Whale Wars, Academy Award nominee “The Cove,” the infamous “save the Whales” campaign. For three decades, several organizations have been espousing whale conservation. The recent tragic death of marine animal trainer, Dawn Brancheau, has only added fuel to the fire for both sides of the issue. “The Cove” director, Louis Psihoyos, notes whales have never attacked humans in the wild. A former mentor of Brancheau's claims Tilikum's grasping of his trainer's ponytail may have just been an attempt to play with a “novel item in the water.” While, still, other seasoned animal trainers insist that captive whales have been important species ambassadors; helping to educate and get the general public interested in their conservation and ultimate fate.

On Friday, the SeaWorld CEO announced that “Believe” shows featuring killer whale Tilikum would resume Saturday with trainers staying out of the water until safety policies and procedures could be fully reevaluated. This decision has caused even more uproar in some sectors of the animal welfare community. In an opinion article for CNN, a marine mammal scientist for the Humane Society of the United States, Naomi A. Rose, Ph.D, expresses concerns about Tilikum's future, noting that if he's kept at SeaWorld, “putting distance between him and his trainers will only further isolate him, which is completely unnatural and stressful for a social species like orcas.”

There is something to be said for the idea that whales are intrinsically dangerous in captivity. A social species used to having entire oceans to itself can become stressed and under-stimulated in an aquarium environment, causing neurotic and dangerous behaviors. Even cats and dogs – species domesticated over thousands of years – can snap if not cared for and trained properly, much less a 12,000 lb animal captured directly from its wild habitat. Though Tilikum may be dangerous in captivity, experts admit that long-captive whales released into the wild have never quite thrived without human intervention, citing the case of Keiko, of “Free Willy” fame, who never quite became integrated into a whale pod after being released into the wild.

As a young child, I had the chance to see Keiko in her rehabilitation tank in Oregon. While a killer whale is an amazing creature to see and her tank in Oregon seemed massive, there was something distinctly unsettling in seeing a breathtaking animal with a drooping dorsal fin in an essentially empty concrete pond, swimming in endless circles. When considering the lives that whales in the wild live: swimming hundreds of miles, staying with their mothers for the span of their life, and keeping up complex social structures, there is a definite sense that keeping a whale in captivity is, at best, unnatural. Long held-captive whales like Keiko end up in an uneasy limbo; unable to fit into their natural habitats and unable to thrive in captivity. Whales born into captivity have even less of a chance of contributing successfully to the maintenance of the endangered world whale population.

Then there is the argument, stated succinctly by accomplished marine animal trainer Karen Pryor that, “if there hadn’t been Flipper and Shamu... we wouldn’t have the Marine Mammal Protection Act, we wouldn’t have the International Whaling Commission, we wouldn’t have ocean conservation.” There is logic in that view, too. The question then becomes that if keeping whales captive really is harmful to the individual animals that experience it, is the suffering of those individuals justified by the purpose they serve to the greater good, or does every whale deserve to be free?

-Julie is a blogger for The New View. Check out her bio to see where her view comes from.

Read More

'Cove' director: SeaWorld death preventable, CNN.com

SeaWorld CEO says shows with killer whales will resume Saturday, CNN.com

Whale may have seen ponytail as toy, San Diego Union Tribune

How to free a killer whale, CNN Opinion

Reintroduce Tilikum to the wild, killer-whale experts say, stltoday.com

Is Captivity for Whales and Dolphins Ethical?, Politics Daily