Seaworld tried to turn down helping the rescued Gray Whale, JJ
On Friday morning, January 10, 1997 at about 8:30 AM the Whale Rescue Team received a call from Lieutenant Morrow of the Los Angeles County Fire Department-Lifeguards. There was a stranded baby Gray Whale in the surf line, estimated to only be a few days old. The lifeguards had already tried to help the baby back into the deep, but she swam erratically and once again beached herself.
Because of their lack of facilities and the slow response time of the NMFS, the Whale Rescue Team tried to buy time by pushing her into deeper water and monitoring her behavior while another team set out in an attempt to find her mother. At this point the team had reached out to Seaworld asking for aid, which they refused.
Hours of searching later, and there was no sign of JJ’s mother. Time was beginning to run out, as each minute without her mother, JJ was in grave danger, especially if she was ill. Seaworld once again refused to offer up facilities, or even send over a rescue truck to help. They were aware of how big adult gray whales get, too big for permanent live display in captivity, and they didn’t want to help with anything they couldn’t keep. They just spend 10 million dollars on a complex for captive Orcas, they didn’t want a gray whale taking up space in it.
The rescue team made calls into the media. The story began spreading like wildfire, putting more pressure on Seaworld as to why they were not coming to this animals aid despite boasting having high quality facilities and rescue teams.
24 hours of searching for a mother later, Seaworld finally caved to media pressure, and it was decided to bring JJ into captivity to rehabilitate her.
However, Seaworld still tried to weasel their way out of the deal. They made a deal that, despite having their own transportation they could have offered up, if the Whale Rescue Team could drive the animal the 3 hours to their park, only then would they help.
After a desperate search for a rental ruck large enough to carry her and hours of getting her to strand again to be placed in the truck, the Whale Rescue Team managed to get JJ to Seaworld.
After JJ was taken to Seaworld, her rehabilitation efforts were put on display for the world to see, so that they could get as much attention and profit off of this animal as possible. She was hand fed, constantly surrounded by crowds, and they even attempted to train her tricks, all extremely poor methods of keeping this whale wild to condition her for a life in the wild away from human care.
14 months of displaying her to the public later, Seaworld carted JJ off to the Pacific Ocean to release her. With a large amount of publicity, they attached a tracking device to her, sent her back to the water, and called it a success.
Her tracking device fell off days after her release and no follow up was performed. No one knows if she survived for a significant amount of time or not, because no one at Seaworld cared anymore. They got their publicity, they got their pat on the back for releasing her, they were done with her.