How would you feel if you were taken from your home? Now how do you think and marine animal would feel. It must be confusing being in a small tank rather than having the whole ocean. Well there's an orca named Lolita is being held in captivity and people are deciding whether or not she should be released into the home she came from. I believe that Lolita should be released into the wild because Orcas are more likely to survive in the wild than in captivity.

 

Captive whales are routinely treated for poor dental conditions. They suffer from fractured teeth because of biting on gate bars. The captive orcas live in tanks. They have steel bars to separate the orcas the orcas will sometimes charge at the bars or bite down on them causing their teeth to crack and cause them to get infections that can lead to kidney disease that will end up killing the orca. 

 

Whales kept in captivity can get pneumonia. For those of you who don’t know what pneumonia is. It’s a sickness where you get a cold but you lungs get liquid in them so it makes it very hard to breath and can kill humans and animals. Pneumonia is the biggest cause of death to captive orcas and dolphins according to the Orca Network. Writers from onegreenplanet.com state that orcas in the wild immune systems can fight back the pneumonia.

 

Orcas in captivity don’t swim around as much as orcas in the wild. Unlike wild orcas the orcas in captivity spend a lot of time floating around in their tanks with their backs are above the water and if a mosquito comes with the West Nile virus and bites the orcas they orca will get the virus and end up dying.

 

So if Lolita stays in captivity she will have a greater risk of dying. I love orcas and it makes me sad that Lolita is being held captive when she could be living a life in her natural habitat and not die from pneumonia or a virus. I hope many of you will consider trying to help whales like Lolita go back to the home they came from. So they can live with their pod and not to tricks for people just to get fed.