine mammal captivity, should the recently-proposed Dolphin Protection Act become law. As pointed out by LiveKindly, the bill would effectively shut down SeaWorld San Diego (the first of four SeaWorld locations on Earth), where dolphins and whales are kept in captivity, forced to perform tricks, and subjected to endless other behaviors against their nature.

Senator Cathleen Galgiani (D-Stockton) is sponsoring the Dolphin Protection Act, also known as Senate Bill 1405. As Galgiani explains in the bill's abstract, there is currently a law protecting orcas (aka killer whales) from being bred, held in captivity, used for entertainment, and more in California. Her bill would expand the law to protect all cetaceans (whales, dolphins, and porpoises) from the same activities across the state.

According to a press release by Animal Hope in Legislation, an animal welfare reform organization that is sponsoring the bill, the Dolphin Protection Act would allow for a transition period so that SeaWorld could provide a "humane future" for the animals. Ultimately, the goal of this bill seems to be to transition facilities like SeaWorld to sanctuaries for the cetaceans that are already there as well as for stranded wild cetaceans. The bill would let cetacean holding facilities rescue, rehabilitate, and return wild animals to the ocean.

"We should not rely on cruel and inhumane treatment of any creature simply for our entertainment," Senator Galgiani said in a statement. "Dolphins are incredibly intelligent beings that suffer a range of health problems and stress as a result of being held in captivity."

Unfortunately, behind all the flashy shows at SeaWorld, there is a lot of pain. At SeaWorld, cetaceans live in tanks that are essentially bathtubs - whereas in the wild, marine mammals can swim up to 100 miles a day. An orca at SeaWorld would have to swim around his or her tank 1,400 times to achieve that distance, according to Whale and Dolphin Conservation.

In the wild, cetaceans are social animals, spending most of their time with their families - but at SeaWorld, they are isolated in tanks, where they can only interact with a few other animals who are typically not from their families or even their species (as well as human staffers - most of whom are performers, not marine biologists), Whale and Dolphin Conservation added.

Living in isolation has effects on cetaceans not unlike the effects that living in isolation might have on a human - that's why experts have coined the neurotic condition "zoochosis," which is when living in captivity causes animals frustration, boredom, depression, increased aggression, self-mutilation, and more, according to Your Daily Vegan.

Animals held captive at SeaWorld are forced to perform tricks that go against their nature; the animals typically suffer from perpetual sunburns since their tanks don't allow them to go as deep underwater as they would in nature; and orcas often develop collapsed dorsal fins, according to SeaWorld of Hurt. All of these factors reduce the lifespans of these animals - as per SeaWorld of Hurt, orcas can live to 100 years of age in the wild, but on average, orcas at SeaWorld have a lifespan of about 14 years.

"Society's attitudes about keeping certain animals in captivity has changed," said Marc Ching, founder of Animal Hope in Legislation. "We cannot continue to bring whales and dolphins into captivity where they will spend their entire lives in a concrete tank. California is a leader in animal welfare policy and thanks to Senator Galgiani's bill, many of these animals will be able to stay where they belong, in the wild."

Should the Dolphin Protection Act become law, it would be huge for the state of California. Pushback is to be expected, but no matter the outcome, it's encouraging to know that there are lawmakers fighting for these animals.

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California bill could shut down SeaWorld by banning dolphin and whale captivity

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By Sophie Hirsh Updated California could soon ban marine mammal captivity, should the recently-proposed Dolphin Protection Act become law. As pointed out by LiveKindly , the bill would effectively shut down SeaWorld San Diego (the first of four SeaWorld locations on Earth), where dolphins and whales are kept in captivity, forced to perform tricks, and subjected to endless other behaviors against their nature.

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During the summer of 2018, four different Russian firms found a "whale jail" where eleven killer whales and 87 beluga whales had been captured and stored in small pools. All of the mammals were in poor health, and around 15 of the belugas were still babies in need of their mothers. Many lesions on the orcas' skin were examined, and Veterinarian Tatyana Denisenko found the killer whales to be "thickly seeded with various microorganisms". However, on April 18th, 2019, the Russian government ordered a release of the cetaceans back into the wild. This was ordered and signed by Oleg Kozhemyako, governor of Russia’s Primorsky region, and co-signed by Jean-Michel Cousteau, founder of the California-based nonprofit Ocean Futures Society, and Charles Vinick, executive director of the Whale Sanctuary Project.

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Update: On April 8, 2019, the Russian government, in partnership with two American NGOs, announced that all 97 cetaceans will be released back into the wild. The declaration was signed by Oleg Kozhemyako, governor of Russia's Primorsky region, where the whales are being held. Co-signing the declaration were Jean-Michel Cousteau, founder of the California-based nonprofitOcean Futures Society, and Charles Vinick, executive director of theWhale Sanctuary Project. Cousteau, Vinick, and their teams have spent the past week at the whale facility in Srednyaya Bay, in Russia's Far East, assessing the condition of the animals and the facility. In the joint statement made in Nakhodka, a town close to the holding facility, all three declared that they will work together immediately to draft a plan for release and rehabilitation. "Our goal is to release all of them," the declaration says. (This story originally published on February 6, 2019.)

The video shows a bird's eye view: dozens of wild beluga whales and orcas trapped in frozen seawater.

Eleven killer whales (also known as orcas) and 87 belugas languish in several rectangular sea pens in Srednyaya Bay in Russia's Far East. Four Russian firms that supply marine animals to aquariums caught them over the course of several months in the summer of 2018. Their plight made headlines in November, when a drone captured aerial video footage of the facility, leading the media to label it the "whale jail."

That month, regional authorities opened an investigation into the alleged illegal capture of the marine mammals. Russia's Prosecutor General warns that selling them to aquariums in other countries, such as China, would be illegal. ( Read more about Russian orcas in Chinese marine parks.)

The animals now appear to be suffering tremendously, says Dmitry Lisitsyn, head of Sakhalin Environment Watch, an NGO based on Sakhalin Island, also on the Far East coast. Authorities invited Lisitsyn, marine mammal researchers, and veterinarians to visit the facility on January 18 and 19 to assess the animals' health.

Lisitsyn says 15 of the belugas are babies who likely hadn't yet been weaned off their mothers' milk when they were captured. All the belugas seem to be in distress, he says. He explains that workers at the facility regularly break up ice as it forms in the pens so the animals can surface, which they must do to breathe and stay alive. The belugas are "used to living in ice," he says. "But they're not used to being held in a 12-by-10-meter [space] with men crashing shovels over their heads."

It's even worse for the orcas, Lisitsyn says. Although they're conditioned to live in cold water, he says, they typically migrate south during the winter. He captured video showing several orcas with skin lesions on and around their dorsal fins. Lisitsyn and marine scientists who reviewed the footage say that the lesions could be frostbite from exposure to prolonged cold, a fungal or bacterial infection stemming from the stagnant water, or both.

Veterinarian Tatyana Denisenko, a professor at the Moscow-based Academy of Veterinary Medicine and Biotechnology, who visited the facility with Lisitsyn, took samples from the water and from the orcas' lesions. "The skin of most of the 11 killer whales is thickly seeded with various microorganisms," she says. She says this suggests that food left in the pens may be rotting and infecting the orcas' skin.

Denisenko, Lisitsyn, and others are particularly concerned about one young orca named Kirill, who had been acting very lethargically and exhibited extensive skin lesions. Lisitsyn says he fears for Kirill's survival.

The fate of these animals is in the balance. Authorities might seize them for rehabilitation and release back into the wild. Or they may rule that the companies that caught them did not act illegally and are free to sell the animals to aquariums. But Russian aquariums don't have the capacity to take the orcas, and it's illegal to export them abroad, says Dmitry Glazov, who serves as deputy chair of Russia's Moscow-based Marine Mammal Council, an NGO that unites scientists in the field to study the conservation of marine mammals.

The third possibility: The animals will die.

Lisitsyn and others allege that the belugas and orcas were sourced illegally and that the central government must act to save them. On February 1, three NGOs, including Sakhalin Watch, filed a lawsuit against three Russian government agencies, alleging that under Russian law, they're obligated to confiscate illegally sourced wild animals and return them to their natural habitat. "The state is the rightful owner of the animals and must seize these animals and let them back into the wild," Lisitsyn says.

One of the four companies that claims ownership of the animals, Bely Kit, says that it caught the orcas and belugas legally. Anton Pekarsky, a lawyer for the company, confirmed Bely Kit's plans "to deliver the animals to aquariums in Russia and abroad" this year. It would not release them into the wild unless ordered by a court, he wrote in an email. Two of the other companies, Afalina and Oceanarium DV, told local media that they also complied with the law. The fourth company, Sochi Dolphinarium, did not respond to a request for comment.

Whether Russian authorities are actively pursuing an investigation is uncertain. Oxana Fedorova, head of Save Dolphins, a Moscow-based cetacean welfare group, says the case has passed from agency to agency and is now under the jurisdiction of the Investigative Committee of the Khabarovsk Region, a local government agency responsible for pursuing criminal cases. "From the legal point of view, it's completely unclear what is happening" with the animals, says Glazov.

John Ford, a professor of zoology and orca expert at the University of British Columbia, in Canada, reviewed the footage taken by Lisitsyn. He says that with proper medical screening and careful treatment to restore the orcas to health, they could be returned to the wild. If released together near Srednyaya Bay, he says, "they'd likely form their own social group, at least in the short term, and the younger animals could benefit from the hunting skills of the older individuals." (Lisitsyn says the same applies to the belugas.)

But, says Ford, "the longer these killer whales are held in this substandard facility, the more difficult it will be to adapt back to a life in the wild."

Update: On February 21, one of the captive killer whales went missing. Facility owners filed a report saying it likely escaped. Environmentalists familiar with the holding pen say escape is nearly impossible and that it's likely the orca died. President Vladimir Putin today issued an order that environmental investigators must make a decision about the whales' fate by March 1.

Update: On February 7, Russian investigatorsannounced that they have launched a new probe into possible mistreatment of animals in the facility. The announcement says investigators will "promptly take comprehensive measures" to release them back into the wild.

Richie Hertzberg contributed reporting to this story.

Maria Antonova is a journalist based in Moscow. She has written for National Geographic, Undark, Foreign Policy, and Agence France-Presse, where she is a correspondent. Follow her on Twitter.

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Orcas, belugas trapped in icy Russian 'whale jail' to be released

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Update: On April 8, 2019, the Russian government, in partnership with two American NGOs, announced that all 97 cetaceans will be released back into the wild. The declaration was signed by Oleg Kozhemyako, governor of Russia's Primorsky region, where the whales are being held.

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Blackfish is the 2013 documentary that changed the face of SeaWorld forever. It contributed to the California Orca Protection Act that banned the breeding and captivity of killer whales throughout the state. Blackfish illustrates the horrors of captivity on the sea-park facilities through the story of Tilikum, a killer whale who caused the death of several trainers during his captivity. He was captured in the wild when he was about 2 years old and torn away from his family. Director Gabriela Cowperthwaite debunks the lies that SeaWorld has told, forming the truth of the treatment and torture of the animals in their care.

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‘Blackfish’: The Documentary That Exposes SeaWorld - SeaWorld of Hurt

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In a video interview with PETA, ‘Blackfish’ director Gabriela Cowperthwaite shares details of the film and why she chose to speak up for Tilikum.

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The Whale Sanctuary Project is an organization that's goal is to establish a healthy and successful seaside sanctuary where cetaceans will be able to heal and live away from their past of captivity. Depending on the damage done to the creature, they will either be rehabilitated or live permanently in a space similar enough to that of its natural habitat. Their project costs around $12-$15 million US dollars, and then about $2 million a year for care of around 8 whales. They claim to achieve this money through endowments, donations, and educational programs. Munchkin Inc. has already donated $200,000 towards the cause, and prepares to offer at least $1 million once the sanctuary is complete. The project also considers working alongside SeaWorld, hoping that they may be able to work together to provide these cetaceans with the care they need. The sanctuaries will be open to the public, but will be more educational rather than used for entertainment. The project stresses that these animals are here to heal and rehabilitate in a way that is natural to themselves. There will be no petting zoos or interaction. They hope to educate people of all ages using different methods, one being a virtual reality of the life of an orca.

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The Whale Sanctuary Project | Back to Nature

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Our Work

We work to transform the way people relate to whales and dolphins by bringing an end to their exploitation and by creating seaside sanctuaries, assisting with international marine mammal rescues, and advancing whale and dolphin science.

Right now, with your help, we are creating a gold-standard coastal sanctuary in Port Hilford Bay, Nova Scotia, where cetaceans (whales and dolphins) can live in an environment that maximizes well-being and autonomy and is as close as possible to their natural habitat. It is being designed to serve as a model for many more that can then be built all over the world in the coming years.

Public opinion has turned against keeping whales and dolphins in captivity. There are already sanctuaries for many land animals who are being retired from zoos and circuses. Now is the time to provide them for whales and dolphins.

The creation of this sanctuary is the first step toward our vision of a world in which all cetaceans are treated with respect and are no longer confined to concrete tanks in entertainment parks and aquariums.

Video Tours of the Sanctuary Site

Professional Standards Published for Whale & Dolphin Sanctuaries

Our Lead Sponsor: Munchkin, Inc.

The Whale Sanctuary Project wouldn't be possible without the generous support of Munchkin, Inc., the global leader in unique products for babies and children.

Incorporation

The Whale Sanctuary Project is a tax-exempt 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization. Our tax ID EIN is 81-2276219.

By the Numbers

1,100

Number of square yards of space in a large display tank at a typical high-end marine park.

484,000

Minimum number of square yards for our first seaside sanctuary.

3,000+

Number of captive whales and dolphins at entertainment facilities around the world.

"Live Series" of Webinars

Watch our "Live Series" of webinars about whales and dolphins.More...

And see all our videos - about the sanctuary, our Whale Aid programs, and other events - on our YouTube channel.

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The Whale Sanctuary Project | Back to Nature

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Home - The Whale Sanctuary Project | Back to Nature

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Creating a model seaside sanctuary where captive whales and dolphins can retire to an environment that is as close as possible to their natural habitat.

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Works Cited
"About." BlackfishMovie, Dogwoof, 2016, www.blackfishmovie.com/about. Accessed 8 Dec. 2020.
"About the Whale Sanctuary Project." The Whale Sanctuary Project, UX Design by Dialogue Theory, whalesanctuaryproject.org/our-work/. Accessed 8 Dec. 2020.
"Aquariums and Marine Parks." PETA, www.peta.org/issues/animals-in-entertainment/zoos-pseudo-sanctuaries/aquariums-marine-parks/. Accessed 8 Dec. 2020.
"'Blackfish': The Documentary That Exposes SeaWorld." SeaWorld of Hurt, PETA, www.seaworldofhurt.com/features/blackfish-documentary-exposes-seaworld/. Accessed 8 Dec. 2020.
Daly, Natasha. "Orcas don't do well in captivity. Here's why." National Geographic, 25 Mar. 2019, www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/2019/03/orcas-captivity-welfare/. Accessed 8 Dec. 2020.
Daly, Natasha, and Maria Antonova. "Time running out for orcas, belugas trapped in icy 'whale jail.'" National Geographic, 8 Apr. 2019, www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/2019/02/orca-and-beluga-whales-trapped-in-russia-for-aquarium-trade/. Accessed 8 Dec. 2020.
Hirsh, Sophie. "California bill could shut down SeaWorld by banning dolphin and whale captivity." Megaphone, 4 Mar. 2020, megaphone.upworthy.com/p/california-bill-seaworld. Accessed 8 Dec. 2020.
Worrall, Simon. "Former Trainer Slams SeaWorld for Cruel Treatment of Orcas." National Geographic, 29 Mar. 2015, www.nationalgeographic.com/news/2015/03/150329-orca-blackfish-seaworld-dolphins-killer-whales-ngbooktalk/#close. Accessed 8 Dec. 2020.
Zimmermann, Tim. "The Killer in the Pool." Outside, 30 July 2010, www.outsideonline.com/1924946/killer-pool. Accessed 8 Dec. 2020.