Should Orcas Still Be Kept in Captivity in 2022 Exploratory Essay Sample

📌Category: Animal rights, Animals, Environment, Social Issues
📌Words: 1003
📌Pages: 4
📌Published: 19 January 2022

Dawn Brancheau, a trainer at SeaWorld was attacked and killed by an orca on the 24th of February 2010. This event is what triggered people to debate whether or not it is right, or even safe to keep orcas in captivity. Since 1961, at least 150 orcas have been captured and taken into captivity only for aquariums and marine zoology parks to capitalize on them and exploit them for entertainment purposes, neglecting their needs. From my perspective I do not think orcas should be kept in captivity due to the fact that orcas are just like people - they are very social animals, and when kept isolated in a confined space it tends to take a toll on them. The points in which I will be covering in this essay are - how orcas are kept in extremely small tanks, how they die prematurely, and how being kept captive is bad for their mental and physical health.

The first point I would like to address is the living conditions that orcas put up with. The tanks that orcas are forced to live in once being captured are minuscule. It is the equivalent of a human being trapped in a bathtub. You have just enough room to stretch and move around but nowhere near close to having enough room to swim around, let alone dive. This is how orcas in captivity live for the rest of their lives, it doesn’t sound too nice, does it? Orcas in the wild typically swim up to 100 miles a day and can dive to depths of 1,000 feet. When confined to their cramped tanks these poor orcas are limited to diving only a mere 35 feet, not to mention the length of their tanks. The length of their tanks is only 350 feet long (0.07 miles) and compared to how many miles an orca swims a day on average is heartbreaking. If an orca in captivity was to swim the same as an orca in the wild did, it would have to swim more than 1,500 lengths back and forth each day. Another point I would like to focus on is fighting. On occasion, an orca is forced to share a tank with another orca and the chances of either of them being unscathed is extremely low. When two orcas are made to share a tank the chances of them getting along are low due to the fact that they come from different pods (families) and have the natural instinct to attack one another. If an orca was to come across another orca from a different pod in the wild they can simply swim their separate ways but it’s not so easy in captivity. Imagine an orca is placed in a tank with another orca and it starts attacking, the defenseless orca has nowhere to swim to, no place to hide, and is now trapped as another orca attacks it. Events like that happen all the time and are extremely dangerous to an orca's health and overall wellbeing. All these points justify that the tanks that orcas are kept in are far too small. 

The second point I would like to focus on is premature deaths. I can assure you that every single orca that has been in captivity has died a premature death. When orcas are kept in captivity their lifespan is reduced significantly and it is outrageous. Female orcas in the wild have a life expectancy of 46 years while males have an average lifespan of 30 years. You may think that an orcas lifespan hasn't been reduced that much in captivity but when you find out I guarantee that you will be appalled. The average life expectancy of an orca kept in captivity at SeaWorld, regardless of gender, is 14 years old. In comparison to how long they live in the wild, the numbers are considerably different and not for the best. An orcas lifespan in captivity can be shortened up to a whole 3 decades. At least 166 orcas have died prematurely in captivity, not including 30 miscarried or still-born calves. In short, orcas die prematurely due to the fact that they are kept in captivity. 

The final point I would like to discuss is the mental and physical health of orcas while in captivity. Firstly, their physical health. While orcas have been in captivity the main cause of death has been infection and people have only recently found out why. Orcas have been getting infections as a result of broken, worn down teeth, and in most cases, this exposes extremely delicate tissue, which is prone to be infected. Once the tissue is infected there is a direct route for the infection to enter the body, this can result in death. In the wild, this is a very rare occurrence, but in captivity, it is seen in most, if not all orcas. This is due to the fact that they break their teeth while chewing on the walls of their concrete enclosures. These distressed orcas are so bored out of their minds that they resort to chewing on the walls and gates of their enclosures. Behavior like this can lead to chronic stress, which brings me to my next point, mental health. Orcas are highly intelligent beings with one of the largest mammalian brains, and similar to how their physical health has an impact on them, their mental health has an even greater one. The majority of the time that orcas are kept captive, they are separated and isolated from other orcas and social interaction. This means they can become exceedingly bored, just like any human. Wouldn't you become bored if you were trapped in a box for 14 hours a day with no social interaction? When left in these conditions orcas can develop chronic boredom as a result of not having anything to stimulate or motivate them. Chronic boredom can lead to more serious mental illnesses, such as chronic stress. As well as orcas being trapped physically, their minds are also put in prison. These points confirm that orcas' physical and mental health is not taken into consideration when kept in captivity.

There are multiple reasons why orcas do not belong in captivity. They are kept in tanks that are extremely small for them, they all die prematurely and their mental and physical health is greatly overlooked. Corporations need to see the harm in capturing and exploiting innocent orcas to gain traction and I believe we should make this practice illegal.

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