Last year or a couple of years ago, I used to do routine informational posts that centered around environmental or animal issues in real life. I stopped doing that for a while because... I don't know? I just wasn't up for it.
(images taken from Wikipedia)
But maybe their playfulness became the incentive among humans to capture them, put them in tanks way too small for them to naturally thrive, and forcefully train them to perform tricks that are foreign to their natural behavior. Like making a human stretch in ways that strain every muscle, it's possible, but can cause damage and pain.
For this post, I'm looking at you, SeaWorld.
In captivity, they often develop pathologies, such as the dorsal fin collapse seen in 60–90% of captive males. Captives have vastly reduced life expectancies, on average only living into their 20s.[d] In the wild, females which survive infancy live 50 years on average, and up to 70–80 years in rare cases. Wild males who survive infancy live 30 years on average, and up to 50–60
years.[210]
Captivity usually bears little resemblance to wild habitat, and captive whales' social groups are foreign to those found in the wild. Critics claim captive life is stressful due to these factors and the requirement to perform circus tricks that are not part of wild killer whale behavior.[211]
Wild killer whales may travel up to 160 kilometres (100 mi) in a day, and critics say the animals are too big and intelligent to be suitable for captivity.[157]
Captives occasionally act aggressively towards themselves, their tankmates, or humans, which critics say is a result of stress.[190]
Between 1991 and 2010, the bull orca known as Tilikum was involved in the death of three people, and was featured in the critically acclaimed 2013 film, Blackfish.[212] Tilikum has lived at SeaWorld since 1992.[213][214][215][216] ❞
(Quotes taken from Wikipedia)
It's unnatural for orca whales to attack people in the wild. Completely unnatural. Then why do they do this? Well, imagine being cramped up in a small cardboard box for 21 years. Your natural environment is your home, where you thrive, but a box? For 21 years? With little to no contact with other people? Well that's a proven recipe for full-blown insanity, and insanity is just why Tilikum killed those three people.
By now if you've even bothered to read all the way, you probably feel really depressed at this point.
But I never write up big saddening posts like this without offering solutions, because there are many.
First priority, boycott SeaWorld.
SeaWorld may be the source of many human family outings and entertainment watching these beautiful creatures leap toward the heavens with dead hope that they may join the clouds someday with their own families. SeaWorld is a place of suffering and great pain and sadness for nonhuman creatures. Because while the name "SeaWorld" tries to suggest otherwise, small tanks filled with chlorine blue water is the weakest, saddest imitation of the sea's freedom.
So you're probably thinking that I have some sort of petition for you to sign, and yes I do! It's not of my creation, but it's on a legitimate site that I mentioned a while ago in another post. This petition is incredibly easy to sign and best of yet, anonymous. Here's how the sign process goes in a single picture:
You can just make up a fake name, click "Don't display my name" or both! All you need is an email. Other petitions require a whole lot of other stuff so this one is pretty safe and easy to sign!
And another plus side: it's more than halfway reached it's goal!
So if you really care about ending this intense injustice, click here to go to the petition!
The link/website is 100% safe, I assure you. :)
Stand up for what's right!
– DoomyPanda
I never liked SeaWorld to begin with because of things like this.
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