Speech- Sam Vandiver

           

 Speech

Sam Vandiver

     In the documentary Blackfish, there is an especially moving testimonial with a burly bearded fisherman who looked like he was straight out of a Google Image search for masculinity that was brought to tears by the memory of taking orcas out of their habitats. The mothers, he said, wailed in the heart-wrenching way that only parents witnessing their children being stripped from them can. He began to cry and I’d wager that most people viewing the interview, myself included, also got at least a little teary. While this practice has since been outlawed, orcas are still bred in captivity and then separated from their families with wanton disregard.

            Now if two of the manliest men in existence, being this grizzled fisherman and, of course, myself, can tear ourselves away from our bar fights and assault rifles for long enough to appreciate just how awfully depressing scenarios like these are, then I would please ask you to give me a few minutes of your time.

            The more stony hearted of you may be wondering why you should care about how killer whales are treated. They’re just animals after all, right? Well, the moral issue is not that simple. The issue of orca captivity boils down to the two opinions of animals in society. One side believes that animals are subservient to the glory that is mankind, while the other thinks that animals are morally comparable, if not equal, to humans. Each argument has the same solution, however, even if it is reached a little differently.

            As Aronson  argued in “The Fight for Animal Rights”, if we as humans consider animals to be  lesser than us and we think that we rule over them, then it is our moral duty to protect them; much like an older sibling protecting the younger, we would have to watch over and aide those who cannot stand up for themselves. (Aronson)  

            On the other hand, if we were to consider that life is life, and that wild animals are no different than the animals we love and keep as pets or even ourselves, then it is obvious that keeping them in unhealthy conditions is not the right thing to do!  

            Unhealthy is a good descriptor for the living conditions attributed to many orcas kept by institutions seeking to use them for commercial gain.  These businesses generally draw crowds by operating under the pretense that they are educational, and adequately care for the animals in question. Both of these assertions can be refuted by the fact that many Sea World representatives have been filmed telling audiences that their orcas live longer in captivity than in the wild (Cowperthwaite). The opposite could not be more true. These representatives claimed that the average lifespans for female and male orcas are 35 and 25 years, respectively. This is a blatant lie. If any of you were to go home and look at the Sea World website under the lifespan section, you would find paragraphs upon paragraphs of carefully worded PR speech, designed to make the issue more confusing than it should be. If you were so inclined to do a quick search for other answers, like I did, it would not take you long at all to find out that in the wild, female killer whales can live to be 90 years old and males can be 65! The Sea World approximation for either sex is just shy of three times too short (Jamie).

 Perhaps this is because the animals that have evolved to be comfortable in the environment that spans the majority of the planet, not a 46 by 24 meter pool. Or perhaps it is because those in charge of keeping these animals care more about money than they do the safety of the whales. The majority of male orcas in captivity have collapsed dorsal fins, yet in the wild this only happens to whales that are unhealthy. Sea World ignores this and calls it “common.” Orca pods have hundreds of thousands of miles to put in-between each other, while multiple killer whales that do not know each other are forced to perform for their meals alongside their counterparts daily. Sea World ignores this and calls it a show.  Often, fights will break out, and the orcas can be injured because it is a little difficult to separate 9 ton animals that are fighting. Sea World ignores this and calls it a fixable result, not a troubling problem

“They look so happy!” Some may be thinking, as if there is a cross-species Stockholm syndrome occurring in aquatic theme parks across the world. Well, those are fake eyes, and the real ones are lonely and sad. No animal, or person, would be content to be forced to live in a small strange place, full of people that don’t know how to care for them. Orca trainers aren’t required to have any college degree at all. Instead, a degree in marine biology or psychology is “preferred.” The minimum training required to work with endangered apex predators weighing up to 9 tons is a high school degree. Sea World trainers often talk about how great it feels to be “friends” with their orcas. This is not true. These animals would rather have nothing to do with humans. They need food, so they do the demeaning tricks that you force them too. At least, they do until a trainer that knows nothing about the body language or behavior of killer whales does something that they shouldn’t that causes the animal to (in its mind) defend itself.

Individual animals cannot be domesticated. A wolf cannot magically be turned into a dog, simply because a bone was thrown to it. Orcas are apex predators that have evolved to become so good at killing that they are unparalleled in their habitat. If you try to put this animal in a small chlorine tank with a strange human attempting to ride it, then it’s no wonder that something bad would happen.

This is not to say, however, that orcas are just cruel creatures that kill for fun (though the same cannot be said for humans). They, like the wild animals that they are, would be perfectly content to be left alone by our species. They only attack when fearing for their lives. So I say, instead of extending the Stand Your Ground laws to the animal kingdom, we instead give these animals the consideration that they deserve. If organizations such as Sea World cannot provide lives to these animals that are of higher quality than they would have in the wild, then the captivity of them is selfish and morally wrong, and should cease, along with all breeding of the animals for money making endeavors.

Works Cited

Aronson, Jamie. "The Fight for Animal Rights." Points of View 2014.

Blackfish. Dir. Gabriela Cowperthwaite. 2013. Documentary.

Brown, Sophie. CNN World:Japan begins whaling season with meat feast for school children. 27 June 2014. Video. 27 June 2014.

Issitt, Michah. "Confinement of Wild Animals is a Form of Cruelty and Should be Prohibited." Points of View (2014): 1. Article.

Jamie. Cetacean Inspiration. 8 September 2013. 2 December 2014.

Peta. SeaWorldofHurt.com. 2014. December 2014.

Rhone, Lauren. Seaworldpledge.org. June 2014. November 2014.

Sea World. SeaWorldAntonioblog.com. August 2014. November 2014.