Friday, February 26, 2010

Free The Whales?

I just finished reading this. I love a good debate! After what happened in Orlando's Sea World this week, I have been thinking a lot about wild animals being kept in captivity. They say that a whale in a tank is like a human living in a bath tub their whole life. What kind of life is that? I understand that we have gotten more educated on these animals by capturing and studying them...they have even started doing invetro fertilization with the whales so that some of them never were in the wild. But does that make it any better? In the link above, Mama Kat talks about a wale named Namu who was captured and dragged across the ocean in a bin type thing, all the while crying out for help. On the fourth day 30-40 whales came around trying to help him out. After a while, all of them left except for a female whale and two calves, presumably his mother and siblings. This story really upset me. Here is a picture Mama Kat had of the little cage he was in.


Go check out her blog. She goes more into it, but I wanted to share this with you. I wish there was something we could do to help these creatures be free'd (if that is what's best for them) or make it so they don't live in such a small place. They are wild animals. Born to be free and go with their natural instincts. When people get hurt, I don't believe that it is the animals fault. It's their nature, and they know what they are getting into when they take the job of working with them. This whale Tilicum who just killed this week, has killed twice before. They also said he was showing signs that very morning of being aggravated or acting like a ornary (sp?) child. They should have taken more precautions. Anyway, go read her blog post about it and the comments that were left are interesting too.

1 comments :

City Soliloquy said...

Hi there :)

Been enjoying your blog, think I found it through 20sb or just some blog hoppin.

I think the kindest thing they can do for these animals is put them in large sea pens. Being a Biologist and researching around through papers comes a bit naturally to me. They have discovered much through these whales in captivity, though how far this data can be applied to wild orcas is questionable for sure! As far as being educational shows I kinda doubt it, there is no doubt the shows are magnificent and they raise awareness for the whales.

I'll have to check out this other blog post. As far as I'm aware there has been no catching of orcas for entertainment purposes from the wild for many many many years which is why Tilly is so valuable as a stud.

I would love these whales to be freed but there are so many obstacles to overcome - disease transmission, returning the whales to their original pods (they're pretty cultural animals, i hear pods have unique vocalisations amongst themselves) come to mind.

I think Tilly has got quite a bad rap from the press. They often fail to mention that in the initial death he wasn't being used for waterwork anyways and it was the part-time trainer's fault for slipping into the pool. Or have neglected hypothermia as an primary/additional (depending on the source) cause of death from the incident in 1999.

Eeeek ramble ramble!

Nik x

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