Captive Orca News

I'm not a fan of live capture no, it's really not needed as breeding is fairly successful. The odd one that gets rescued and can't be released every 20 years or so should be enough to keep the gene pools going.
There are ways of doing it without killing any animals, but honestly, separating them from their group, is just too much stress unless it's completely needed like in cases of injury or whatever.
Captive populations are fine there though, bigger tanks are always good, the bigger the better, but once they're in captivity they tend to live quite well and to decent ages.

 

Personally I am ok with them keeping their current captive populations. But I think we should be cautious about allowing any more wild animals to be captured.

I'm torn between allowing everyday people the opportunity to see an animal up close that they would otherwise never get to see and the ethical considerations of keeping such an animal. It's a tough one.

I was reading the Orca entry on Wikipedia, which I notice has been massively updated with tons of new info, and noticed one species down here near Antarctica feeds on minke wales. This got me wondering how that population is going considering all the minke whales Japan harvest from the southern ocean every year.

Although seeing animals in captivity doesn't compare to seeing them in the wild; but then again how many people can afford to do that.

Perhaps if governments protected certain areas of ocean from fishing activity I would be ok with a responsible aquarium that had proper large tank facilities taking a quota of 2 babies every 20 years to allow people the opportunity to see these animals up close in captivity. I don't think denying people the opportunity to see such amazing animals does anything to help their conservation in the wild. It's naive to underestimate the significance of having animals in the public consciousness.

 

What I have "issues" with is when Sea World claims captive orca live as long as their wild counterparts, but that's not true and I don't understand why they insist on saying it. The reason I say it's untrue, at least for the time being, is that the oldest captive whales are about 50 years old. Even if it's proven that neither Granny nor Lummi (d) couldn't be 100 or more, they are still likely in their 70s or more since Ruffles made it to his 50s before he "went missing". When I saw him in 2004 he was already 50 something. So, actually, nobody knows yet if captive whales live as long as or longer than wild whales since Corky and Tokitae are still alive. The circumstances of their births, wild or captive, is irrelevant since they were raised in captivity.

 

It seems Marineland Antibes is still in bad shape, orcas are still seen swimming in muddy water. Hope the situation gets rectified quickly, this could easily make a lot of their animals sick. I've always wondered, what are the emergency protocols for aquariums and marine parks with large animals? It's something I've been curious about for a while.

Animals left in pools of muddy water after devastating flash floods | Metro News
https://www.facebook.com/captpaulwa...931/10153539940020932/?type=3&hc_location=ufi

 

Marineland has announced that Valentin, an orca of theirs, is dead. They are looking into the cause of his death.

https://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=10153745077663846&id=64495333845

 

That's the one in France, isn't it? Such a shame.

 

PLEASE don't believe everything you read about Sea World. Since you are in Australia I can't exactly say to visit the park and see for you yourself how well the animals are kept, so all I can do is ask you not to believe everything you read since much of it is written by activists, many of whom would rather the orca be dead than in captivity. If you have any questions or concerns about what you have read, please reach out to someone who supports the park or has spent a lot of time there. I never understand why nobody has bothered to ask ME questions, no matter how many times I've offered an insider's view. I am not 100% Sea World, but as someone who has spent many years on the inside, so to speak, I can confirm or deny a lot of the stuff that has been written about the park.

A few months ago some school children here in Arizona got to see the movie Blackfish. I'm not real sure why they showed it in a grade school, but that part is irrelevant. My point is, that after watching the movie, they asked questions. They didn't automatically believe what the movie was claiming so they wrote letters to Sea World and asked questions. You know what Sea World did? Not only did they reply to the letters, but they sent a group out to the school to speak to the kids in person. I was so impressed by these kids, though, because they had the sense to ask questions and not just blindly believe the movie, but yet adults just blindly believe.

Sea World is not perfect. I'll be the first to say that. But they aren't the horrible place PETA and the makers of Blackfish want people to believe. I wish they would stop the shows. I wouldn't mind if they stopped the breeding program, but they are so much more than that. They rescue injured and stranded sea life and they rehab then release back into the wild. Occasionally an animal is deemed unreleasable due to injury and it ends up living at the park for the rest of its life, but fortunately, that doesn't happen very often.

You said you once gave Sea World the benefit of the doubt, but now you don't. I would like you to reconsider that. They no longer capture wild orca or dolphin for their parks and haven't since the 1970s. Do some more reading. Ask questions. I have tons of pictures and some video of the park, both during shows and between shows that proves some of what Blackfish has stated is a flat-out lie. I'm more than happy to share those with anyone who is interested in seeing them and learning the other side of things.

 

Yeah. I'm even more concerned about their other animals now. To my knowledge, Valentin was a physically healthy adult. I wonder if they're going to change their emergency protocol to better deal with situations like this in the future.

 

How many orcas are left still alive? After the loss of Freya and now Valentin,this is not a good year for Marineland. Not to mention the many other animals lost in this catastrophe...

 

Four, with two of them being pretty young.

 

I have visited Sea World here; they are only allowed to keep dolphins here. And there facilities seemed fine. I'm not against Sea World as I know they do many great things.

My only problem with Sea World keeping Orcas is they seem to treat them more like circus animals.

I haven't seen Blackfish and couldn't be bothered watching it as I know it will be full of cherry picked doom and gloom and not an accurate reflection of reality. Although I will probably watch it eventually.

I am completely against PETA, I think they are too extreme and unrealistic in their expectations to be honest. I think the general public has the right to see exotic animals in zoos. I just feel PETA create drama out of nothing and turn molehills into mountains.

It's terrible news about the Orca in France passing away. I can't believe they could be that delicate. I didn't realize water quality was such a life or death issue as they are air breathing and it's only been a week or so. It's making me wonder if they should continue to be stocked in aquariums.

I just read this article and apparently Marineland had similar floods in the past.

Killer Whale Dies Following the Muddy Disaster at Marineland - Candace Calloway Whiting

 

Sea World Gold Coast has absolutely nothing to do with the SeaWorld parks in America. They are not part of the same company and never has been, so visiting Sea World doesn't neccesarily give you much insight into SeaWorld, or any other marine parks.

 

Well, remember that flood water is more than just mud and water. It often has all kinds of nasty germs and harmful chemicals. If the filtration system breaks or can't handle it, it's no surprise that a few days in those conditions can hurt even a healthy adult orca.

 

Yeah I guess. It makes me wonder why they didn't have back up generators and flood proof enclosures.

Regarding the Orca breeding I see Sea World have now been banned from doing this. Personally I don't understand what the problem with captive breeding is, I mean at least it gives the animals others to socialize with.

If I was Sea World I would take my operations to the middle east. I have been watching the news reports coming out of the US on You Tube regarding Sea World and they are so toxic and negative towards Sea World that I don't see how Sea World will want to continue it's operations within western nations. If law makers want to take the economic benefit of the aquariums for granted then let them see how they feel when they are taken away.

Banning captive breeding programs while approving larger tanks to be built just doesn't make any sense whatsoever. Why allow perfectly healthy animals die out in captivity when they could be maintained through captive breeding for at least the near future without any impact on wild populations.

Captive breeding animals stops the need for wild capture. Yet now somehow captive breeding Orcas is unethical. It seems your criticized no matter what you try and do.

 

Well they are trying to make sea world not be allowed to breed the orcas, or transport them outside of sea world. So all the orcas there now will be there always until they die, and no more would come in, so after a few decades, sea world san diego would not have any more orcas.

PETA doesn't want captive breeding OR wild capture, which is why this is so great for them and bad for sea world. The "problem" of captive breeding is that there will continue to be orcas in captivity. This is a problem for animal rights groups, not a problem for sea world.

 

VIDEO. Décès de l'orque Valentin à Marineland: "Une torsion de l'intestin" | Antibes | Nice-Matin

I guess he died of a twisted intestine? I had to use Google translate to read it. Apparently they haven't found a direct link between his death and the flooding, but they're waiting for more tests to be sure.

 

Happens a lot in large animals, haven't heard of it in orca before, but makes sense I suppose.

 

Horses get them alarmingly frequently; it is life threatening for them and your options are usually expensive, messy surgery or euthanasia. That's why you don't let a colicking horse roll; it increases the likelihood that the horse will suffer a twisted intestine. Cattle do as well.

Sumar in San Diego died of a twisted intestine. Like Valentin it came on all of a sudden, without warning.

 

Intestinal volvulus in cetaceans. - PubMed - NCBI

Here's a paper about it in cetaceans. (it's got some photos, so be prepared for that) The paper uses two orca deaths in the data and mentions one orca death that wasn't included in the data.

 

Mark Simmons, former SeaWorld Trainer and participant in the ill fated Keiko release project has published an editorial regarding the CCC breeding amendment on Awesome Ocean.

Killing Kasatka... When Animal Activism Comes Before Animal Welfare