Trainers at SeaWorld are taught to reinforce the whales' good behavior with rewards and to not react at all to bad behavior.
Posted on 02/25/2010 7:23:27 PM PST by JoeProBono
Killer whales can weigh up to 22,000 pounds, and may be as long as 32 feet, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. They often travel in groups of up to 50, being highly social.
Confining such an enormous animal in an aquarium tank leads the animal to display neurotic behavior, experts say.
"They get very stressed out," marine biologist Nancy Black of Monterey Bay Whale Watch said on CNN's "Larry King Live."
SeaWorld whale trainer Dawn Brancheau, 40, died Wednesday from "multiple traumatic injuries and drowning" after a whale called Tilikum grabbed her ponytail and pulled her underwater at Shamu Stadium, the Orange County Sheriff's office said Thursday.
An orca can travel easily 100 nautical miles every day, and to put them in a pool where they swim around in circles continually, and kept away from their families, "takes a toll on their brains," said Jim Borrowman, who has worked with whales for 30 years and runs Stubbs Island Whale Watching on Vancouver Island, British Columbia.
"'Neurotic' is the word that we've used, and I sense that that's probably what's happening," he said. "Perhaps that's what drives some of these issues."
(Excerpt) Read more at cnn.com ...
Trainers at SeaWorld are taught to reinforce the whales' good behavior with rewards and to not react at all to bad behavior.
'Tilikum, weighing about 12,000 pounds, has been linked to two other deaths -- he and two other whales were involved in the drowning of a trainer at a Victoria, British Columbia, marine park in 1991. Authorities said in 1999 that a 27-year-old man was the apparent victim of a Tilikum's "horseplay" at SeaWorld.'
Looks more OCD to me.
Take them back to wherever they were captured and let them go.
Circuses are even worse because elephants by nature roam for hundreds of miles. They go crazy in captivity.
Animals want freedom.
Americans want freedom from stinking tyrants like the Dems & RINOs.
This isn't restricted to whales either. Back when I was in college I read a study done with lab rats where they kept increasing the population density of a colony...as the population went up so did the incidents of homosexuality.
Look at how small that tank is. These animals need to be in the ocean.
It’s all because of global warming.
This one says “happy”.
Is this like an Orcaschach test?
Well I for one have seen and heard enough. I’m no PETA or animal rights extremist.
But I don’t think these great and beautiful carnivores need to be doing circus tricks to help pay for a marine amusement park.
These open ocean mammals are smart and this particular whale plays for keeps. Preditors with brains don’t take kindly to being cooped up.. get it!
I do understand that some of these whales could not survive long if released into the wild, so be it, keep it safe for now.
Lets end the Timothy Treadwell (RIP) like communing with these poor wild animals. How many more children will have to watch the slaughter of more trainers as if in some Roman Colosseum..
I just heard Jack Hanna say that Sea-World used $60 million dollars last year to provide for and study Killer Whales. I would say they probably received better care than some humans!
Oh, and Jack Hanna slapped down PETA's Ingrid Newkirk (British-born animal rights activist) when she claimed they were swimming in their own urine. Remember, she is the one who willed her skin to be made into purses, her feet into umbrellas, etc. I think we should oblige her.
I thought it was Bush’s fault.
Sigfrid & Roy's tiger who picked him up because he fell just like it would it's baby. Only his skin wasn't thick and hairy like an animals.
I guess you wouldn't approve of the two dogs that sleep with us every night either.
A friend of mine on another board summed it up well yesterday when he said “You confine a social, intelligent 6 ton creature to a bathtub for 30 years and you expect it to behave itself 100% of the time?”
And this morning on the radio Imus was going off on keeping them for shows etc - he said “It’s wrong to make them do tricks for the fat stupid tourists and their mouthbreathing obese kids” LOL.
I don’t mind them being kept in captivity if they’re injured and being rehabilitated, but the goal shouldn’t be keeping them in a “bathtub” and making them do tricks for the rest of their lives.
LQ
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