Absolutely reblogging for that last comment. I wasn’t going to reblog this at all because the OG post included dolphins in the photoset, and I have yet to discover a place that keeps dolphins (or orcas) and keeps them in a manner that is not actively detrimental to the animal. Too small enclosures (I am wholly of the opinion that you cannot have a pool big enough for a dolphin or orca; it’s just impossible); separation of families at far too young an age; breeding for the sake of drawing a crowd to see the new baby; injuries done by either badly maintained pools, distressed animals deliberately injuring themselves, or other animals in the same enclosure deliberately hurting each other; chlorinated pools (chlorinated pools!!!!!!!!!!!); the list goes on.
Fuck SeaWorld. SeaWorld gives false information that they know is incorrect, but they don’t want to tell visitors the truth because it causes problems for them. SeaWorld will tell you that an orca’s natural lifespan in the wild is 13-16 years old, for instance. Thats fucking bullshit. A wild orca’s lifespan is anywhere from 60-100 years, depending on the gender of the animal (females live longer). In captivity, their lifespan is 13-16 years, with some living up to 20-ish, but thats a damn sight shorter than their wild counterparts.
SeaWorld will tell you that dorsal fin collapse happens just as frequently in the wild as it does in captivity. Bullshit. Dorsal collapse happens in 100% of captive male orcas, versus in – are you ready? – less than 1% of wild male orcas. But they’ll tell you that the statistics match.
They’ll justify taking a 3-4 year old baby from its mother and sending it to another park or another enclosure because “that’s when they split up in the wild.” But in the wild, female orcas will stay with their mothers for life, and male orcas will either stay for life as well, or, if they separate, it will be between 16 and 20 years old. Not at 3-4 years old.
This is all shit that SeaWorld knows, but they deliberately spread misinformation anyway, because their animals routinely die at around 13 years old, so if people believe that’s the natural lifespan, then it’s not too bad right? But if folks were to become aware that the lifespan is actually 60-100 years, and they can’t even keep their animals alive for a mere 20 years, well – that looks pretty bad for them, doesn’t it.
Visitors get concerned about the males’ dorsal fin collapse, but hey, if it’s just a “natural thing” that “happens just as often in the wild,” well, clearly it’s not the fault of captivity, that this disfiguration is happening. Only it is captivity’s fault, because it barely happens in the wild but it happens 100% of the time in captivity.
Mothers will routinely go into deep depression when their babies are forcibly separated from them, but SeaWorld brushes it off with “this is when they separate in the wild,” and people accept it, because hey, they’re the authority, right? They know what they’re talking about, right? They wouldn’t deliberately lie to people in order to preserve their “we aren’t actively cruel to animals” facade, right? Wrong.
Zoos when done well are great. Zoos that exist for the purposes of public education and species protection, and that make the animals’ welfare a priority – those are good zoos. But there are a shit tonne of bad zoos, who exist primarily to make a profit, and fuck the standard of care for the animals. So don’t just give all zoos a blanket pass. Some are great! And some do shit like, for instance, inbreed their endangered animals just to have a constant supply of babies to draw a crowd.
And SeaWorld doesn’t count as a zoo. SeaWorld is a fucking circus. They don’t exist for research purposes, they don’t exist to help save endangered species, they don’t serve in an educational capacity to the public (because most of what they pitch to people is pure bullshit). They dont give a shit about their animals’ wellbeing (the trainers do, for the most part, but they’re not the ones making the call on how the animals are treated/the conditions they’re subjected to/etc, and also, the trainers are usually picked up early ad trained on the job, and indoctrinated with the SeaWorld version of “facts,” so often they don’t recognise cruelty for what it is. Separating a baby and mother isn’t cruel if it’s “what happens in the wild.” But it is cruel if that mother/baby pair were supposed to stay together for a minimum of 12 more years).
SeaWorld exists only to make money. Thats why they exist. Every decision they make is made from a “will this make us money now or in the future” standpoint. Fuck SeaWorld.