Why is there such a vast difference between the image we are given by SeaWorld and that which we are told in Blackfish?
I watched Blackfish with completely no idea of the cruelty that happened as I was actually, shamefully, a SeaWorld fan and my family enjoyed their visit there so much back in Christmas 2007 that we visited twice just to see the Shamu show! We are the perfect example of the people who they talk about in the documentary who fall victim to all of the crap that they tell you to make you believe that "they actually love performing" and "Orca's live longer here because they're taken care of and fed so frequently, this is something they don't even get in the wild." But the fact of the matter is that no Orca in SeaWorld captivity has ever died of old age.
The documentary shows various deaths and accidents involving the Orcas. This being through their own accident, or the whale on whale aggression that is seen daily in the tanks. Whilst people argue this is due to the Orca's natural aggressive disposition, wouldn't you want to rip someone's head off if you'd spent your entire life in a concrete tank constantly swimming in circles? There have been horrible cases of the other whales doing something to the whales that do not behave. Most commonly, this is where they drag their teeth along their skin, leaving scratches and sometimes cuts that can lead to the animals bleeding out right there in the tank or even worse mid performance as can be seen in the image above.
But there was no way I could have ever prepared myself to watch the segment where they speak about how they captured the whales. The images of baby whales crying for their family as they refuse to swim away to safety is truly heart wrenching, so emotionally affecting that I could not even cry. You can see the mothers crying to their babies as they're being lifted away in nets and one of the captors speaks about how he had to discard the dead. They were told that all of the babies who didn't survive were to be cut open, filled with rocks and simply dropped back into the ocean to sink. It's inhumane what they did and have continued to do to these whales but what makes it so much worse is that it's been allowed to happen before our very eyes.
SeaWorld have told us blatant lies to encourage our custom. For example they tell people that a bent dorsal fin is very common in Orca's but in reality only 1% of the population have this defect, and it's usually due to accident or injury. Yet all of the Orca's at SeaWorld have this feature. They also enforce that they do not separate mothers and their babies. 
Yet Blackfish tell the true story of a
separation that quite literally broke my heart. They tricked the mother and baby into different tanks after a show and simply took the baby away, leaving the mother in the module tank and the baby shipped off within the day. The Mother than continued to float in the corner of the tank for hours alone making these noises. The trainers became worried as they had never heard these kind of noises being made before and after analysis they discovered they were long range calls. She was calling for her baby and continued to do so for the rest of her life. The calls were continuous all night as she called for her lost baby and the other mothers would simply come and swim by and check on her every so often and let her search and grieve for her child who was taken so horribly from her. It was at this point of watching the documentary that I actually registered how like humans these intelligent animals are and it enforced even more to me the reasons that they cannot be caged or contained.
Also Blackfish explores the way in which it's not simply a case of SeaWorld's environment being negative for the Orca's but it's the long term damaging effects of them being forced to train and perform that does the most harm. For example one of their Orca's was transferred to Loro Parque in the canary islands and whilst this park had no experience of Orca's before the trainers were aware of basic skills and how to handle the whales. Pictured to the right you can see Alexis Martinez and Keto, the SeaWorld whale that would eventually kill him. The park was notoriously known for being awful when it came to animals and Alex was believed to be the best trainer they had, yet this still could not control Keto from what he had to do. Alex's fiancée speaks of how she received the news and the way in which they would not let her see him even though she had been informed on the phone that he was fine. When she arrived she was greeted by lawyers and businessmen all telling her that it was Alex's fault and nothing to do with the animal in question and of course when SeaWorld were questioned in court about their association with Loro Parque they denied all known links.
There is a clear trend in the cause of accidents and deaths at SeaWorld; they are always trainer error. So much so that the director of SeaWorld even went as far to declare that Dawn
Brancheau "would have said herself that it was her own fault." Even going as far as to blame the woman who had given her whole life to controlling and understanding the Orca's that their corporation had so cruelly damaged. They also first released a statement declaring that it was her ponytail that caused the accident and that Tilikum had mistaken it for food. This in itself I found to be quite harrowing that them declaring the whales to be so hungry they would jump at the site of anything that resembled food, but yet this is still a better reason than the truth of what happened? In the documentary they analyse the footage brilliantly and really pay tribute to the excellence that was Dawn and all she offered to SeaWorld. It was clear to me that this tragedy was due to frustration and communication which Tilikum could not understand and nothing more. Tillikum is now seen to be a 'danger' to the other whales at SeaWorld and as a result is kept alone for most of the time except for performances and he can be seen floating for hours on end, not even swimming, just floating. How can this be right?
"There is no record to this day of an Orca ever killing anybody in the wild..."
