Blackfish Documentary and SeaWorld's Orca Captivity Crisis

Introduction: SeaWorld Under Scrutiny

When the documentary Blackfish was released in 2013, SeaWorld officials initially responded by blaming falling attendance on negative media attention. However, the falloff in visitors confirmed that there was widespread public outrage over the conditions in which orca whales were kept. The documentary focused on Tilikum, a wild-caught orca whale subjected to severely inhumane conditions that caused him to turn on his human trainers and kill several of them. This essay provides an analysis of the decline in attendance at SeaWorld following the Blackfish release, a discussion of SeaWorld's announced plans to discontinue its orca captive breeding program, and a personal reaction to this important but deeply disturbing documentary.

Declining Attendance Following the Blackfish Release

As the epigraph above suggests, SeaWorld attracts millions of people to its facilities each year. Yet as Palmer adds, "Underneath the water's surface, however, is a much darker reality, one characterized by routine suffering and occasional bursts of lethal violence" (2015, p. 53). Unfortunately, the facts revealed in Blackfish were not uncommon historically, when wild orca whales were routinely collected from their natural habitats. The documentary concerns Tilikum, a male orca who was captured in the North Atlantic in 1983 when he was approximately two years old (Schindler, 2014).

The documentary contains a number of harrowing firsthand accounts from Tilikum's trainers at SeaWorld's Victoria, Canada facility — accounts that would have an enormous impact on SeaWorld's attendance and revenues. Among the more graphic details was the fact that two years after he was captured, Tilikum was confined to a 20-by-30-foot unlit metal container with two other orcas, where they were forced to remain for two-thirds of their lives (Schindler, 2014). According to Schindler, "There was no stimulation; they were mostly immobile for 14 hours a day, and the trainers punished and deprived them of food in order to make them perform tricks" (p. 3). The combination of psychological and physical trauma resulted in Tilikum killing several human trainers, beginning in 1991 with Keltie Byrne, and then again on February 24, 2010, when he killed Dawn Brancheau, a SeaWorld whale trainer in Orlando (Schindler, 2014).

The documentary also places blame for these deaths on SeaWorld's executive leadership team, who made the decisions that led to this tragic outcome. Not only do orcas confined in captivity have shorter life spans than their wild counterparts, but they also suffer from more diseases, including deformed dorsal fins and emotional trauma resulting from being forced to perform tricks for park visitors (Schindler, 2014). Animal rights groups have also criticized SeaWorld for the manner in which it harvested these whales (Schindler, 2014), even though the company claims it has not done so for more than 40 years (The last generation of whales at SeaWorld, 2016). Not surprisingly, the revelations in the documentary made SeaWorld the target of global criticism for these inhumane practices following its release. Despite aggressive efforts to improve the orcas' habitat, SeaWorld's Standard & Poor's credit rating plummeted and attendance decreased by more than 20% (Schindler, 2014).

SeaWorld's Decision to End the Orca Breeding Program

Although SeaWorld initially attempted to deflect blame for the deaths caused by Tilikum and its treatment of orcas by attributing its decline in attendance and credit rating to "media attention," the company's CEO Jim Atchison reported that SeaWorld was building a new 10-million-gallon whale tank set to open in 2018 — twice the size of the existing tank. While 10 million gallons sounds like a substantial volume of water, in reality even the new orca tank would be only about the size of 15 Olympic-sized swimming pools (at approximately 660,430 gallons per pool) (How much water does an Olympic-sized swimming pool hold?, 2016). For enormous animals such as Tilikum and other orcas who are accustomed to an entire ocean, it is clear that even this significant investment is too little, too late to provide these animals with the environment they need to thrive.

To their credit, the executive leadership team at SeaWorld agreed that the existing orcas would be the last generation kept at their facilities. According to the company's website, "SeaWorld has ended its killer whale breeding program, making the orcas in our care the last generation. Our whales are still here, and they will still be here for many years to come, living and thriving under the best veterinary care" (The last generation of whales at SeaWorld, 2016). In addition, the president and chief executive officer of SeaWorld Entertainment, Joel Manby, emphasized the importance of the company's conservation efforts and the educational value of its orca program. Manby pointed out that "We've helped make orcas among the most beloved marine mammals on the planet" (The last generation of whales at SeaWorld, 2016, para. 3). He also stressed that SeaWorld has educated more than 40 million attendees over the years through its orca program.

Furthermore, the company allocated $50 million from 2017 through 2022 to fund a marine animal rescue organization and to campaign for the cessation of commercial harvesting of seals and whales, as well as the end of shark finning — the practice in which a shark's fin is cut off for sale to Asian markets and the animal is left to die (The last generation of whales at SeaWorld, 2016).

The existing population of orcas at SeaWorld, including one pregnant whale, will remain at the park for the rest of their lives, as the company maintains that they would be unable to survive in the wild, having been born in captivity (The last generation of whales at SeaWorld, 2016). In addition, the orcas will no longer be forced to perform for human audiences; instead, park visitors will be able to observe them in their current habitats and through "educational encounters" (The last generation of whales at SeaWorld, 2016).