Lolita is one of the orcas kidnapped in the horrific 1970 Penn Cove
roundup in Puget Sound where four other members of her family drowned in the
capture nets. Orcas are highly social and live in large family groups, but
Lolita lives in isolation from other orcas at the Miami Seaquarium, where she
swims tiny circles in a shallow, barren tank. Her shameful living conditions
violate both the Endangered Species Act and the Animal Welfare Act—yet she
remains imprisoned. Click Here To Help Lolita.
Unna, an orca held in captivity at SeaWorld died Monday, Dec. 21, 2015 – just days before her 19th birthday, a far shorter life than her natural expectancy of 30-50 years.
“We are saddened to share the passing of Unna today,” SeaWorld announced on its website, SeaWorld Cares, a blog launched to save its reputation after massive fall out due to the documentary “Blackfish,” which aired in 2013. However, another orca death at such a young age goes to show that no amount of publicity can save SeaWorld from the truth – whales don’t belong in captivity.
Unna, who lived at the San Antonio park, had been under veterinary care since September 2015 when she suffered from a resistant strain of fungus called Candida. While it is unclear if the fungus was the ultimate cause of her death, Unna had not responded well to treatments for the infection.
After Unna was not showing much improvement through traditional medicines, SeaWorld experimented with a medication never used before with killer whales. Her side effects caused a loss of appetite and Umma had to be supplemented with fluids.
Ultimately, the treatments were unsuccessful. While some cetaceans get fungal infections in the wild, they are far more common in captivity, often secondary to stress, unbalanced water disinfection with chlorines, or indiscriminate antibiotic therapy. A necropsy will be performed to determine the ultimate cause of her death, SeaWorld confirmed.
This is not the first tragedy at SeaWorld this year. In February, Nanuq, a White Arctic Beluga whale, died in captivity at SeaWorld Orlando after ongoing treatment for a jaw injury. The injury was sustained during what SeaWorld called an “interaction” between two animals “that were part of a compatible social group,” according to Headline & Global News.
One of the most unfortunate aspects of Umma’s young death is that despite 24/7 veterinary care, their lives likely wouldn’t have been cut short had they not been in captivity in the first place.
According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, male killer whales live on average for 30 years, but can live as long as 50 to 60 years, while females live 50 years but can live as long as 100 years.
SeaWorld canceled all of its killer whale shows in San Antonio Dec. 21, 2015 “in honor” of Unna’s death, but if the park really wanted to give respect tribute to its whales, it would empty its tanks.
What Can You do for Captive Whales and Marine Animals?
Facilities like SeaWorld are profit-driven businesses. The first thing you can do to help whales, dolphins, and other captive marine animals in such enclosures is to not support or visit parks or businesses that hold these amazing creatures captive. If you want to take your activism further, you can join the Empty the Tanks Worldwide movement to join protests and help spread the world about the dark side of marine captivity. Keep up with the campaign’s Facebook page here. Share this article to help orcas like Unna so that all whales can one day be free. Image source: Tammy Lo / Flickr.
Another Death at SeaWorld. An 18-year-old orca succumbs to a fungal infection in San Antonio by David Kirby/Take Part Daily.
On Monday, the company announced that Unna, an 18-year-old killer whale at SeaWorld San Antonio, died from a rare fungal infection.
“This is a difficult time for the SeaWorld team and all of Unna’s many fans, and we thank you for your thoughts and well wishes,” the company said.
According to the statement, Unna was infected with a resistant strain of a fungus called Candida.
“The team had developed a novel treatment plan in consultation with leading medical experts around the country,” SeaWorld said. “While there were some indications that the treatment was having a positive effect, Unna had remained in serious condition and under 24/7 care.”
Unna was the daughter of Tilikum, the 12,000-pound orca at SeaWorld Orlando that has been implicated in the deaths of three people, including Orlando trainer Dawn Brancheau in February 2010.
This was the third death of a whale at SeaWorld San Antonio in the past six months. Last month a beluga whale, Stella, died from gastrointestinal complications and in July, a premature beluga calf also died.
The last SeaWorld-owned killer whale to die was Victoria, who succumbed to intestinal problems in June 2013 at Loro Parque in the Canary Islands. At least 45 orcas have died at SeaWorld, according to Whale and Dolphin Conservation.
SeaWorld said that Unna, who was born in December 1996 at SeaWorld Orlando, had suffered from Candida “for months.” But John Hargrove, a former SeaWorld killer whale trainer who appeared in the anti-captivity documentary Blackfish and penned the 2015 book Beneath the Surface, disputed that account.
“It’s patently false,” Hargrove said. “When I came back to the San Antonio park in March of 2008, she had already been sick for some time.”
Hargrove said that Unna’s urine samples routinely tested positive for fungal spores.
“She was already on high doses of multiple medications, including an antifungal and antibiotics, every single day,” Hargrove said. He said that trainers at the park have told him that the medical regime continued for the three years since he quit SeaWorld in 2012.
“She was chronically ill,” Hargrove said. “I’m surprised she lived this long.”
SeaWorld said that Candida affects captive as well as wild whales and dolphins. But that claim was discounted by Naomi Rose, a leading orca researcher and marine mammal scientist at the Animal Welfare Institute.
“SeaWorld implies that Candida is common in the wild, as if that absolves the company of Unna's death,” Rose said in an email. “This is both self-serving and scientifically inaccurate.”
While Candida does affect some whale and dolphin species, it is “not common in orcas,” Rose said, adding that the fungus does not cause serious disease unless stress and immune compromise are also involved. “Unna died because she lived her short life in a concrete tank and SeaWorld's veterinary care couldn't help her,” she said.
Animal-welfare activists said Unna’s premature death is further evidence that captive killer whales do not live as long as wild orcas, which live up to 50 to 100 years.
SeaWorld, citing a July 2015 study in the Journal of Mammalogy, authored by company-affiliated researchers, says the survival rate of captive and wild orcas is the same.
Those findings have been challenged by scientists such as Rose and groups such as People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, who note that the vast majority of killer whales to die at SeaWorld have not lived to the age of 20.
Unna died “far short of how long she was expected to live,” PETA said in a statement.
“Although it is, in fact, hard to call it ‘living’ when her ‘life’ consisted of being taken away from her mother just before her sixth birthday, being impregnated when she was only 8 years old before giving birth to a stillborn calf, and being so deprived of enrichment and the opportunity to engage in natural behavior that she obsessively picked at the paint on the bottom of SeaWorld’s show pool floor until her face became badly injured,” PETA said.
Editor's Note Dec. 23, 2015—1:52 p.m. PT
This article has been updated to include material from a TakePart interview with John Hargrove.
Another Orca Dies at SeaWorld
Unna died this past Monday at SeaWorld San Antonio in Texas, at only 18 years old from a fungal infection. She was the daughter of Tilikum, the tormented orca who features in Blackfish, the documentary film which continues to have a huge impact on SeaWorld's finances, which are made from the archaic and cruel captive entertainment industry.
Unna is the third orca to die at the San Antonio SeaWorld facility in just the past six months, and the 38th SeaWorld orca to die young.
Born in SeaWorld Orlando, Unna was callously ripped away from her mother at only six years of age, and shipped to SeaWorld San Antonio. Unna lived and died her miserable life and death in captivity, knowing only the unforgiving concrete walls and caustic chlorinated waters of a tank.
SeaWorld has an appalling premature death rate. Female orcas can live up to and even over 100 years in the wild, but most orcas at SeaWorld and other captive facilities don't live anywhere near that long.
Given SeaWorlds' "best" and "constant" care – as they describe it – one would expect orcas to live longer in captivity than in the wild. Yet, even with consistent food and veterinary care, they barely survive, let alone thrive.
SeaWorld's reputation continues to sink, and their enslaved orcas continue to die premature deaths from captivity related conditions that are unheard of in the wild.
RIP Unna. And may your premature death serve to END this absurd cruelty once and FOR ALL.
Read our press release here.
Read more here.
Spinning Whales: New Site Fact-Checks SeaWorld. When 'Blackfish' hit movie screens, SeaWorld responded with its own website. Now animal rights activists are hitting back.
That’s the latest in the war of words between SeaWorld and its detractors, who just launched a website that gives point-by-point rebuttals to the beleaguered company’s claims about the well-being of its killer whales.
SeaWorld Fact Check, as it’s called, is designed to “separate verifiable facts from corporate opinions or public relations spin,” according to the site’s introduction.
“This is not an advocacy site. It is a fact-check site, a tool that can be used by advocates but geared toward…anyone who simply wants the facts,” said Dr. Naomi Rose, a marine mammal scientist at the Animal Welfare Institute. “The debate about captive orcas is misinformed by SeaWorld and is therefore not a legitimate debate at all. This website is an effort to correct that.”
Rose manages the site alongside Dr. Ingrid Visser, founder of New Zealand’s Orca Research Trust, and prominent anti-captivity activist and blogger Candace Calloway Whiting.
Anti-captivity activists came up with the idea six months ago after SeaWorld launched its Twitter campaign, #AskSeaWorld. The hashtag allows members of the public to tweet questions to the company, which are then answered on a website called SeaWorld Cares. The project was designed to counter claims made in the documentary Blackfish, which criticizes SeaWorld for its treatment of orcas and alleges the company disregards trainer safety.
The Orca Life Span Argument
SeaWorld Fact Check takes on many of the company’s claims about its operations, including captive-orca longevity. For example, SeaWorld asserts that there is “no significant difference” between the annual survival rates of its captive whales and the survival rates of wild populations.
SeaWorld Fact Check calls that claim a statistical sleight of hand.
“SeaWorld claims that approximately 97 percent of all ‘known-age’ orcas in free-ranging populations die before they reach age 50,” SeaWorld Fact Check says. “By this simple trick of only considering ‘known-age’ orcas, they effectively drop a significant number of individuals out of this calculation.” In fact, killer whales can live 50 to 80 years, according to federal government scientists.
SeaWorld also says recent data prove that the average life span for captive whales is 46 to 48 years. But as the new website points out, the company’s oldest captive-born orca, Orkid, is about to turn 27. According to the site, SeaWorld owns 25 captive-born orcas. About a dozen others have died since the first successful birth in 1985; most of them were much younger than 20.
“It should be clear even to non-mathematicians that an average life span of almost 50 cannot be accurate for a category of whale whose oldest member, living or dead, has yet to reach 30,” the site says.
Mother-Calf Separation Debate
The separation of orca mothers and calves is another highly contentious issue between SeaWorld and its critics. The company says it does not remove young whales from their mothers.
SeaWorld Fact Check takes issue with that assertion.
“SeaWorld has separated numerous mothers and offspring, including one at 10 months, one at 20 months and one at 24 months,” it says. “Other separations have occurred when the offspring were juveniles or adolescents.”
SeaWorld considers mother-calf separation to apply only to newborn killer whales, SeaWorld Fact Check says, but the “mother-newborn” definition is not science-based when it comes to orca pairs. “In a species such as orcas, offspring should be considered ‘calves’ until they are at least 5-10 years of age, the earliest age of separation/dispersal observed in the wild.”
The site challenges SeaWorld’s claims on other issues, including the overall health of its whales, the drugs it uses to treat the animals, and the safety of its trainers. It includes links to scientific papers and other sources to back up its rebuttals.
SeaWorld did not respond to a request for comment, but it may not be able to ignore SeaWorld Fact Check for long.
According to Rose, SeaWorld Fact Check received 8,500 hits in its first five days. One visitor was an editor from the Times of San Diego, who invited the group to submit a rebuttal to an opinion piece it published on Sept. 24 by five SeaWorld trainers on their relationship with orcas in their care.
But orca scientist Andy Foote, a biologist at the University of Bern in Switzerland, said that it’s difficult to compare captive and wild populations. “There are biases associated with each,” he said. “I think that both sides of the debate over keeping killer whales in captivity tend to emphasize certain aspects to make their case seem stronger."
The typical lifespan of a wild orca is forty to fifty years … but they can live to be significantly older than that. Granny – the head matriarch of the J-Pod – is believed to be 104 years of age! Sadly, captive orcas rarely get to enjoy this degree of longevity. A 2013 Whale and Dolphin Conservation (WDC) study revealed that 33 orcas who were born in captivity – and had since died – up to that time survived to an average of only 4.5 years. The average life expectancy of orcas forced to live in a tank is 19 years for males, and 30 years for females.
Common problems experienced by captive orcas – seldom witnessed in their wild counterparts – include collapsed dorsal fins, aggression amongst tank mates, abnormal repetitive behaviors, self-mutilation, and unusual illnesses. In fact, Sea World has had to resort to medicating their orcas with psychoactive, Valium-like drugs in an effort to stave off some of these maladies.
No doubt about it, orcas tend to do a whole lot better when they are permitted to live as nature intended, in the open ocean. Sometimes, it is only when we are presented with awe-inspiring images or videos of these animals in their natural habitat that we can fully appreciate just how true this is. Monterey Whale Watch, a California-based organization, recently provided us with even more evidence that those tanks should be emptied ASAP, by publishing a series of stunning photographs of wild orcas to their Facebook page!
The pictures were taken by Daniel Bianchetta.
Release Confined Orca Whales to a Sanctuary.
Target: SeaWorld CEO, Joel Manby
Goal: End the cruelty against orcas once and for all by releasing them all to a sanctuary.
Orcas have been suffering in SeaWorld’s concrete tanks for years. Orcas are torn from their natural environments and families to be forced to perform in shows for the company’s profit. Because of increased stress and disease in confinement, almost 40 orcas have died untimely and excruciating deaths in SeaWorld parks.
PETA has been asking members to send letters to Joel Manby, the CEO of SeaWorld, this Christmas to remind him of his company’s victims so he doesn’t forget that SeaWorld is directly responsible for the painful deaths of 37 orcas. One of them, Kandu, was so stressed at being separated from her baby, Orkid, that she broke her jaw and bled out in the tank, suffering for 45 minutes before sinking to the bottom of the pool.
The documentary Blackfish revealed the horrors that go on at SeaWorld by exposing information directly obtained from former staff members who were appalled by the company’s practices. The company hunts down orcas in the wild, slaughters the mothers, steals the calves, and then transports them to live a life in barren, concrete tanks. The orcas are then forced into captive breeding programs and must endure constant training for shows to entertain gullible audiences. SeaWorld is consistently guilty of abusing its orcas and putting profit over animal welfare. Additionally, the USDA has given SeaWorld several warnings concerning the mental and physical health of its orcas as well as the safety of its training staff.
While orcas can live up to 100 years in the wild, their average lifespan at SeaWorld is 10 to 13 years. Many orcas die from disease, injuries and wounds, in labor due to forced breeding, or from the stress of confinement. Moreover, while orcas roam 100 miles in the ocean, in captivity, they are forced to live in tiny tanks that feel like mere bathtubs to them.
Recently, another ex-SeaWorld employee has spoken out against the park, detailing the lack of care for the animals’ health and wellbeing. She described orcas attacking each other out of the frustration of being confined, with subordinate animals unable to escape. The attacked orcas often had their skin ripped off in the fights, while employees took these strips of skin home as souvenirs. She also says that SeaWorld instantly threatened or fired staff who questioned the company’s policies.
It is time for SeaWorld to stop the abuse and free its orcas. Sign this petition urging the company to end the cruelty and release all its orcas to a suitable sanctuary.
Dear Mr. Manby,
You will be receiving several letters this Christmas reminding you of the 37 orcas that have died painful deaths at SeaWorld. One of them, Kandu, who broke her jaw when her baby Orkid was taken from her, bled out for 45 minutes in the tank.
SeaWorld has been abusing orcas for year by stealing them from the wild, confining them to barren tanks, and forcing them to perform for your profit. These practices may take place behind closed doors but, thanks to former employees speaking out and the recent documentary film Blackfish, the general public is beginning to learn the truth about how your company treats animals. New reports describing SeaWorld’s lack of concern for animals’ health and welfare are constantly surfacing, and the tide is turning against your company.
The orcas that have suffered and died at SeaWorld can’t be brought back, but those still kept captive there can still be given the opportunity to experience some joy if released now. I am urging you to display compassion for these intelligent animals and send your orcas to a suitable sanctuary.
Sincerely,
[Your Name Here]
Photo credit: PETA
I am writing on behalf of the non-profit, Ceta-Base, that runs the website
www.ceta-base.org - Ceta-Base is an all volunteer run organization and is
currently undertaking fundraiser for the New Year. As you know Ceta-Base is a 501(c)(3) organization dedicated to compiling the most extensive global record of whales, dolphins, porpoises and other marine mammals in captivity. It is our goal to provide current and historical documentation on captive marine mammals for the general public, scientists, advocacy groups and interested individuals.
I am writing today to ask that you consider supporting the website through a tax-deductible donation, donations will go towards the annual budget and fund items such as:
- research materials (digital & hard copy)
- document processing & scanning of research materials for an online archive
- professional memberships that include access to journals or scientific papers
- publication of materials and books on captive cetaceans
- conference attendance
Thank you for your consideration, if you'd like more information on donating please visit
www.ceta-base.org/donate.html
Thanks again and please feel free to direct any questions to me.
