it was not her pony tail it was her arm according to several eyewitnesses. The ponytail story was an attempt by SeaWorld to place the blame on Dawn for having long hair.
On that day the orca was looking for an opportunity to grab ANY part of an accessible human. Doesn’t really matter which part - the result would be identical
yall trying to blame one person/entity when it isn't that simple. anyway, it definitely wasn't her fault. you can't blame a trainer for being killed by a wild animal, it was her job, which she was good at, but animals are unpredictable. it was numerous factors: the animals temperament that day, the people who captured it, the CEOs who continue to keep them captive and run the business, the people who don't care and continue to give money to the companies, and politicians who don't push for change
The fact that sea world still asked trainers to work with a whale that had a kill count is ridiculously irresponsible. They didn’t treat their animals well, but they didn’t treat their staff much better.
Anyone that trains orcas know they are sadist by nature and kill so often for the fun of it and dont even eat the kills half the time Play dumb games win stupid prizes
@@alexandria65they captured an animal from the wild and forced it to perform and do tricks. That is massively cruel and evil in itself. Nothing else needs to be said about their treatment if they already did that
@@nancimarie It's not always that simple. A lot of said employees were young and had misinformed views about what working at a place like seaworld was like (mostly due to seaworld propoganda), and by the time they find out the truth, it's very difficult to just "quit' a career and go elsewhere. You can have empathy for both the animals and the employees.
My heart breaks for Tilikum, he had a miserable life. Stolen from his home, trapped in a tiny pool, abused by the larger females. Orcas are beautiful, but they're also dangerous. I feel terrible for Dawn and her family too. Tilikum didn't just randomly grab her. He did a trick but didn't do it correctly so she didn't reward him. He was aggressive, and agitated. He grabbed her and she was gone. Many of trainers have been attacked by killer whales. They don't belong in shows, living in captivity.
I agree with you about Tilikum. If he wasn’t taken from his family and his home this never would have happened. Even some of the most wild animals need care and respect. Death to all who support animal cruelty!!!!!
@@samuellaird5184agree with no animal cruelty, but please don't wish more harm, even on people who cause it. I want less suffering overall, not just switch the suffering from animals to humans.
My understanding of wildlife having worked with them for many years is that captivity is degrading to their mental health and this tends to result in poor outcomes for the animals long term. Freedom is not just a human desire.
I would disagree, at least with your assumption that this is so for ALL animals. For creatures as large as orcas, yes I would agree. However, with animals that are smaller and whose need for space is much, much less, lifespan and quality of life can be MUCH better than that in the wild.
@@Gustav_Kuriga For a hamster maybe, I'd exclude predatory animals, animals that have a natural inclination to travel for large distances or keep a large territory. Tbh I wouldn't even keep a cat in captivity. All the indoor cats in my area just stare out the window for hours on end.
1. Tilikum was kept with older, larger female Orcas from different pods or "cultures" that have different languages. He was locked in a tiny tank with them every night, by morning he was covered in wounds. Females are dominant and beat him up. 2. Any animal without stimulation can become destructive- dogs home alone all day eating you shoes. Orcas are extremely intelligent, they can’t sit around all day. 3. Dawn was not pulled in by her ponytail! This was speculation and blaming her for "getting to close" plus, why would she have her head so close to the water? 4. Tilikum was frustrated with Dawn, she was using whistle cues for him to perform small tricks - he missed a cue and repeated a trick but, since he missed the cue he wasn't rewarded. He did the trick twice give him the fucking fish. 5. Tilikum lived the rest of his days with his grandson Trua in the back tank. You can find videos of Trua mimicking Tilikum, simple tricks like tail splashing and fin waving. He was never seen being aggressive towards the baby.
I started taking a drink for each separate comment that corrected the "pulled in by the hair" thing, but I'm going to stop. Getting too drunk too fast.
The females would bully him for training mistakes also. SeaWorld relied on the older, more dominant whales (usually females) to "socially reinforce" their cruel training program for the baby whales fresh from their home pods.
I love animals, and I hate the demeaning life of the animals at Sea World, but honestly, he should have been destroyed after the first death. Any other animal would have been. He wouldn't have the skills for the wild, and you couldn't risk him seeking humans if released, but he was too dangerous to keep around. He should have been humanely euthanized. Given that orcas can pass along behaviors between generations, if released, he might have encouraged other orcas to seek humans. We've seen recently that such confrontations can be dangerous with the recent orca attacks on small boats, and I'm personally afraid those orcas will hurt someone and result in the entire pod being destroyed. At the very least, they should have had a weapon capable of killing him instantly if necessary to free a trapped person. Orcas are amazing and beautiful animals, but humans should always come first.
@@-Bill."humans should always come first" Nah. Play stupid games, Win Stupid prizes. She deserves her Darwin award. Anyone who traps or "trains" Apex predators deserves theirs. There's plenty of human potential out there. Invest in educating those rather than bothering or "humanely euthanizing" a creature that never signed up for this, nor deserves to be punished for what it does naturally outside of captivity. Humans are a dime a dozen these days.
Tilikum did not grab Dawn by the ponytail. This is reiterated in Blackfish, as well as very well publicised. The ponytail story was a speculation made up by the spotter, who DID NOT see Dawn get pulled into the water. It was determined from the footage that he likely grabbed her upper arm or shoulder.
Ya that's actually not true. The family that filmed her right before she died all stated she was grabbed by the hair, as well one of her spotters stated not only to police but under oath that Tilikum grabbed her arm. You can read it in the court transcript Secretary of Labor vs SeaWorld Florida LLC. Blackfish is propaganda and lies consistently to push a narrative.
I thought I remembered it as upper arm or shoulder as well. Either way, it's always told that when SeaWorld purchased Tilikum both the selling entity and SeaWorld never told the "whole story" of past incidents involving trainers and aggression.
Makes sense, if that was the arm shaken/bitten right off. There is some frightening footage of Dawn being drowned, I think? There is a few videos floating around of a captured orca drowning or trying to drown a keeper. These orcas must hate their trainers so much, they take them back to the surface for a breath and then it's back down you go..😬
Titikum's story brings to mind the story of Tyke, the circus elephant that went out of control in 1994, killing her trainer and running through the streets of Honolulu, before being gunned down by responding police. Fortunately, such events bring more public awareness to the plight of highly intelligent animals that are enslaved for the entertainment of audiences and financial gain of exhibitors.
Tyke was trained using abusive methods. They use a bullhook and train elephants by pain. Better more positive methods need to be developed in training an elephant if it's going to preform. It makes me wonder if Tilikum was trained by similar abusive methods. He didn't snap for no reason.
I think tyke had a better ending than the other circus elephant, I can't remember her name but she attacked and killed a trainer as a response to his actions and the townspeople were so pissed off that they wanted her killed, well the circus owner decoded to oblige them and they killed her by handgong her with a crane...I still wish that town had paid for such a cruel thing to do.
@@PlasmaStorm73-N5EVV Check out Elephant Nature Park in Thailand. It is a sanctuary for elephants once used in the logging or tourist industries. They live as natural a life as possible (they do what they want), but are fed and given top notch medical care.
I'll always remember the part in Blackfish when it is described how they first took the calves of a pod in the wild. Even when they made a clearing for the adult orcas to escape, they remained behind due to the captured calves and wouldn't swim away. They were crying out for each other. Unforgivable and cruel.
One of my most vivid memories from early childhood was seeing an Orca emerge in the tank window for the first time. I was absolutely awe-struck by them. They quickly became my favorite aquatic animals and I wanted to learn everything I could about them. Unfortunately, one of my biggest takeaways from that education was just how awful and torturous it is to keep them in captivity. It's a sad irony.
his floppy back fin is also brought up by the documentary. we never see floppy back fins in wild orcas, but they're common in captive ones. seaworld would falsely say that it's common across all orcas, but is likely a result of stress. seeing that fin flopped over in all the pictures really hammers home that he was not well, and that this wasn't taken seriously or cared about for a very long time. EDIT: more nuance to this than I initially understood. bent and collapsed fins do occur in the wild, however it is very rare amongst wild populations and is primarily a captivity issue. it is not fully understood why the fins collapse, but it may be due to injury, gravity, speed at which orcas travel, or yes, stress and distress. regardless, a straight fin is a sign of a healthy orca and the fact that seaworld tried to obscure this fact is wrong. my original point stands.
There is false propaganda from the animal activists as well. The bent fin story gathers a lot of misguided sympathy. Watch some UA-cam videos with wild orcas - the bent fins are rather common. While it’s more prevalent in captivity it’s not at ask a unique phenomenon
@@drdrew3fun fact: a Libertarian think tank is responsible for most anti-animal activist propaganda. From anti-peta stuff to pro sea world stuff. It all goes back to *one* lobbying group that represents sea world, meat companiew, fast food restaurants, etc. I assume you know this however because they also advertise that they will go into comment sections on behalf of their clients to discredit animal rights activists. Unless you're doing this for free, in which case lol.
@@drdrew3 have done a bit of research just now. what I can find does indicate that bent fins are indeed uncommon in the wild, though not unheard of. they are far more common in captive orcas, however. looks like there's a lot of factors that can go into it, but all are theoretical; temperature, speed, and stress being the most major theories. regardless, a straight fin is a sign of a healthy orca. captive orcas with bent fins that are released will often have their fins straighten. my original point stands that it's still a sign of unhealth that wasn't taken seriously, but I acknowledge that there's more nuance to it than I initially understood.
A line that's always stuck with me is "If you had to live in a bathtub for thirty years, wouldn't you go crazy?" Yes. Yes I would. I find myself baffled by the arrogance it takes to decide to treat Earth's apex predator this way.
I saw a video a few months back of sea worlds current orca show... All I could think about was how boring it must be for the whales... Living in a blue tank with no environmental stimulation. These whales hunt and kill in the wild, they get to do none of that in captivity, just roll on their back and wave for pre killed fish multiple times a day.
Exactly. Tilikum was kidnapped from his family and kept in torturous conditions for decades. He was driven insane, it's no wonder he snapped. I hope his soul is at peace now.
It isn't arrogance. It's greed. Other than the trainers, who seemed more often than not to actually care about the animals, the park managers / corporate only saw dollar signs. Maximize profit, basically.
I have such a complicated relationship with Sea World. I only went once, as a very young child (around 5 or 6). My mom took me to see the Shamu show, and from her account, a random guy sat with us and was chatting. Turned out he was a trainer (in plain clothes) and had selected me to take part in the show. This involved him carrying me down to the pool and letting me sit on the orca. It definitely wasn't Tilikum - it was one of the smaller ones I think (but still, a whole-ass orca). They uh. Stopped putting kids on the orcas pretty soon after that I think LOL. Nothing bad happened and I always considered it an amazing experience to be able to literally sit on an animal like that... But it shouldn't have happened. I have such a respect for sea life and have spent so much time out on the ocean on whale watches and on the water in general. I'm thankful for my experience with the orca, they're now one of my favorite animals, but... just no. A severely inappropriate thing to do. I'm a lover of all animals (currently have 16 pets) and I support ethical zoos and aquariums that focus on education, rehab, and conservation. Animals the size and intelligence of orcas objectively do not belong in captivity. We just cannot properly provide for them, even remotely. Did you know? The animal responsible for more injuries against zookeepers are ZEBRAS! My guess is that because they're pony-sized, people treat them like domestic horses. Which they extremely are not.
I had heard about zebras. Yes people think they are the same as domesticated horses, but they are wild animals. Many people do not understand that domestication of a species involves not just taming them or masking the wild instincts, but involves changing their very genetics to be more friendly with humans via selective breeding. Just like how wolves are not dogs. They have more than 10 thousand years of divergent evolution within them.
Interesting about the Zebras - they're less powerful than a lot of other animals, and are herbivores, so I could imagine they probably cause more injuries but fewer deaths than some other animals. Wonder which animals cause the most deaths? I'm guessing something surprising, probably not an apex predator.
@@PlasmaStorm73-N5EVV Yep, griaffes are absolutely terrifying. A single one can kill several lions before it goes down itself. Animals in general are terrifying, in fact. Fun fact about horses: there is only one truely wild horse left, the Przewalski's horse. According to the Smithsonian National Zoo website there are only about 1,900 alive (how many in the wild, I do not know).
What an incredible story! As for zebras, I've known people who've had them for various reasons, and I've never encountered a truly tame zebra, although I've heard of some. Basically, any interaction you have with a zebra is like interaction with a buffalo, there's a high degree of possible danger. You don't go in most zebras' stalls, pastures, or corrals unless you REALLY know what you're doing and can run faster than the zebra (!). You're dealing with a very fast animal, easily frightened and sometimes territorial, with a kick that could almost decapitate you, and jaws that can crush bone. In addition, like llamas, rams, and "pet" bulls, sometimes the less afraid of you they are, the MORE likely they are to attack you. Animals don't always respond to "love" the way humans expect them to. They sure aren't My Little Pony.
Having seen orcas in the wild while out cod fishing in Norway, it seems beyond cruel to keep them in captivity. They're very social (I saw a pod of five with a calf ) and extremely intelligent. They followed our boat for around two hours while we were looking to find a spot to fish, sometimes heading over to the other fishing boats in the area to see if they were about to start fishing before coming back to ours. They kept an eye on us the whole time, and if one orca got tired, it would drop back and be replaced by one of the others up front. They never left the calf unattended and all four of them surrounded it like the five dots on a die. As soon we found somewhere to fish they disappeared but it was so amazing to be followed by a family of orcas and every time I pulled up a big cod, the guys on the boat would joke that I caught a killer whale. 🤣
They are glorified fish. The smartest animal isn't even as smart as the dumbest human. You cannot attribute human thoughts, feelings and motivations because they dont have them. They operate on instinct and what they are are savage asshole fish.
Blackfish also touched on the fact that there were several other non-fatal incidents involving Tilikum prior to the 2010 incident. I remember reports of rough play during training, acting out, and aggression against trainers being described. Supposedly, several other trainers were somewhat nervous around Tilikum long before 2010, but were hushed up by Seaworld.
To be fair, this is behavior of almost every orca in captivity. There are THOUSANDS of incidents of aggression documented by orcas in captivity. It is not uncommon for them to get upset.
You should do a video on Keiko as well. While it doesn't involve anyone dying, it is horrifying to me how lonely that poor whale was. No matter what is done for these animals, once they've been captured, they can never go back to a normal life. The story of Kiska is also incredibly sad and horrifying.
Tilikum attacked Dawn out of frustration. It started to fall apart when he missed a reinforcement cue that he had done a desired correct behaviour, he continued doing the behaviour which was considered wrong, causing him to not get paid (fed) for his work. It is heartbreaking that after the attack, Tilikum was only ever used for the splash segments of shows with all trainers off the stage. His day consisted of staying in back pools until that segment a few rimes a day. You just know he knew he did something wrong and was being punished for it. You just know he was heavily depressed.
Ironically, Tilikum probably never even knew exactly what behaviour it was he was doing wrong that resulted in -his boss stiffing his pay- the trainer not rewarding him. That poor whale lived such a wretched & frustrated life, & Sea World was all about either blaming their trainers (who had little leeway when it came to making the whales' lives better) or blaming Tilikum for somehow being "bad"...
What makes it worse, is that the reason Tilikum was the way he was is that in his very first location, the two female orcas he was with would harass him if he missed a trick while being taught because the trainers there would withhold food from ALL orcas, resulting in the two fully trained individuals punishing Tilikum for making them miss a meal. And I don't mean just treats like at SeaWorld, I mean they would not be fed. At all. So when he missed the queue the first time and kept going, he was likely deathly afraid he'd be starved and then likely attacked by the other Orcas, resulting in him lashing out at Dawn in a PTSD attack.@@starrywizdom
Orcas are intelligent mammals and should never be locked up in an aquarium for our amusement especially under the subpar conditions at SeaWorld at the time.
Great video!! Orcas don't do well outside of their pods. And depending on the pod, they can have different ranges and diets. They usually specialize in certain prey. Like lion prides. They also have different languages and dialects, so when Tilicum was put in small pools with females who didn't know him and didn't speak the same, they'd attack him. So he had to be kept separate which is psychologically damaging to a social creature.
Male killer whales also stay with their mother their entire lives, and their social status is tied to that of their mother. A motherless male killer whale is liable to be bullied, like Tilikum was.
@@jamesc8259 yes, but one bright bit of good news...there was an orca that was released back into the ocean & it was found much later living w/a pod of orcas. It was tagged, so that's how they knew it was the one that was released. It's not known if that orca had relocated its native pod or had successfully incorporated into a different pod...but nonetheless, it was living free in the wild successfully after having been in captivity. I'm sure there are MANY variables that determine if releasing a captive animal back into the wild will be successful, but at least in this one case it was successful.
I got to know Keiko very well over the years. He was a very different story. He had taken to imprisonment differently than Tillikum. He was very sweet, very friendly toward people. You could also tell that his mind and spirit had been completely broken when he was young. He was permanently dazed and sort of childlike, if an orca could be childlike. I think it was wrong to try to reintroduce him to the wild, and I think it lead to his premature death, but really, I think there were no right answers when it came to his care. Keep him in there little tanks that, while built for his comfort is just not enough for an orca, or put him in the wild and see how he does. My point is, even in the best circumstances, orcas in captivity suffer. We should make the ones we have as comfortable as we can, stop breeding them, and ban their capture entirely.
Keiko's capture was cruel, but his release was the worst example of why animals that have hardly lived outside their captivity shouldn't just be "freed" because "it's the right thing to do". I actually miss Keiko and was heartbroken when he died alone and longing for contact with people again.
Didn't the same thing happen to a dolphin called Luna? Except she got so lonely, she ended up chasing boats, eventually leading to a terrible and fatal accident with a large propeller?@@presidentkiller
Once they have been in captivity, they cannot be released. No pod will ever accept a random adult that they probably aren’t able to communicate with very well. They have not been taught how to hunt. They are not used to the physical requirements of living in a real sea. There are some ideas for shore-side sanctuaries for orcas and other large marine mammals, but I don’t think anything has come of it yet.
Who the fuck names an orca after a book about a pedophile talking about how he sexuall abused a child and how it was completely fine in his view?... Oh wait Americans have given this thing more and more romanticised covers thinking it was yet another soppy romance novel where "lovers are separated by time" kind of shit
Came here to say this!! All he had to do was watch Blackfish. The ponytail was made up by the spotter who didn’t even see Tilikum pull her in, and only looked over when people started screaming.
Either way, she was entirely on land and out of the water when Tilikum grabbed her. There was nothing she nor anyone else could've done to have prevented the accident that day and Seaworld was in my opinion entirely responsible for her death.
@@ripvanwinkle2002 I don't see how you could ever view the trainers as torturers. Yes, the whales shouldn't be in Seaworld and you could argue they're complicit, but one of them in the BlackFish doc even says the reason he stayed working is because he felt sorry for Tilikum and wanted to help.
Hello, I am pleased to meet you. After reading your comment, it made me genuinely interested in wanting to see what all you had mentioned. Very curious. The Orcas, IMHO, are absolutely beautiful, and should never, ever be taken away from their own natural habitat. So cruel, period! I wish you a good day today, and I hope life is treating you well. Sending you all of my best wishes for always. Sincerely, Donna Marie Davidson *Laughlin, Nevada, USA*
Start by googling sædýrasafnið… if you choose images and see the state of the animals and heir surrounding you get a picture of what he was dealing with
@@donnamariedavidson5065assuming you’re not using a false name/ location as part of a bit I’d recommend refraining from doing that. Anyone who reads this comment knows your full name, location and what you look like. Not everyone has good intentions. Don’t put your personal info out like that.
Yes, Seaworld constantly "improving" their aquarium tanks... right. That's why the tanks are barely larger than an olympic swimming pool while the parking lot is about fifteen square miles.
Another excellent video! We used to stay at Oak Bay Marina in the 1970’s and I would always hear the orcas crying at night. I later learned of the terrible conditions there, especially the tiny pens they were confined to during the night.
This video is a different kind of horror compared to the other videos on your channel. I'm so mad that SeaWorld is still as successful as it is now, despite so many controversies and abuse they've done with aquatic life.
@@PlasmaStorm73-N5EVV I'm not going to edit it because it's not technically incorrect. People no longer get in the water with the orcas. They have nowhere to put the remaining orcas they made (from Tillikum) and they can't just Free Willy but they won't be replacing them in the future. The orcas they have do not interact with people. And they probably do tricks for people to give them some form of simulation. Suffice it to say I correct it to they're no longer doing shows with people and orcas and they can't just shoot the ones that they've created. So they show them. That's not the Orca show that I was raised hearing about where orcas were flipping people up in the air and crap. They stop doing that. People just play with seals
@@PlasmaStorm73-N5EVV I just checked for my own sanity and yes, there is an announcement that the breeding program was ended in 2016 and the current generation of orca in their Parks are the last generation. People no longer get in the water with them. I would call that ending the Orca program and show. If you would prefer they just pulled them out of the water and let them dry up so they wouldn't have any more of them then let them know your position.
Sadly its not the only case for organizations and corporations to have such a history record of controversies. Just look at Nestle, they had a harrowing amount of controversies barely UA-cam channels talk about, and the company is still around. Not surpised as they mostly control water supplies, the lifeblood of a population. Same for oil companies either, but oil controls the world, and almost any controversy related to them won't stop them, because they are quite a powerful part of a country. So even if they get into a corporation damaging lawsuit, money would get them out no blamo.
I went to Sea World Ohio as a child one time and I remember their educational portion pointing out how whales like this are so big and powerful and having a momentary "is this really safe" moment. Of course they emphasized that their whales were well trained and wouldn't hurt the trainers and the whale was there for rehabilitation (of course we now know that's a lie) but yeah, weird times
The whales were shipped into SeaWorld Ohio at the beginning of the operating season, and shipped back out at the end of the season. Totally a disgrace. Especially when it's obvious by photos and videos of SW Ohio that their orca pools were no better than Miami SeaQuarium or Reino Adventura in Mexico. It gets even more sad after SixFlags bought the SeaWorld Ohio park, because in absence of SeaWorld's killer whales, SixFlags bought a single female orca from France that had been malnourished and was low on the pecking order in her pod (she was the French park's first calf and they were clueless). Sixflags soon moved her to a California Sixflags location, but never successfully got an orca poolmate for her. From 2002 to 2012, she was alone aside from a few bottlenose dolphins that she didn't truly get along with. in 2012, she was moved to SeaWorld San Diego. SeaWorld got the money from the Ohio park's sale AND ended up with an extra orca after she'd been isolated for a decade. What a load of crock the industry is.
I lived near Sea Land of the Pacific as a child, me and my family went there at least every few weeks. When the whales did the big jump to touch the buoy hanging over the pen, I would always stand on the part of the deck that splashed. There were three huge whales in a tiny pen, as a child I just assumed that they had much more space underwater to swim than I could see and the surface.
I remember when this information came out it played a huge part in ending the orca show at SeaWorld. On a side note I just learned that the term killer whale was based off of Viking language, and it actually means... Whale....killer. Makes so much more sense
yep, some orca pods have been known to converge on and promptly drown whales. they themselves are dolphins, not whales, so the name 'whale killer' makes a whole lot more sense than 'killer whale.' they drown the whales by laying on top of their blowhole, by the way. its really fascinating how smart and strategic they can be. they know where the source of the whale's breath comes from and just pin it down so that it can drown at their leisure. another fun fact; the name 'orca' comes from the god 'orcus', a god of the underworld who punished broken oaths. very very fitting.
@@kigut7443 that's awesome! I know the Vikings also talked about great big animals that would attack their ships. And that's why Vikings have those long narrow ships because apparently the ones they were using before look like a whale in the water and the Orca were attacking
Huh, in Swedish they are called Späckhuggare, meaning blubber ...chomper. (it's hard to translate, chomp fits best.) It is thought to be from them being either seen to attack whales or going after the whales caught by whaling ships way back when. I tried to find the word you referred to, but can only find a word meaning a whale of some kind, including Orca and dolphin.
@@foreverpinkf.7603 they couldn’t release them to the wild now. Theres been far too much human intervention. They’d all just die. Best thing for them is to retire them from shows, and develop a plan to move them to open oceans pens, where they can live the remainder of their life experiencing the natural environment they were born for.
I saw Keiko the whale (who played in Free Willy) shortly before his release and it was one of the most inhumane things I've ever seen, even all these years later. I can close my eyes and still see him in the tank, barely moving, surrounded by rotting fish they had tried to feed him but which he wouldn't eat. His flesh was partly eaten away. It was a horrific scene, surrounded by tourists pointing, shooting, taking pictures and generally being excited to see "Free Willy." If I were an orca, i would ram the hell out of our yachts and stuff, too. We've behaved with deliberate cruelty to them for decades.
The way he died was even worse, but keep telling yourself that freeing him was the right thing to do. A full evaluation about Keiko should've been performed before his release to see that he wouldn't adapt to wild life as he was just too used to be around humans because that was what he knew from very early in his life. So these "environmentalists" and "animal lovers" really just took away what he knew and what he was comfortable with and replaced it with loneliness and longing for some bonding with others, no matter how "free" he was. Sure his conditions at Reino Aventura weren't great, but that could've been improved while keeping him content.
Fascinating Horror always does such a great job of covering stories we are all pretty familiar with, but digging and presenting at such a rate that it’s nothing but respectful. I am always genuinely pleased and educated when this page uploads! One of my favorite channels ever 💯
I was at Seaworld in Florida when I was 15. I loved the other parks and I wanted to love it, but even at that age (where I wasn’t thinking deeply or critically) I was left with a sadness I couldn’t shake. its obvious of course why someone would feel like that, but I still think about it. Why the trainers are not terrified I do not know.
I went to sea world multiple times as a child, I remember my family laughing at the animal protesters outside the park, and when I saw the orca and dolphin shows I felt like I was watching magic. I saw tilikum perform and I watched the show after the incident. I wasn’t aware of any issues with the care and well being of the animals. It was only when blackfish gained notoriety, and I got more into understanding animal care, that I understood how warped my viewpoint was, it felt like a betrayal, like a happy moment had been disturbed. Once I had the choice I never went back to sea world and never will. My heart aches for those poor animals.
A fundamental problem with the whole setup is that some animals just do not have the psychological ability to deal with captivity. Orcas are *very* high on that list - their pods can roam over hundreds of square miles - and migrate around half the planet. They are evolved to be long distance travelers and nomads. And they are scarily smart and need a lot of mental stimulation. Now put them in a bathtub that's part echo chamber and part sensory deprivation tank, with strange orcas they have no relation to and often form loose pods only with great difficulty and aggression, and leave them locked in solitary the rest of the time. And never, ever feed them quite enough, to keep them hungry and (you hope) obedient. Tilikum was the ultimate result of that experiement: A genuinely psychotic orca that was a lethal threat to everyone around him. Til was the most famous case of that, but there are a whole bunch of others, most of which didn't injure anyone but themselves. The entire thing has been the worst sort of circus and it needed to be shut down a long time ago. RIP Dawn Brancheau. Killed by corporate greed and negligence far more than by an orca.
From what I understand after Tillicum was just used for display, they treated him terribly and he ended up in a pool alone with several infections that ended up killing him. Shame on SeaWorld
We went to this SeaWorld the summer before. The trainers would get into the water with the other whales, but did not do so with Tilikum. When he came out for the show the trainers stepped back away from the water. I thought it a bit odd, that they were treating him so differently. It was chilling to hear the news a few months later that he'd killed someone.
The collapsed dorsal fins on those captured animals is so sad to see. Due to a lack of space, especially depth in those tanks, orcas exercise significantly less and are stuck to pattern swimming, causing the fin to droop
I remember when this happened to Dawn. My heart hurt for the trainer and her family but I couldn’t feel anger towards the orca. Mess with Mother Nature, and eventually nature bites back. Literally. My parents took me to SeaLand as a kid once around eight or seven and they told me I was so upset about the animals not being free and in a normal home that they cut the visit short and never took my brother nor I to another animal theme park again. Even in my 40s now I have problems visiting a zoo even. Blackfish completely broke me. Real life is not Finding Nemo.
hate zoos. loved them when i was a kid and i didnt understand the animals dont just show up to the show for a job. they have to live there an never leave.. now i think they are a wholly unnecessary cruelty. we have the internet. we dont need to cage and torment animals just to look at them..
Trainer picked to be an orca slaver she deserved what she got its common knowlage that orcas kill for fun what do they think will happen if they have them bored 24/7
@@ripvanwinkle2002 It highly depends on the zoo. Many of them put in work to help save animals from going extinct in the wild with breeding and release programs. Only reason they allow public individuals in with admission fees is because they can't run the zoo without money. it was the AZA accredited zoos that helped bring the red wolf back and help keep the Mexican Grey from going extinct. I was to one with a Mexican grey breeding program. it had a wolf viewing area that had a plane of one way glass. Research the zoo you plan to go to. Not all zoos are created the same. I wish we researched before going to Arbuckle Wilderness.
While "black fish" made several unfounded claims for the sake of sensationalism, I'm glad that it had an impact of the handling and regulation of marine wildlife in captivity. SeaWorld has a big impact in conservation efforts, but the way it slimed it's way around the intruder's case and purposely hid Tilikum's troubled past from staff (including his handlers) is deplorable.
They genuinely aren't responsible for what happened to the intruder, but even if they genuinely believed that Tilikum killing the original trainer was somehow something they would prevent by being better than her and her employer, that he killed another person for any reason should have immediately had him off limits to human interaction, and if possible released into the wild. SeaWorld blatantly put profit over the lives of their employees. I'm glad the whole thing damaged them so badly if it had to happen.
It wouldn't be the first time animal rights groups have lied to the public a group was busted in America and had to pay back billions of dollars to a circus for lying about what was going on
You are right, it's definitely a case of "no party was completely right, but working something around the issue greatly helped". I am happy that orca aren't used for sideshows anymore. They are intelligent animals, who needs to live among their pod, having the surface area of an ocean as only limits, not a basin.
I remember when this channel was so small and you had barely any subscribers. I instantly knew this was would someday become a big channel. I just say this because it’s so awesome seeing how far it’s come. Straightforward and detailed, pleasant narration, the format and intro. I’ve been watching for years now! Great work, seriously.
If I was in the ocean and accidentally came across an orca I would be less scared than a shark.... but I would exit the water immediately. It is about respect and knowing your place. Messing with any apex predator either forced or by accident is always a bad idea.
@@BobbyDigital6411 It's a bit like driving on a road near someone who's high or drunk. When a crash happens, it's terrible, but lots of people will drive in proximity to a drunk driver and never know it. Similarly, people will swim near sharks and never know it. (Signed, an Australian - who also knew someone who died from shark injuries.)
I grew up in Victoria, attended Sealand a few times, and was 14 when the trainer was killed there. It never really occurred to any of us at the time how miserable the whales must've been living in those tiny pools so close to their real homes. Seems incredibly callous of us now. It makes me happy to see that the country has banned the captivity and breeding of whales, but poor Tilikum lived a pretty dire existence thanks to these whale shows.
im from vancouver, and im not old enough to have co-existed with the lifespan of sealand, but reflecting on the history it's wild to me how we ever thought that was a cool thing to do. nowadays our province seems to really revere orcas. we have orca art and statues all over our cities, images of orcas on our ID cards.. the orca whale is a highly beloved animal here. you'd think back then that we'd want only the best for such a majestic, intelligent, and powerful animal. but like you said, it must not have occurred to anyone that they were in hell. perhaps im looking back on history with information that wasnt available to them at the time. either way, im just glad theyre not kept anymore. i think theyre such noble and brilliant animals and they deserve so much better than what we do to them. theyre probably as intelligent as we are, and as social/loving too.
Okay so this is going to be long because this is a cause that lies incredibly close to my heart. Apologies in advance lol. Tilli was an emotionally broken animal. He was traumatically stolen from his family as a baby, locked in a tiny, pitch black stall (so small he could barely even turn around) every single night so the other orcas at Sealand of the Pacific couldn't bully him, forced to live in a chlorinated tank which offered NONE of the mental or physical stimulation he needed to remain happy and healthy. I mean, think of how much orcas rely on sound, how sensitive they are to it... now imagine how loud the park would have been, day in and day out, in a concrete tank that probably amplified every noise. Orcas rely on their familial bonds to feel happy and safe. He was denied the right to have this. I fully believe he was mentally destroyed by the experience of being in captivity, which is why he lashed out repeatedly. I mean, who wouldn't have? The part of orcas brains that are responsible for emotion are way, way more developed than our own. They are incredibly smart, emotional beings. To keep them locked up in what amounts to a bathtub, for the sake of our entertainment makes me sick. SeaWorld (and Sealand of the Pacific although that's closed down) are responsible for these deaths. 100%. And Tilikum was alone when he died. I think that's what gets me the most. After Dawn's death he had been kept in essentially solitary confinement until he died. A creature who relies on being around members of their pod, on being with family. Forced to live and die alone in a chlorinated pool. I'm so glad this industry is dying out. The exact same goes for dolphins in captivity too, but unfortunately this doesn't seem to be declining as quickly. Miami Seaquarium is planning on releasing one of their incredibly long-suffering orcas (Lolita/Tokitae if anyone's interested in reading up on her story) to a sea pen where she can retire and hopefully be fully released in time. The rest of the parks keeping captive orca need to do the same. Sorry, long post. This cause upsets me greatly. Thank you for covering it!
I totally agree but, Tilikum was not always alone after the incident. He was kept with his grandson Trua - the baby mimicked him a lot and like to think it gave Tilikum some contentment.
No need to apologize for length of post, I appreciated every word and appreciate your passion. The capture of these magnificent creatures is beyond wrong. It’s amazing Tilikum didn’t snap much earlier than he did, and hurt more people than he did. They all deserve huge-pen retirement and if at all possible, release.
I freaked out when I saw this video in my feed because I was obsessed with this case for a while. I went to SeaWorld once when I was 8 and vaguely recall speaking to a trainer that might have been Dawn, and I also vaguely recall hearing about her death, at which time I was 10- my mom (who shared a birthday with her IIRC) had just been diagnosed with and hospitalized for a brain tumor, so that time period is a disjointed blur, but I remember becoming frightened of my Shamu doll and trying to get it out of my room. I saw Blackfish on a slow day in my 12th grade biology class and became obsessed. I did my senior thesis project about orcas in captivity and later did an "ethical audit" of SeaWorld for a business course my first semester of college. Unfortunately, because of the timing, my mind associated the case with my own trauma. (My mom had passed away when I was 15, and at the time I saw Blackfish I was starting to experience physical symptoms of PTSD- after a night of research on the case, I woke up with pain in my head and left arm that I assumed was psychosomatic from reading about Dawn's death, but my condition worsened until 24 hours later I was in the ER panicking with "stroke-like symptoms"; I was diagnosed with fibromyalgia 4 years later.) I've tried not to think about it too much in the last few years because of my personal traumatic associations with it, but it's an endlessly fascinating case despite the harrowing tragedy and stunning abandonment of responsibility (although after years of watching your channel I'm sadly accustomed to stories like this). The first thing I thought upon hearing the story in full in 12th grade was "why the f*** was SeaWorld keeping an orca that was literally a serial killer?" I'm relieved that SeaWorld is moving away from its exploitation of orcas, but of course the human and animal suffering they've already caused cannot be undone. Rest in Peace to Dawn Brancheau.
You know what was messed up too about the Daniel incident? They were trying so hard at first to say he had a history of mental illness and thats why he snuck into the pool. Now I see they retracted that statement since you didnt mention it, mustve not worked out for their narrative. Absolutely despicable. They definitely had footage of him in the tank. Theres cameras all over those tanks. He probably didnt even get into the water and Tilikum probably dragged him in or something close to that but that would just show his aggressiveness more.
I have no problem with zoos, as they can help endangered species and give us a chance to learn about these creatures. But SeaWorld forcing these wild animals to perform and sit in tanks far to small for them? No, that is evil.
SeaWorld has rescued and rehabilitated over 40,000 animals. And have you actually seen their pool at the San Diego location? It’s massive. There are 2 sides to every story. And they don’t force them to participate. We’ve literally attended shows in which they had to announce that the show was cancelled since the orcas didn’t want to, so they didn’t.
@@kimberlyphifer2391Sea world has definitely improved I’ll give them that unfortunately most other places like them still slip under the radar since Sea World is the most famous and got a lot of the controversy although there is one that didn’t, Canada where I live has banned Whales/Dolphins in parks outright because of Marineland’s extreme negligence which was even worse then the Old Sea World’s. The park does still exist but it’s basically on it’s last legs with the whales taken away which were the biggest attraction. Correction: They Still have their Beluga whales but they’re the only whales Remaining there.
I am torn on zoos because some (not as common in US) are completely just in it for the money/entertainment though there are those that also do good, but I any time that you pull an animal out of the wild solely for entertainment purposes is so beyond disgusting there should be no argument about it. Especially when their home is the entire ocean. Like even if the bathtub analogy is wrong and it’s a 2 bedroom apartment, that is way too small to spend all your time in.
Zoos are as bad !! Check out videos of mental distress in animals stuck in zoos. Heart breaking ! You wouldnt be happies if we kept you captive for "your own good"... people went nuts having to stay home during covid and you still think zoos are ok ? They are not.. sanctuaries on the other end is great because they reabilitate wild animals..
thank you for covering this, the story and life of Tilikum is heartbreaking. i am not religious but i hope that he has a huge ocean he can explore for the rest of eternity. we failed him, along with all other intelligent animals we keep in piss poor conditions.
You've got to be kidding. Do you realise how daft that sounds? Swimming a huge ocean for eternity? Animals do not have a soul that gets to experience eternal bliss or eternal condemnation. Open a Bible, read and learn; instead of turning God's plan into a fairytale.
he doesnt life is like a car battery when the spark is gone its just garbage left over for someone else to clean.. thinking there is some eternal magic kingdown is why humans treat each other and everything else so shitty.. why care about your loaner apartment when youre just gonna move into a big condo soon? doesnt help most " holy" books say its ok to be an abusive asshole to a whole host of animals and other humans.. so its not like we can get morals from any of them..
@@teresamartin4735I bet he's a gay whale in a gender nonconforming ocean with little gay whale babies he chose to have with a concenting partner after multiple whale abortions. Relax, this is a youtube comment section on the internet. I'll touch grass before I read an old book lmao
The fact there have been no recorded orca attacks on humans in the wild and plenty of attacks on humans in captivity just speaks for itself. Being locked up in a tiny pool is akin to being in prison for the Orca. These are highly intelligent animals and Im not surprised they took out their frustrations on their handlers. Sea world and others like it should be closed down and the Orcas rehabilitated into the wild, Where they need to be. Its shocking how in this day and age places like this still exist.
SeaWorld and other awful aquariums like it abuse orcas horribly. Thank you for shedding more light on this. Highly recommend Blackfish for anyone who wants to learn more!
Please don't imply that Sea World is an aquarium. Most aquaria are responsible, non-profit organizations, often connected with institutions of higher learning, that promote best practices in science, learning, & marine life husbandry. Sea World is a theme park, with animals that they don't bother to take care of unless neglecting the animals actually cuts into their profits. Thank you.
Imagine throwing a human for years in a small room without windows, without social interactions with other people, forcing him to do things he never would do if he would be free. The social isolation alone breaks every intelligent social being (i know, they kept him with other orcas, but as far as I know, the others never let him into the group). It’s also unclear what experiences he made with humans in general. I think I don’t have to mention the range of aggressive human behavior, if they don’t get what they want. They made a 10 ton depressed psychopath. It’s a miracle this sh… doesn’t happen on a monthly basis.
Anthropomorphic arguments that attribute human emotion to wild animals (even other mammals) have no scientific basis and are an oversimplification of complex and poorly understood animal behaviors.
Not to mention that Tilicum was stolen from his mother at a very young age, and then placed in a small pool with three adult female orcas who terrorized and abused Tilicum, like scraping their teeth against his back, what a horrible way to be treated, alone in a small tank with 3 adults and no monitoring whatsoever. I believe that as a result of this, he went insane and killed three humans. His mother stayed in the area where they took him away, she cried endlessly and separated from the pod to remain here. She died a few years later, still mourning the loss of her son. So sad what these so-called family entertainment organizations did to their animals. Then SeaWorld trying to blame the victims. Disgusting.
You're the first anyone I've ever heard of calling Tilikum by his stage name Shamu I had no idea that he was a killer. I always assumed it was a different whale
"Shamu" was never the name of any captive whale that I'm aware of, at Sea World or otherwise. As long as there were whale "shows" at Sea World, "Shamu" was a ROLE in those shows, played by as many orcas as Sea World could train to play the role. They'd even have different "Shamu" shows going on at the same time, obviously with different whales playing the "Shamu" role in the different shows. There were a few other named roles in some of Sea World's shows over the decades -- I remember "Namu" & "Kamu" being two of them. But since Sea World adopted "Shamu" as their mascot, they always had to include that role in their shows; there was the added advantage that since "Shamu" wasn't an actual whale, Sea World wouldn't ever have to say that "Shamu" had died, even as dozens of whales who played the part did die over the decades. I feel like Sea World has always been deceptive about this. No one at Disneyland tries to convince kids that the "cast member" in the Mickey suit is REALLY the ACTUAL Mickey Mouse -- they admit that Mickey's a cartoon character. No one pushes the narrative that Harrison Ford is REALLY Indiana Jones, like that's his stage name or alter ego or something -- we all know Indy is fictional. All the whales at Sea World had & have human-given names, but NONE of them have actually been named "Shamu" -- "Shamu", Sea World's mascot, has always been a fictional character, & Sea World is VERY disingenuous about that. Strange, since most companies don't pretend their mascot is a real entity -- no one expects the Michelin Man or Mr. Clean to have been alive at some point. The closest thing to "Shamu" is probably Betty Crocker, a mascot of the Gold Medal/Betty Crocker/Pillsbury conglomerate, who also never existed & has always been a fiction, played by many, many women over the decades. Unlike those women, though, the whales cast as "Shamu" didn't get any choice in the matter... This reply is too long already, so why not add a little extra context? One of the many orca "actors" who played Shamu COUNTLESS times (before public pressure forced Sea World to stop making their animals perform) got named Corky II by humans, though her official "designation" is A16. She was born in 1965 (even older than ancient me!) & was captured off British Columbia, Canada, in 1969, along with some of her family members. She's been at Sea World since they bought her in 1987, & she's the oldest whale in captivity, having outlived her family, her mates, & many friends. I stan her so hard!
@@sammy9103"Shamu was an actual female caught & sold to SeaWorld in 1965 she died just a couple years later.. There's been a dozen or so " Shamu's" no one saw HER in the 70's, 80's, 90's, 2000's anywhere. In Orlando we were told "she" had Mammu a baby but, that wasn't true. Since then (in Orlando alone) Tilikum died. 2 females have bashed their heads till death.. Not being mean just I live 45mins away from Orlando SeaWorld is no place anyone goes.
Great video (as always). I’ve always been a fan of sea-life exhibits and shows. At 64 years old, I’ve seen the entire evolution of those exhibitions, from the tiny portable pools that orcas (and other creatures) were first displayed in right up to the large parks and stadia that eventually became their homes. The older I get, the clearer it becomes that imprisoning such creatures and forcing them to perform is obviously cruel and a sure recipe for disaster. I miss seeing them up close, but I can’t condone the terrible treatment (so obvious in hindsight) that we humans inflicted upon them.
Sometimes I feel bad about how often I had been to SeaWorld when I was younger and living in California. Heck, even as a kid at one point I wanted to be a Killer Whale trainer too. But, I swim as good as a rock, so that didn't happen. I know it was a time that a lot of people didn't know better. Late 80s to mid 90s. And after realizing how bad it is for them, and how captures like they had in Free Willy was not an exception, I avoid it completely. I live in Canada now, and will go whale watching one day. There are awesome areas for that. But Captive Orcas or shows featuring regular dolphins, are just not worth it. I wont go swimming with them either. All of these animals should be in pods with families. I wont change the world with how I think maybe, but at least I want nothing to do with it now.
Same! I remember as a kid, my dream was to do the program where you got to swim with dolphins. I never got to do it, and now I'm glad I never did. If I ever go back to Sea World, it would be for the rides because I really want to ride Emperor and finally get my Dive Coaster credit
this poor whale. he had a terrible life and I believe he was intelligent enough to know something was wrong with his life and to feel depressed and lonely
I see all kinds of emotional comments here, but I think it really boils down to predators being unpredictable, especially when in an unnatural setting. You're rolling the dice every time you get near them because being an obedient puppy isn't really in their programming. Of course, many of our favorite forms of entertainment involve risk and we don't usually remember the poor guy who fell during a circus act.
My husband and I tried to have a discussion about this in a restaurant in Chicago. (We had just gotten married & were traveling around to meet the relatives) Got told off by a waiter because the owner was a relative or something of the trainer. How the heck were we supposed to know?! Never ended up watching Blackfish or anything, because all I can think of is some random person is gonna come out of the woodwork and get mad at me 😶 Stupid, I know! But glad I can finally listen to something about the topic... I hope that waiter or the owner doesn't show up here & tell me off😹
Crappy waiter! Blackfish is good. I mean hard to watch, but informative. Since its release there seems to be a shift in public opinion, so I don’t think your views are quite as controversial now
@@averycheesypotato Tbf, he would have to deal with his boss. But that really sticks out. That & the maitre d' who wouldn't bring me to my waiting family, who was in some room I didn't know about. He wouldn't shut up, just kept asking questions and talking. HE was bad, and I was so embarrassed. The other guy, can't blame him so much. But it certainly was an unforgettable moment!
Yes, this is one I've heard iterated upon over & over. But it's a good event to cover & have circulate. Because this certainly was gross negligence on SeaWorld's part, and for many folks growing up their first exposure to what animal cruelty can lead to; especially when it is performed by a heartless corporation onto a sapient & sentient being. On a final note, rest in peace to those who lost their lives.
Just wanted to say I appreciate your usage of the word 'sapient'. You don't see it very often. I don't think most people even know it's a word. They seem to use sentience when they mean sapience, and then never really talk about sentience properly at all, lol
I went to SeaWorld once...family outing kind of thing, we all went. I was studying marine mammals at the time so suffice to say that SeaWorld's edumacation on marine mammals was severely one sided. Regardless something happened which I will never forget. It was in during the dolphin pre-show. Apparently the pair were supposed to push the trainer around the pool by his feet. Well they pushed the trainer directly toward the wall, let him go before he'd hit it but still it was not part of the show. How do I know? The abject look of fear on the trainer's face. The dolphins stopped before the wall, watched the trainer drift into a soft hit against it and then swam in a circle and dove to the deep part of the pool. If they had done a fin high 5 it would have been perfect. The trainer jumped out of the pool, shaking of course, got himself together after I asked if he was OK. He said yea but he was taking a break after that and possibly leaving. I'll never forget what he told me, "This is the third time they've done that and I'm done." I pointed out that they let him go, it was in their terms what we considered a joke. He said he didn't think it was funny and walked away. No idea if he quit but I think he did. The pair of dolphins watched him walk off and then just looked at me. I shrugged and smiled at them. Communication and personification warning but I swear those pair were laughing. They continued to ignore the trainers and just did their own thing until they got put into the ridiculously small pool where they couldn't even swim around - a part of the park nobody is allowed to see but I did. Ever since that encounter I joined the group to get SeaWorld shut down as an education center and reclassified as a zoo (which is what it is). Still working on that and it's been a few decades.
@@Qrtuop No idea if he knew what he was doing to the animals. Their indoctrination is so deep it borders on brainwashing. But if that kid did leave, all the better and perhaps he joined the fight.
Where humans can kill them all off. I see a point in AZA zoos and sanctuaries, to shelter animals unable to survive on their own or prevent extinction until we can sort our own crap out. Whales are an exception to this, since there is no way we can approximate their natural habitat.
Wow, I had no idea. Thanks to this video, I've gone down a rabbithole of watching numerous documentaries about orcas. Fascinating creatures! They shouldn't be imprisoned and made to do tricks. No wonder Tilikum lost his mind.
One small error here: according to NOAA, the average lifespan for male orcas is 30 years, and they can live up to 60. Lots of sources will claim orcas live much longer than they do because they're referencing the oldest individuals on record.
@@GandalfTheTsaagan About 20 years longer on average (again according to NOAA). But it's remarkable that some individuals can live so much longer than that (RIP Granny).
Tilikum’s story has stuck with me ever since I first watched the Black Fish documentary about Sea World. His life makes me so sad. Orcas are such social, intelligent animals, and should never have been in captivity. RIP Tilikum, and RIP Dawn.
I've never been to SeaWorld, but I remember a time when it was one of the most popular attractions in the U.S. The Blackfish documentary changed everything. Keeping these intelligent creatures captive for entertainment is now frowned upon.
I still don't understand how we view circuses as inhumane but are totally OK with parks like Seaworld. It's the same thing. Incredibly intelligent yet unpredictable wild predators kept in horrible conditions as mere instruments of entertainment, kept in their place by endless abuse. I'm not anti-captivity, since there are ways to do that properly, but no wild animal should ever be forced to entertain people. You can see the consequences. Poor animals and poor keepers
That's a really good point. If there was a theme park called "Jungleworld" and it's main attraction was a bunch of tigers or something jumping through hoops on stage with lights and music I can't imagine that would be well received by the public. It would rightfully be called a circus. But do it with orcas or other dolphins and it's suddenly fine?
Thank you for covering this -- I have a very weak spot for orcas and it made me so happy to see Tilikum come up on one of my favorite channels in such a respectful, careful way. Kiska, Corky II, Kandu V, and/or Luna would be other orcas that may be interesting to cover, if you were so inclined, even if it's one lump video or shorts. Kiska was the only captive orca in Canada for years, Corky II is debatably the oldest (Tokitae is within a year's estimated difference), has had multiple calves but none survived, and was involved in Kandu V's nightmarish semi-public death, and Luna was a lost calf that tried to bond with humans in Puget Sound, but people mangled the response and he was accidentally killed. There's also the wild floppy-fin duo, Port and Starboard, but that's more horror for the sharks and shark fans.
Thank you so much for doing this video. I have followed the stories on the captive whales for years. I'm kind of a weirdo cause I know a lot of their names, but I just think they need to saved from their imprisonment so badly. Poor Tilly :(
For another kind of horror, look up "Kiska," the Ocra that lived alone in Marineland park in Canada for over a decade. A very sad, scary fate to befall anyone, and that's before the many allegations of animals mistreatment from the park :(
While I am not at all against zoos and similar in general, Orcas are one animal that I believe should not be kept in captivity. I don't see ay way that we can keep them stimulated and happy and with enough space to thrive in captivity.
many zoos these days also function as conservation and wildlife rehabilitation facilities, but the "let's keep whales or dolphins in kinda large swimming pools and make them perform tricks in front of loud crowds of people" type stuff really needs to be left in the past for good
this goes for all cetaceans. whales and dolphins get so horribly depressed they can go as far as self harming and attempting suicide. they dont belong in aquariums, ESPECIALLY not to work all day for the enjoyment of humans
The fact that people think it’s okay to take any animal out of the wild (& their natural habitat) to capture & train them just to become entertainment for humans, is astonishing & horrifying to me. He was only two years old 😢
1. It wasn't a show it was a dining experience. And there were less than 50 people. 2. The females at SeaLand were known to have many aggressive incidents. Tilikum didn't have any leading up to Kelties death. Nootka and Haida were the ones holding keltie, before Tilikum got to her. 3. Females live to 60 on average and Males 30. 4. All trainers are aware of the incident and it is in the whales handbook profile. So before even working with them they are aware of Tilikum's history.
If you have never been to sea world, don't none of us in the family really thought about it until we were at the orca enclosure. the sight of multi ton super predator's who are meant to range the globe, doing circles of an over large fish bowl is still one of the most depressing sights I've personally witnessed after decades. Heart breaking.
Sea World really did everyone a disservice by implying there was ever an orca actually named Shamu. "Shamu" was never the name of any captive whale that I'm aware of, at Sea World or otherwise. As long as there were whale "shows" at Sea World, "Shamu" was a ROLE in those shows, played by as many orcas as Sea World could train to play the role. They'd even have different "Shamu" shows going on at the same time, obviously with different whales playing the "Shamu" role in the different shows. There were a few other named roles in some of Sea World's shows over the decades -- I remember "Namu" & "Kamu" being two of them. But since Sea World adopted "Shamu" as their mascot, they always had to include that role in their shows; there was the added advantage that since "Shamu" wasn't an actual whale, Sea World wouldn't ever have to say that "Shamu" had died, even as dozens of whales who played the part did die over the decades. All the whales at Sea World had & have human-given names, but NONE of them have actually been named "Shamu" -- "Shamu", Sea World's mascot, has always been a fictional character, & Sea World is VERY disingenuous about that. Strange, since most companies don't pretend their mascot is a real entity -- no one expects the Michelin Man or Mr. Clean to have been alive at some point. The closest thing to "Shamu" is probably Betty Crocker, a mascot of the Gold Medal/Betty Crocker/Pillsbury conglomerate, who also never existed & has always been a fiction, played by many, many women over the decades. Unlike those women, though, the whales cast as "Shamu" didn't get any choice in the matter... This reply is too long already, so why not add a little extra context? One of the many orca "actors" who played Shamu COUNTLESS times (before public pressure forced Sea World to stop making their animals perform) got named Corky II by humans, though her official "designation" is A16. She was born in 1965 (even older than ancient me!) & was captured off British Columbia, Canada, in 1969, along with some of her family members. She's been at Sea World since they bought her in 1987, & she's the oldest whale in captivity, having outlived her family, her mates, & many friends. I stan her so hard!
I'm of the opinion that the larger and more intelligent an animal is, the less we should keep them in captivity (barring the animal having a reason for needing to stay in captivity, such as Winter the dolphin or any other animal that otherwise can't be released into the wild for any other reason). I hear too many stories of orcas and elephants languishing in captivity because of how hard it is to care for such a large and intelligent animal.
Nice Vid as ever :) Just wondering if you have looked into the recent ( ish ) attacks on small boats by Orcas? As far as I can tell it sounds like one Orca might have been injured by the prop on a boat and then that warning spread between the pods. Just shows how intelligent these wonderful creatures are.
It also started after the initial Covid lockdown period, I think? I thought maybe that for once they weren't bothered by us, so when we came back they were like hell no stay away again forever, because they'd finally had true peace again in our own habitat.
I'll never understand how people keep animals in conditions like this. Not just orcas, not just SeaWorld. I see it everywhere, from small animals like hamsters all the way up to orcas and elephants. Every single animal kept by humans must have a vast amount of space (measured by how much space they occupy in the wild/how far they move in a day) and most need additional options to exercise. They also need all kinds of stimulation, depending on the animal they need that stimulation to be changed regularly too or they will get bored by it. Every social species also needs an appropriately sized social group and it's necessary to make sure none of the animals is being bullied away from the group. And even then wild animals pretty much should only ever be in captivity under certain circumstances: conservation and rehabilitation programs. This means no keeping wild animals in places where they don't naturally belong, especially in climates they're not made to live in, it means not using them as props in theatrical shows, it means keeping human contact to a minimum with most animals. There is exceptions where the animals do just fine with some of this not being followed as strictly, as long as the basics (enough space, enrichment, social group of needed and proper environment) are covered. We have "Wildparks" (Wild meaning wild animals in this case) here in Germany that oftentimes have animals like boar and deer in gigantic areas with lots of forest and all that. There's spaces to watch the animals, but they can also hide away from humans if they like to. Usually it's possible to feed them but only with specialised food or they've got a list of healthy stuff you can bring from home. These animals have a gigantic amount of space and the same enrichment as in the wild (it's basically just a fenced in piece of nature, not an artificially built "scene") and get to have their social groups like they do in the wild too. They do get fed, so they definitely can make it through times where food is sparse and it's up to them whether they wanna interact with humans or not. Sadly not every Wildpark is this good, I've definitely seen bad ones too, with way too little space, there's definitely outliers there too, but the concept, of done properly, can work very well and offer an opportunity to learn about these animals while still keeping them in a good environment. That's not to say that Germany doesn't also have zoos, they definitely do and I do not like it for the reasons listed above Also, while I did briefly mention it, I'm not going to get into pet care here, as that's not the topic of the video. But the basics definitely apply here too. Inform yourself if you're going to get a pet, so you can make sure they're provided with all they need (and more)
I remember going to see a killer whale show at Marineland in Niagara Falls when I was very young, and was thrilled by it. Now I'm sad that such shows even exist. This story is sad all around.
MarineLand no longer has orcas at least. It’s always been a weird place, but like you I did not fully understand how the animals were treated there when I was a kid
it was not her pony tail it was her arm according to several eyewitnesses. The ponytail story was an attempt by SeaWorld to place the blame on Dawn for having long hair.
On that day the orca was looking for an opportunity to grab ANY part of an accessible human. Doesn’t really matter which part - the result would be identical
the blame is on dawn for getting a job where she torments animals for the entertainment of humans..
Doesn't matter. 6 of one/half dozen of the other.
Doesn't change the end result.
She was scalped though.
yall trying to blame one person/entity when it isn't that simple. anyway, it definitely wasn't her fault. you can't blame a trainer for being killed by a wild animal, it was her job, which she was good at, but animals are unpredictable.
it was numerous factors: the animals temperament that day, the people who captured it, the CEOs who continue to keep them captive and run the business, the people who don't care and continue to give money to the companies, and politicians who don't push for change
The fact that sea world still asked trainers to work with a whale that had a kill count is ridiculously irresponsible. They didn’t treat their animals well, but they didn’t treat their staff much better.
Anyone that trains orcas know they are sadist by nature and kill so often for the fun of it and dont even eat the kills half the time
Play dumb games win stupid prizes
@@alexandria65they captured an animal from the wild and forced it to perform and do tricks. That is massively cruel and evil in itself. Nothing else needs to be said about their treatment if they already did that
The difference is the employees can leave…
@@alexandria65 Uh, because we have eyes and ears and are aware of our surroundings?
@@nancimarie It's not always that simple. A lot of said employees were young and had misinformed views about what working at a place like seaworld was like (mostly due to seaworld propoganda), and by the time they find out the truth, it's very difficult to just "quit' a career and go elsewhere. You can have empathy for both the animals and the employees.
My heart breaks for Tilikum, he had a miserable life. Stolen from his home, trapped in a tiny pool, abused by the larger females. Orcas are beautiful, but they're also dangerous.
I feel terrible for Dawn and her family too. Tilikum didn't just randomly grab her. He did a trick but didn't do it correctly so she didn't reward him. He was aggressive, and agitated. He grabbed her and she was gone. Many of trainers have been attacked by killer whales. They don't belong in shows, living in captivity.
I agree with you about Tilikum. If he wasn’t taken from his family and his home this never would have happened. Even some of the most wild animals need care and respect. Death to all who support animal cruelty!!!!!
@@samuellaird5184 What are you going to kill people who go to Seaworld? I dare you to try that...
@@samuellaird5184yes, let's fight cruelty with more cruelty, surely that'll fix it 🤦🏼♂️ please think before you speak next time
@@samuellaird5184agree with no animal cruelty, but please don't wish more harm, even on people who cause it. I want less suffering overall, not just switch the suffering from animals to humans.
Abused by others well what do you think happens in the wild
My understanding of wildlife having worked with them for many years is that captivity is degrading to their mental health and this tends to result in poor outcomes for the animals long term. Freedom is not just a human desire.
I would disagree, at least with your assumption that this is so for ALL animals. For creatures as large as orcas, yes I would agree. However, with animals that are smaller and whose need for space is much, much less, lifespan and quality of life can be MUCH better than that in the wild.
some animals under rehabilitation cannot leave because they would die in the wild. otherwise i would agree.
I'm your 100th liker here & bye.
Thanks Captain No Shit
@@Gustav_Kuriga For a hamster maybe, I'd exclude predatory animals, animals that have a natural inclination to travel for large distances or keep a large territory. Tbh I wouldn't even keep a cat in captivity. All the indoor cats in my area just stare out the window for hours on end.
1. Tilikum was kept with older, larger female Orcas from different pods or "cultures" that have different languages. He was locked in a tiny tank with them every night, by morning he was covered in wounds. Females are dominant and beat him up.
2. Any animal without stimulation can become destructive- dogs home alone all day eating you shoes. Orcas are extremely intelligent, they can’t sit around all day.
3. Dawn was not pulled in by her ponytail! This was speculation and blaming her for "getting to close" plus, why would she have her head so close to the water?
4. Tilikum was frustrated with Dawn, she was using whistle cues for him to perform small tricks - he missed a cue and repeated a trick but, since he missed the cue he wasn't rewarded. He did the trick twice give him the fucking fish.
5. Tilikum lived the rest of his days with his grandson Trua in the back tank. You can find videos of Trua mimicking Tilikum, simple tricks like tail splashing and fin waving. He was never seen being aggressive towards the baby.
I started taking a drink for each separate comment that corrected the "pulled in by the hair" thing, but I'm going to stop. Getting too drunk too fast.
The females would bully him for training mistakes also. SeaWorld relied on the older, more dominant whales (usually females) to "socially reinforce" their cruel training program for the baby whales fresh from their home pods.
@@PaleHorseShabuShabu good. the more people there are to correct deliberate misinformation spread by greedy corporations, the better.
I love animals, and I hate the demeaning life of the animals at Sea World, but honestly, he should have been destroyed after the first death. Any other animal would have been. He wouldn't have the skills for the wild, and you couldn't risk him seeking humans if released, but he was too dangerous to keep around. He should have been humanely euthanized. Given that orcas can pass along behaviors between generations, if released, he might have encouraged other orcas to seek humans. We've seen recently that such confrontations can be dangerous with the recent orca attacks on small boats, and I'm personally afraid those orcas will hurt someone and result in the entire pod being destroyed. At the very least, they should have had a weapon capable of killing him instantly if necessary to free a trapped person. Orcas are amazing and beautiful animals, but humans should always come first.
@@-Bill."humans should always come first"
Nah. Play stupid games, Win Stupid prizes. She deserves her Darwin award. Anyone who traps or "trains" Apex predators deserves theirs. There's plenty of human potential out there. Invest in educating those rather than bothering or "humanely euthanizing" a creature that never signed up for this, nor deserves to be punished for what it does naturally outside of captivity. Humans are a dime a dozen these days.
Tilikum did not grab Dawn by the ponytail. This is reiterated in Blackfish, as well as very well publicised. The ponytail story was a speculation made up by the spotter, who DID NOT see Dawn get pulled into the water. It was determined from the footage that he likely grabbed her upper arm or shoulder.
Ya that's actually not true. The family that filmed her right before she died all stated she was grabbed by the hair, as well one of her spotters stated not only to police but under oath that Tilikum grabbed her arm. You can read it in the court transcript Secretary of Labor vs SeaWorld Florida LLC.
Blackfish is propaganda and lies consistently to push a narrative.
What does it matter in this context
I thought I remembered it as upper arm or shoulder as well. Either way, it's always told that when SeaWorld purchased Tilikum both the selling entity and SeaWorld never told the "whole story" of past incidents involving trainers and aggression.
Makes sense, if that was the arm shaken/bitten right off. There is some frightening footage of Dawn being drowned, I think? There is a few videos floating around of a captured orca drowning or trying to drown a keeper. These orcas must hate their trainers so much, they take them back to the surface for a breath and then it's back down you go..😬
Same difference
Who would have thought that treating an apex predator like that would result in something horrible.
Yeah right!
@@googleuser3163You obviously haven't just listened to this video then have you?
@@googleuser3163literally lists the diet in the 1st 2 minutes and didn't say anything about shrimp
@@googleuser3163 dense motherfucker over here unable to take in a 10 minute video
@@googleuser3163let's inform seals and sea lions so they can stop being scared
Titikum's story brings to mind the story of Tyke, the circus elephant that went out of control in 1994, killing her trainer and running through the streets of Honolulu, before being gunned down by responding police. Fortunately, such events bring more public awareness to the plight of highly intelligent animals that are enslaved for the entertainment of audiences and financial gain of exhibitors.
Poor Tyke, too 😥
Ask a Mortician did a great video on Tyke a few months back.
Tyke was trained using abusive methods. They use a bullhook and train elephants by pain. Better more positive methods need to be developed in training an elephant if it's going to preform. It makes me wonder if Tilikum was trained by similar abusive methods. He didn't snap for no reason.
I think tyke had a better ending than the other circus elephant, I can't remember her name but she attacked and killed a trainer as a response to his actions and the townspeople were so pissed off that they wanted her killed, well the circus owner decoded to oblige them and they killed her by handgong her with a crane...I still wish that town had paid for such a cruel thing to do.
@@PlasmaStorm73-N5EVV Check out Elephant Nature Park in Thailand. It is a sanctuary for elephants once used in the logging or tourist industries. They live as natural a life as possible (they do what they want), but are fed and given top notch medical care.
I'll always remember the part in Blackfish when it is described how they first took the calves of a pod in the wild. Even when they made a clearing for the adult orcas to escape, they remained behind due to the captured calves and wouldn't swim away. They were crying out for each other. Unforgivable and cruel.
One of my most vivid memories from early childhood was seeing an Orca emerge in the tank window for the first time. I was absolutely awe-struck by them. They quickly became my favorite aquatic animals and I wanted to learn everything I could about them. Unfortunately, one of my biggest takeaways from that education was just how awful and torturous it is to keep them in captivity. It's a sad irony.
his floppy back fin is also brought up by the documentary. we never see floppy back fins in wild orcas, but they're common in captive ones. seaworld would falsely say that it's common across all orcas, but is likely a result of stress. seeing that fin flopped over in all the pictures really hammers home that he was not well, and that this wasn't taken seriously or cared about for a very long time.
EDIT: more nuance to this than I initially understood. bent and collapsed fins do occur in the wild, however it is very rare amongst wild populations and is primarily a captivity issue. it is not fully understood why the fins collapse, but it may be due to injury, gravity, speed at which orcas travel, or yes, stress and distress. regardless, a straight fin is a sign of a healthy orca and the fact that seaworld tried to obscure this fact is wrong. my original point stands.
There is false propaganda from the animal activists as well. The bent fin story gathers a lot of misguided sympathy. Watch some UA-cam videos with wild orcas - the bent fins are rather common. While it’s more prevalent in captivity it’s not at ask a unique phenomenon
@@drdrew3 Found the SeaWorld shill.
@@drdrew3 Okay, Seaworld
@@drdrew3fun fact: a Libertarian think tank is responsible for most anti-animal activist propaganda. From anti-peta stuff to pro sea world stuff. It all goes back to *one* lobbying group that represents sea world, meat companiew, fast food restaurants, etc.
I assume you know this however because they also advertise that they will go into comment sections on behalf of their clients to discredit animal rights activists. Unless you're doing this for free, in which case lol.
@@drdrew3 have done a bit of research just now. what I can find does indicate that bent fins are indeed uncommon in the wild, though not unheard of. they are far more common in captive orcas, however.
looks like there's a lot of factors that can go into it, but all are theoretical; temperature, speed, and stress being the most major theories. regardless, a straight fin is a sign of a healthy orca. captive orcas with bent fins that are released will often have their fins straighten.
my original point stands that it's still a sign of unhealth that wasn't taken seriously, but I acknowledge that there's more nuance to it than I initially understood.
A line that's always stuck with me is "If you had to live in a bathtub for thirty years, wouldn't you go crazy?"
Yes. Yes I would.
I find myself baffled by the arrogance it takes to decide to treat Earth's apex predator this way.
I saw a video a few months back of sea worlds current orca show... All I could think about was how boring it must be for the whales... Living in a blue tank with no environmental stimulation.
These whales hunt and kill in the wild, they get to do none of that in captivity, just roll on their back and wave for pre killed fish multiple times a day.
Exactly. Tilikum was kidnapped from his family and kept in torturous conditions for decades. He was driven insane, it's no wonder he snapped. I hope his soul is at peace now.
It isn't arrogance. It's greed. Other than the trainers, who seemed more often than not to actually care about the animals, the park managers / corporate only saw dollar signs. Maximize profit, basically.
Its why me personally would never go to one of these whale shows
@@googleit1131 absolutely spot on, if you stopped the chance to make money from any animal then the exploitation of them would end overnight!
I have such a complicated relationship with Sea World. I only went once, as a very young child (around 5 or 6). My mom took me to see the Shamu show, and from her account, a random guy sat with us and was chatting. Turned out he was a trainer (in plain clothes) and had selected me to take part in the show. This involved him carrying me down to the pool and letting me sit on the orca. It definitely wasn't Tilikum - it was one of the smaller ones I think (but still, a whole-ass orca).
They uh. Stopped putting kids on the orcas pretty soon after that I think LOL. Nothing bad happened and I always considered it an amazing experience to be able to literally sit on an animal like that... But it shouldn't have happened. I have such a respect for sea life and have spent so much time out on the ocean on whale watches and on the water in general. I'm thankful for my experience with the orca, they're now one of my favorite animals, but... just no. A severely inappropriate thing to do.
I'm a lover of all animals (currently have 16 pets) and I support ethical zoos and aquariums that focus on education, rehab, and conservation. Animals the size and intelligence of orcas objectively do not belong in captivity. We just cannot properly provide for them, even remotely.
Did you know? The animal responsible for more injuries against zookeepers are ZEBRAS! My guess is that because they're pony-sized, people treat them like domestic horses. Which they extremely are not.
zebras are assholes, but considering they pretty much live life on hard mode, I don't blame them.
I had heard about zebras. Yes people think they are the same as domesticated horses, but they are wild animals. Many people do not understand that domestication of a species involves not just taming them or masking the wild instincts, but involves changing their very genetics to be more friendly with humans via selective breeding. Just like how wolves are not dogs. They have more than 10 thousand years of divergent evolution within them.
Interesting about the Zebras - they're less powerful than a lot of other animals, and are herbivores, so I could imagine they probably cause more injuries but fewer deaths than some other animals. Wonder which animals cause the most deaths? I'm guessing something surprising, probably not an apex predator.
@@PlasmaStorm73-N5EVV Yep, griaffes are absolutely terrifying. A single one can kill several lions before it goes down itself. Animals in general are terrifying, in fact.
Fun fact about horses: there is only one truely wild horse left, the Przewalski's horse. According to the Smithsonian National Zoo website there are only about 1,900 alive (how many in the wild, I do not know).
What an incredible story! As for zebras, I've known people who've had them for various reasons, and I've never encountered a truly tame zebra, although I've heard of some. Basically, any interaction you have with a zebra is like interaction with a buffalo, there's a high degree of possible danger. You don't go in most zebras' stalls, pastures, or corrals unless you REALLY know what you're doing and can run faster than the zebra (!). You're dealing with a very fast animal, easily frightened and sometimes territorial, with a kick that could almost decapitate you, and jaws that can crush bone. In addition, like llamas, rams, and "pet" bulls, sometimes the less afraid of you they are, the MORE likely they are to attack you. Animals don't always respond to "love" the way humans expect them to. They sure aren't My Little Pony.
Having seen orcas in the wild while out cod fishing in Norway, it seems beyond cruel to keep them in captivity. They're very social (I saw a pod of five with a calf ) and extremely intelligent. They followed our boat for around two hours while we were looking to find a spot to fish, sometimes heading over to the other fishing boats in the area to see if they were about to start fishing before coming back to ours. They kept an eye on us the whole time, and if one orca got tired, it would drop back and be replaced by one of the others up front. They never left the calf unattended and all four of them surrounded it like the five dots on a die. As soon we found somewhere to fish they disappeared but it was so amazing to be followed by a family of orcas and every time I pulled up a big cod, the guys on the boat would joke that I caught a killer whale. 🤣
That must of been an amazing experience!
They are glorified fish. The smartest animal isn't even as smart as the dumbest human. You cannot attribute human thoughts, feelings and motivations because they dont have them. They operate on instinct and what they are are savage asshole fish.
So orcas deserve our compassion, but fuck cod? Cod and other fish can suffer just like orcas do
It might be different if humanity somehow had an aquarium the size of a large state, but short of that keeping Orcas in captivity is sick and cruel.
@@jessbellis9510Orcas migrate
Blackfish also touched on the fact that there were several other non-fatal incidents involving Tilikum prior to the 2010 incident. I remember reports of rough play during training, acting out, and aggression against trainers being described. Supposedly, several other trainers were somewhat nervous around Tilikum long before 2010, but were hushed up by Seaworld.
the second guy... Dukes.... we really have no idea what happened.
But.... we know it wasn't a good call to keep him in captivity.
To be fair, this is behavior of almost every orca in captivity. There are THOUSANDS of incidents of aggression documented by orcas in captivity. It is not uncommon for them to get upset.
You should do a video on Keiko as well. While it doesn't involve anyone dying, it is horrifying to me how lonely that poor whale was. No matter what is done for these animals, once they've been captured, they can never go back to a normal life. The story of Kiska is also incredibly sad and horrifying.
Don't forget Lolita the orca as well
@@Infinite-void908 I haven't heard that story. I'll have to look it up.
@@Jus.Keep.Swimming Please do, it's very tragic
Lolita- aka Toki- might get a happier life soon. These animals should not be kept in tanks.
I'm Mexican, and my heart absolutely breaks for Keiko, it's just so sad
Tilikum attacked Dawn out of frustration. It started to fall apart when he missed a reinforcement cue that he had done a desired correct behaviour, he continued doing the behaviour which was considered wrong, causing him to not get paid (fed) for his work.
It is heartbreaking that after the attack, Tilikum was only ever used for the splash segments of shows with all trainers off the stage. His day consisted of staying in back pools until that segment a few rimes a day. You just know he knew he did something wrong and was being punished for it. You just know he was heavily depressed.
Yes so sad 😢
Ironically, Tilikum probably never even knew exactly what behaviour it was he was doing wrong that resulted in -his boss stiffing his pay- the trainer not rewarding him. That poor whale lived such a wretched & frustrated life, & Sea World was all about either blaming their trainers (who had little leeway when it came to making the whales' lives better) or blaming Tilikum for somehow being "bad"...
I still think SeaWorld killed Tilikum. If you can't make a product obey, the ones in control kills it.
What makes it worse, is that the reason Tilikum was the way he was is that in his very first location, the two female orcas he was with would harass him if he missed a trick while being taught because the trainers there would withhold food from ALL orcas, resulting in the two fully trained individuals punishing Tilikum for making them miss a meal. And I don't mean just treats like at SeaWorld, I mean they would not be fed. At all. So when he missed the queue the first time and kept going, he was likely deathly afraid he'd be starved and then likely attacked by the other Orcas, resulting in him lashing out at Dawn in a PTSD attack.@@starrywizdom
Orcas are intelligent mammals and should never be locked up in an aquarium for our amusement especially under the subpar conditions at SeaWorld at the time.
As should no other animal
If they are so smart, when are they going to land on the Moon?🤔
Atleast something partially black would finally make it.😂
@@slyguythreeonetwonine3172 you weren't blessed with the gift of comedy i guess
Right, they should be hunted. Orca steaks!
Humans are forced to work and live shitty lives, and humankind has no problem enslaving animals as well :') Who literally drown themselves from misery
Great video!! Orcas don't do well outside of their pods. And depending on the pod, they can have different ranges and diets. They usually specialize in certain prey. Like lion prides.
They also have different languages and dialects, so when Tilicum was put in small pools with females who didn't know him and didn't speak the same, they'd attack him. So he had to be kept separate which is psychologically damaging to a social creature.
Male killer whales also stay with their mother their entire lives, and their social status is tied to that of their mother. A motherless male killer whale is liable to be bullied, like Tilikum was.
Great info. I guess it explains why some animals do not do well if released back in the wild after being rehabilitated.
@@valierebrianne9643 He suffered so much! I don't blame him for killing, they gave him no other option.
@@jamesc8259 yes, but one bright bit of good news...there was an orca that was released back into the ocean & it was found much later living w/a pod of orcas. It was tagged, so that's how they knew it was the one that was released. It's not known if that orca had relocated its native pod or had successfully incorporated into a different pod...but nonetheless, it was living free in the wild successfully after having been in captivity. I'm sure there are MANY variables that determine if releasing a captive animal back into the wild will be successful, but at least in this one case it was successful.
I got to know Keiko very well over the years. He was a very different story. He had taken to imprisonment differently than Tillikum. He was very sweet, very friendly toward people. You could also tell that his mind and spirit had been completely broken when he was young. He was permanently dazed and sort of childlike, if an orca could be childlike. I think it was wrong to try to reintroduce him to the wild, and I think it lead to his premature death, but really, I think there were no right answers when it came to his care. Keep him in there little tanks that, while built for his comfort is just not enough for an orca, or put him in the wild and see how he does.
My point is, even in the best circumstances, orcas in captivity suffer. We should make the ones we have as comfortable as we can, stop breeding them, and ban their capture entirely.
Keiko's capture was cruel, but his release was the worst example of why animals that have hardly lived outside their captivity shouldn't just be "freed" because "it's the right thing to do". I actually miss Keiko and was heartbroken when he died alone and longing for contact with people again.
Didn't the same thing happen to a dolphin called Luna? Except she got so lonely, she ended up chasing boats, eventually leading to a terrible and fatal accident with a large propeller?@@presidentkiller
Once they have been in captivity, they cannot be released. No pod will ever accept a random adult that they probably aren’t able to communicate with very well. They have not been taught how to hunt. They are not used to the physical requirements of living in a real sea.
There are some ideas for shore-side sanctuaries for orcas and other large marine mammals, but I don’t think anything has come of it yet.
These creatures do not deserve this fate. Tillikum, Lolita, many others…man’s hubris is cruel.
Lolita is sweet. Tikitum is not.
They deserve worse.
Who the fuck names an orca after a book about a pedophile talking about how he sexuall abused a child and how it was completely fine in his view?...
Oh wait Americans have given this thing more and more romanticised covers thinking it was yet another soppy romance novel where "lovers are separated by time" kind of shit
@@mushyroom9569 Males ☕️
@@chrisx5127tilikum had no right to be sweet you dork
Dawn, was NOT grabbed by ponytail. Was grabbed by arm & pulled into pool. Hair was just another lie Sea World liked to tell trying to blame Dawn
if the whale is intelligent, then im sure he knows what hes doing. there should be consequences for him.
Came here to say this!! All he had to do was watch Blackfish. The ponytail was made up by the spotter who didn’t even see Tilikum pull her in, and only looked over when people started screaming.
Either way, she was entirely on land and out of the water when Tilikum grabbed her. There was nothing she nor anyone else could've done to have prevented the accident that day and Seaworld was in my opinion entirely responsible for her death.
well cant help but think if she hadnt got a job as an animal torturer shed still be alive, so yea still dawns fault dawn is dead..
@@ripvanwinkle2002 I don't see how you could ever view the trainers as torturers. Yes, the whales shouldn't be in Seaworld and you could argue they're complicit, but one of them in the BlackFish doc even says the reason he stayed working is because he felt sorry for Tilikum and wanted to help.
8:45 Seems that Seaworld cares a lot more about vehicle parking space than pool space for orcas.
I have a season pass - the parking is actually terrible. So is the food
@@drdrew3 Why on earth do you own a season pass to such an horrible franchise???
@@alexandria65 just bc you are "allowed" to do something does not mean that it's the right thing to do...
Well, you know the famous show business saying...asses in seats. Yeah, it's deplorable.
@@GNMi79 So you think abusing and outright torturing animals is the right thing to do and we should give all our money to seaworld?
Icelander here, if you research the horrihle things that happened to him here in iceland you will understand why he was deranged 🙁
Hello, I am pleased to meet you. After reading your comment, it made me genuinely interested in wanting to see what all you had mentioned. Very curious. The Orcas, IMHO, are absolutely beautiful, and should never, ever be taken away from their own natural habitat. So cruel, period!
I wish you a good day today, and I hope life is treating you well. Sending you all of my best wishes for always.
Sincerely,
Donna Marie Davidson
*Laughlin, Nevada, USA*
P.S.
Going to go research now. Appreciate it. Thank-you.
Start by googling sædýrasafnið… if you choose images and see the state of the animals and heir surrounding you get a picture of what he was dealing with
“Átakanlegar myndir úr sædýrasafninu”
@@donnamariedavidson5065assuming you’re not using a false name/ location as part of a bit I’d recommend refraining from doing that. Anyone who reads this comment knows your full name, location and what you look like. Not everyone has good intentions. Don’t put your personal info out like that.
Yes, Seaworld constantly "improving" their aquarium tanks... right. That's why the tanks are barely larger than an olympic swimming pool while the parking lot is about fifteen square miles.
Now that you mention it, outside of time and costs, why doesn't SeaWorld just use parking garages instead like Universal Orlando?
Another excellent video! We used to stay at Oak Bay Marina in the 1970’s and I would always hear the orcas crying at night. I later learned of the terrible conditions there, especially the tiny pens they were confined to during the night.
☹️☹️☹️
That must have been awful!
Oh, wow
awful 😞
Going to Sealand in Victoria and seeing Tilikum was a highlight of my childhood.
Damn...that's the stuff of nightmares!
That is heartbreaking.
This video is a different kind of horror compared to the other videos on your channel. I'm so mad that SeaWorld is still as successful as it is now, despite so many controversies and abuse they've done with aquatic life.
I'm pretty sure they have stopped doing the Orca shows now. They just play with seals
The “aquatic life” deserves far worse.
@@PlasmaStorm73-N5EVV I'm not going to edit it because it's not technically incorrect. People no longer get in the water with the orcas. They have nowhere to put the remaining orcas they made (from Tillikum) and they can't just Free Willy but they won't be replacing them in the future. The orcas they have do not interact with people. And they probably do tricks for people to give them some form of simulation.
Suffice it to say I correct it to they're no longer doing shows with people and orcas and they can't just shoot the ones that they've created. So they show them. That's not the Orca show that I was raised hearing about where orcas were flipping people up in the air and crap. They stop doing that. People just play with seals
@@PlasmaStorm73-N5EVV I just checked for my own sanity and yes, there is an announcement that the breeding program was ended in 2016 and the current generation of orca in their Parks are the last generation. People no longer get in the water with them. I would call that ending the Orca program and show. If you would prefer they just pulled them out of the water and let them dry up so they wouldn't have any more of them then let them know your position.
Sadly its not the only case for organizations and corporations to have such a history record of controversies. Just look at Nestle, they had a harrowing amount of controversies barely UA-cam channels talk about, and the company is still around. Not surpised as they mostly control water supplies, the lifeblood of a population.
Same for oil companies either, but oil controls the world, and almost any controversy related to them won't stop them, because they are quite a powerful part of a country. So even if they get into a corporation damaging lawsuit, money would get them out no blamo.
Rest in peace Tilikum. You didn’t ask for this life in captivity. Hope you’re w your pod in whatever afterlife orcas have.
Oh, well, now that just made me tear up...
❤
I went to Sea World Ohio as a child one time and I remember their educational portion pointing out how whales like this are so big and powerful and having a momentary "is this really safe" moment. Of course they emphasized that their whales were well trained and wouldn't hurt the trainers and the whale was there for rehabilitation (of course we now know that's a lie) but yeah, weird times
The whales were shipped into SeaWorld Ohio at the beginning of the operating season, and shipped back out at the end of the season. Totally a disgrace. Especially when it's obvious by photos and videos of SW Ohio that their orca pools were no better than Miami SeaQuarium or Reino Adventura in Mexico.
It gets even more sad after SixFlags bought the SeaWorld Ohio park, because in absence of SeaWorld's killer whales, SixFlags bought a single female orca from France that had been malnourished and was low on the pecking order in her pod (she was the French park's first calf and they were clueless). Sixflags soon moved her to a California Sixflags location, but never successfully got an orca poolmate for her. From 2002 to 2012, she was alone aside from a few bottlenose dolphins that she didn't truly get along with. in 2012, she was moved to SeaWorld San Diego.
SeaWorld got the money from the Ohio park's sale AND ended up with an extra orca after she'd been isolated for a decade. What a load of crock the industry is.
I lived near Sea Land of the Pacific as a child, me and my family went there at least every few weeks. When the whales did the big jump to touch the buoy hanging over the pen, I would always stand on the part of the deck that splashed. There were three huge whales in a tiny pen, as a child I just assumed that they had much more space underwater to swim than I could see and the surface.
I remember when this information came out it played a huge part in ending the orca show at SeaWorld. On a side note I just learned that the term killer whale was based off of Viking language, and it actually means... Whale....killer. Makes so much more sense
yep, some orca pods have been known to converge on and promptly drown whales. they themselves are dolphins, not whales, so the name 'whale killer' makes a whole lot more sense than 'killer whale.'
they drown the whales by laying on top of their blowhole, by the way. its really fascinating how smart and strategic they can be. they know where the source of the whale's breath comes from and just pin it down so that it can drown at their leisure.
another fun fact; the name 'orca' comes from the god 'orcus', a god of the underworld who punished broken oaths. very very fitting.
@@kigut7443 that's awesome! I know the Vikings also talked about great big animals that would attack their ships. And that's why Vikings have those long narrow ships because apparently the ones they were using before look like a whale in the water and the Orca were attacking
SeaWorld does live Orca shows in Orlando a few times a times a day. In what SeaWorld did they stop?
Huh, in Swedish they are called Späckhuggare, meaning blubber ...chomper. (it's hard to translate, chomp fits best.) It is thought to be from them being either seen to attack whales or going after the whales caught by whaling ships way back when. I tried to find the word you referred to, but can only find a word meaning a whale of some kind, including Orca and dolphin.
@@ClockworkChainsaw is Swedish the same as ancient Viking? Hint: no
The orca didn't go crazy, the orca went orca
Exactly why wild animals should be allowed to remain wild
Absolutely! In particular, "shows" with marine mammals should be stopped immediately and the animals released.
@foreverpinkf.7603 If they were born in captivity, then they will probably die if released sadly.
@@foreverpinkf.7603 they couldn’t release them to the wild now. Theres been far too much human intervention. They’d all just die. Best thing for them is to retire them from shows, and develop a plan to move them to open oceans pens, where they can live the remainder of their life experiencing the natural environment they were born for.
@@belphy205 Maybe, but one should at least try to integrate them into an existing herd. Life in captivity must be hell for these intelligent animals.
@@belphy205but he was captured. They should just leave them alone.
I saw Keiko the whale (who played in Free Willy) shortly before his release and it was one of the most inhumane things I've ever seen, even all these years later. I can close my eyes and still see him in the tank, barely moving, surrounded by rotting fish they had tried to feed him but which he wouldn't eat. His flesh was partly eaten away. It was a horrific scene, surrounded by tourists pointing, shooting, taking pictures and generally being excited to see "Free Willy."
If I were an orca, i would ram the hell out of our yachts and stuff, too. We've behaved with deliberate cruelty to them for decades.
The way he died was even worse, but keep telling yourself that freeing him was the right thing to do. A full evaluation about Keiko should've been performed before his release to see that he wouldn't adapt to wild life as he was just too used to be around humans because that was what he knew from very early in his life. So these "environmentalists" and "animal lovers" really just took away what he knew and what he was comfortable with and replaced it with loneliness and longing for some bonding with others, no matter how "free" he was. Sure his conditions at Reino Aventura weren't great, but that could've been improved while keeping him content.
Fascinating Horror always does such a great job of covering stories we are all pretty familiar with, but digging and presenting at such a rate that it’s nothing but respectful. I am always genuinely pleased and educated when this page uploads! One of my favorite channels ever 💯
I was at Seaworld in Florida when I was 15. I loved the other parks and I wanted to love it, but even at that age (where I wasn’t thinking deeply or critically) I was left with a sadness I couldn’t shake. its obvious of course why someone would feel like that, but I still think about it. Why the trainers are not terrified I do not know.
I went to sea world multiple times as a child, I remember my family laughing at the animal protesters outside the park, and when I saw the orca and dolphin shows I felt like I was watching magic. I saw tilikum perform and I watched the show after the incident. I wasn’t aware of any issues with the care and well being of the animals. It was only when blackfish gained notoriety, and I got more into understanding animal care, that I understood how warped my viewpoint was, it felt like a betrayal, like a happy moment had been disturbed. Once I had the choice I never went back to sea world and never will. My heart aches for those poor animals.
So glad this channel exists.
Correct you are!
A fundamental problem with the whole setup is that some animals just do not have the psychological ability to deal with captivity. Orcas are *very* high on that list - their pods can roam over hundreds of square miles - and migrate around half the planet. They are evolved to be long distance travelers and nomads. And they are scarily smart and need a lot of mental stimulation.
Now put them in a bathtub that's part echo chamber and part sensory deprivation tank, with strange orcas they have no relation to and often form loose pods only with great difficulty and aggression, and leave them locked in solitary the rest of the time. And never, ever feed them quite enough, to keep them hungry and (you hope) obedient.
Tilikum was the ultimate result of that experiement: A genuinely psychotic orca that was a lethal threat to everyone around him. Til was the most famous case of that, but there are a whole bunch of others, most of which didn't injure anyone but themselves. The entire thing has been the worst sort of circus and it needed to be shut down a long time ago.
RIP Dawn Brancheau. Killed by corporate greed and negligence far more than by an orca.
From what I understand after Tillicum was just used for display, they treated him terribly and he ended up in a pool alone with several infections that ended up killing him. Shame on SeaWorld
bet they just waited for him to die because he was of no use for them anymore and did not bring in any $$$
Also... they took 'keep it in the family' very literally when it came to breeding him
We went to this SeaWorld the summer before. The trainers would get into the water with the other whales, but did not do so with Tilikum. When he came out for the show the trainers stepped back away from the water. I thought it a bit odd, that they were treating him so differently. It was chilling to hear the news a few months later that he'd killed someone.
Good to know they were well aware of the problem and still did nothing about it. That tracks.
@@adde9506 Sounds like management all right.
Uh he died almost 6yrs ago so, you sure as shhh didn't see him & he killed three not his fault "Ohhh" "chilling".
@@shelley4746 We went "the summer before" meaning the summer of 2009. *eyeroll*
@@tuvelat7302 That's cool maybe not assume we all have a crystal ball. The summer before ='s last summer.
I love Tuesday mornings bc Fascinating Horror uploads! However, I'm not sure if I can watch this one. Poor Tilikum. His life was the true Horror!
I know how you feel but I watched it and don’t regret it. Sad but respectfully done.
So true - Tilikum lived a life that makes me so sad
The collapsed dorsal fins on those captured animals is so sad to see. Due to a lack of space, especially depth in those tanks, orcas exercise significantly less and are stuck to pattern swimming, causing the fin to droop
I remember when this happened to Dawn. My heart hurt for the trainer and her family but I couldn’t feel anger towards the orca. Mess with Mother Nature, and eventually nature bites back. Literally.
My parents took me to SeaLand as a kid once around eight or seven and they told me I was so upset about the animals not being free and in a normal home that they cut the visit short and never took my brother nor I to another animal theme park again. Even in my 40s now I have problems visiting a zoo even.
Blackfish completely broke me. Real life is not Finding Nemo.
hate zoos. loved them when i was a kid and i didnt understand the animals dont just show up to the show for a job. they have to live there an never leave..
now i think they are a wholly unnecessary cruelty. we have the internet. we dont need to cage and torment animals just to look at them..
Trainer picked to be an orca slaver she deserved what she got its common knowlage that orcas kill for fun what do they think will happen if they have them bored 24/7
@@alexandria65 what is the secret evil special interest of Blackfish?
@@ripvanwinkle2002 It highly depends on the zoo. Many of them put in work to help save animals from going extinct in the wild with breeding and release programs. Only reason they allow public individuals in with admission fees is because they can't run the zoo without money. it was the AZA accredited zoos that helped bring the red wolf back and help keep the Mexican Grey from going extinct. I was to one with a Mexican grey breeding program. it had a wolf viewing area that had a plane of one way glass. Research the zoo you plan to go to. Not all zoos are created the same. I wish we researched before going to Arbuckle Wilderness.
@@alexandria65 very convincing response!
While "black fish" made several unfounded claims for the sake of sensationalism, I'm glad that it had an impact of the handling and regulation of marine wildlife in captivity.
SeaWorld has a big impact in conservation efforts, but the way it slimed it's way around the intruder's case and purposely hid Tilikum's troubled past from staff (including his handlers) is deplorable.
Yeah Blackfish absolutely wrecked me. Animals with the intelligence of humans should not be kept in captivity for entertainment.
I feel the same way about gorillas at the zoo.
They genuinely aren't responsible for what happened to the intruder, but even if they genuinely believed that Tilikum killing the original trainer was somehow something they would prevent by being better than her and her employer, that he killed another person for any reason should have immediately had him off limits to human interaction, and if possible released into the wild. SeaWorld blatantly put profit over the lives of their employees. I'm glad the whole thing damaged them so badly if it had to happen.
It wouldn't be the first time animal rights groups have lied to the public a group was busted in America and had to pay back billions of dollars to a circus for lying about what was going on
You are right, it's definitely a case of "no party was completely right, but working something around the issue greatly helped". I am happy that orca aren't used for sideshows anymore. They are intelligent animals, who needs to live among their pod, having the surface area of an ocean as only limits, not a basin.
I remember when this channel was so small and you had barely any subscribers. I instantly knew this was would someday become a big channel. I just say this because it’s so awesome seeing how far it’s come. Straightforward and detailed, pleasant narration, the format and intro. I’ve been watching for years now! Great work, seriously.
If I was in the ocean and accidentally came across an orca I would be less scared than a shark.... but I would exit the water immediately. It is about respect and knowing your place. Messing with any apex predator either forced or by accident is always a bad idea.
Sharks aren't going to bother you unless you're bleeding into the water.
@@WobblesandBean Tell that to the Russian dude who was swimming at an Egyptian beach and got eaten by a shark last month.
@@BobbyDigital6411 It's a bit like driving on a road near someone who's high or drunk. When a crash happens, it's terrible, but lots of people will drive in proximity to a drunk driver and never know it. Similarly, people will swim near sharks and never know it. (Signed, an Australian - who also knew someone who died from shark injuries.)
No shit
Dog orcas are VASTLY worse than sharks. Spielberg just didn't make a movie with them as the villain.
I grew up in Victoria, attended Sealand a few times, and was 14 when the trainer was killed there. It never really occurred to any of us at the time how miserable the whales must've been living in those tiny pools so close to their real homes. Seems incredibly callous of us now. It makes me happy to see that the country has banned the captivity and breeding of whales, but poor Tilikum lived a pretty dire existence thanks to these whale shows.
im from vancouver, and im not old enough to have co-existed with the lifespan of sealand, but reflecting on the history it's wild to me how we ever thought that was a cool thing to do. nowadays our province seems to really revere orcas. we have orca art and statues all over our cities, images of orcas on our ID cards.. the orca whale is a highly beloved animal here. you'd think back then that we'd want only the best for such a majestic, intelligent, and powerful animal.
but like you said, it must not have occurred to anyone that they were in hell. perhaps im looking back on history with information that wasnt available to them at the time. either way, im just glad theyre not kept anymore. i think theyre such noble and brilliant animals and they deserve so much better than what we do to them. theyre probably as intelligent as we are, and as social/loving too.
Okay so this is going to be long because this is a cause that lies incredibly close to my heart. Apologies in advance lol. Tilli was an emotionally broken animal. He was traumatically stolen from his family as a baby, locked in a tiny, pitch black stall (so small he could barely even turn around) every single night so the other orcas at Sealand of the Pacific couldn't bully him, forced to live in a chlorinated tank which offered NONE of the mental or physical stimulation he needed to remain happy and healthy. I mean, think of how much orcas rely on sound, how sensitive they are to it... now imagine how loud the park would have been, day in and day out, in a concrete tank that probably amplified every noise. Orcas rely on their familial bonds to feel happy and safe. He was denied the right to have this. I fully believe he was mentally destroyed by the experience of being in captivity, which is why he lashed out repeatedly. I mean, who wouldn't have?
The part of orcas brains that are responsible for emotion are way, way more developed than our own. They are incredibly smart, emotional beings. To keep them locked up in what amounts to a bathtub, for the sake of our entertainment makes me sick. SeaWorld (and Sealand of the Pacific although that's closed down) are responsible for these deaths. 100%.
And Tilikum was alone when he died. I think that's what gets me the most. After Dawn's death he had been kept in essentially solitary confinement until he died. A creature who relies on being around members of their pod, on being with family. Forced to live and die alone in a chlorinated pool.
I'm so glad this industry is dying out. The exact same goes for dolphins in captivity too, but unfortunately this doesn't seem to be declining as quickly. Miami Seaquarium is planning on releasing one of their incredibly long-suffering orcas (Lolita/Tokitae if anyone's interested in reading up on her story) to a sea pen where she can retire and hopefully be fully released in time. The rest of the parks keeping captive orca need to do the same.
Sorry, long post. This cause upsets me greatly. Thank you for covering it!
I totally agree but, Tilikum was not always alone after the incident. He was kept with his grandson Trua - the baby mimicked him a lot and like to think it gave Tilikum some contentment.
@@TrixyTheWonderDog Oh that's so bittersweet, I was misinformed, thank you for telling me :)
No need to apologize for length of post, I appreciated every word and appreciate your passion. The capture of these magnificent creatures is beyond wrong. It’s amazing Tilikum didn’t snap much earlier than he did, and hurt more people than he did. They all deserve huge-pen retirement and if at all possible, release.
I freaked out when I saw this video in my feed because I was obsessed with this case for a while. I went to SeaWorld once when I was 8 and vaguely recall speaking to a trainer that might have been Dawn, and I also vaguely recall hearing about her death, at which time I was 10- my mom (who shared a birthday with her IIRC) had just been diagnosed with and hospitalized for a brain tumor, so that time period is a disjointed blur, but I remember becoming frightened of my Shamu doll and trying to get it out of my room. I saw Blackfish on a slow day in my 12th grade biology class and became obsessed. I did my senior thesis project about orcas in captivity and later did an "ethical audit" of SeaWorld for a business course my first semester of college. Unfortunately, because of the timing, my mind associated the case with my own trauma. (My mom had passed away when I was 15, and at the time I saw Blackfish I was starting to experience physical symptoms of PTSD- after a night of research on the case, I woke up with pain in my head and left arm that I assumed was psychosomatic from reading about Dawn's death, but my condition worsened until 24 hours later I was in the ER panicking with "stroke-like symptoms"; I was diagnosed with fibromyalgia 4 years later.) I've tried not to think about it too much in the last few years because of my personal traumatic associations with it, but it's an endlessly fascinating case despite the harrowing tragedy and stunning abandonment of responsibility (although after years of watching your channel I'm sadly accustomed to stories like this). The first thing I thought upon hearing the story in full in 12th grade was "why the f*** was SeaWorld keeping an orca that was literally a serial killer?" I'm relieved that SeaWorld is moving away from its exploitation of orcas, but of course the human and animal suffering they've already caused cannot be undone. Rest in Peace to Dawn Brancheau.
You know what was messed up too about the Daniel incident? They were trying so hard at first to say he had a history of mental illness and thats why he snuck into the pool. Now I see they retracted that statement since you didnt mention it, mustve not worked out for their narrative. Absolutely despicable. They definitely had footage of him in the tank. Theres cameras all over those tanks. He probably didnt even get into the water and Tilikum probably dragged him in or something close to that but that would just show his aggressiveness more.
Yeah he leapfrogged out of his tiny tank, hobbled over & was like "Hey, Dan let's swim". Sounds reasonable..
I have no problem with zoos, as they can help endangered species and give us a chance to learn about these creatures. But SeaWorld forcing these wild animals to perform and sit in tanks far to small for them? No, that is evil.
SeaWorld has rescued and rehabilitated over 40,000 animals.
And have you actually seen their pool at the San Diego location? It’s massive. There are 2 sides to every story. And they don’t force them to participate. We’ve literally attended shows in which they had to announce that the show was cancelled since the orcas didn’t want to, so they didn’t.
Socializing animals like that id a good form of rehabilitation as tbey need stimulli
@@kimberlyphifer2391Sea world has definitely improved I’ll give them that unfortunately most other places like them still slip under the radar since Sea World is the most famous and got a lot of the controversy although there is one that didn’t, Canada where I live has banned Whales/Dolphins in parks outright because of Marineland’s extreme negligence which was even worse then the Old Sea World’s. The park does still exist but it’s basically on it’s last legs with the whales taken away which were the biggest attraction.
Correction: They Still have their Beluga whales but they’re the only whales Remaining there.
I am torn on zoos because some (not as common in US) are completely just in it for the money/entertainment though there are those that also do good, but I any time that you pull an animal out of the wild solely for entertainment purposes is so beyond disgusting there should be no argument about it. Especially when their home is the entire ocean. Like even if the bathtub analogy is wrong and it’s a 2 bedroom apartment, that is way too small to spend all your time in.
Zoos are as bad !! Check out videos of mental distress in animals stuck in zoos. Heart breaking ! You wouldnt be happies if we kept you captive for "your own good"... people went nuts having to stay home during covid and you still think zoos are ok ? They are not.. sanctuaries on the other end is great because they reabilitate wild animals..
thank you for covering this, the story and life of Tilikum is heartbreaking. i am not religious but i hope that he has a huge ocean he can explore for the rest of eternity. we failed him, along with all other intelligent animals we keep in piss poor conditions.
You've got to be kidding. Do you realise how daft that sounds? Swimming a huge ocean for eternity?
Animals do not have a soul that gets to experience eternal bliss or eternal condemnation. Open a Bible, read and learn; instead of turning God's plan into a fairytale.
he doesnt
life is like a car battery
when the spark is gone
its just garbage left over for someone else to clean..
thinking there is some eternal magic kingdown is why humans treat each other and everything else so shitty..
why care about your loaner apartment when youre just gonna move into a big condo soon?
doesnt help most " holy" books say its ok to be an abusive asshole to a whole host of animals and other humans..
so its not like we can get morals from any of them..
@@teresamartin4735 there is no god, you're the daft one.
@@teresamartin4735I bet he's a gay whale in a gender nonconforming ocean with little gay whale babies he chose to have with a concenting partner after multiple whale abortions.
Relax, this is a youtube comment section on the internet. I'll touch grass before I read an old book lmao
The fact there have been no recorded orca attacks on humans in the wild and plenty of attacks on humans in captivity just speaks for itself.
Being locked up in a tiny pool is akin to being in prison for the Orca. These are highly intelligent animals and Im not surprised they took out their frustrations on their handlers.
Sea world and others like it should be closed down and the Orcas rehabilitated into the wild, Where they need to be. Its shocking how in this day and age places like this still exist.
SeaWorld and other awful aquariums like it abuse orcas horribly. Thank you for shedding more light on this.
Highly recommend Blackfish for anyone who wants to learn more!
Please don't imply that Sea World is an aquarium. Most aquaria are responsible, non-profit organizations, often connected with institutions of higher learning, that promote best practices in science, learning, & marine life husbandry. Sea World is a theme park, with animals that they don't bother to take care of unless neglecting the animals actually cuts into their profits. Thank you.
I actually saw Tilkium and Dawn at Seaworld just before this accident happened. Such a sad story that was completely avoidable.
I wouldn't necessarily call this an accident. It was an attack and a premeditated incident.
Not matter how 'cute' a wild animal is, it will always be a wild animal.
Wild animal is dangerous if pressed
And orca might kill you cuz its bored so putting it in a place were its non stop bored is a dumb way to die
wild animal in captivity is exponentially more dangerous than the same wild animal out in the wild
Of course it's still dangerous when you're trying to trained animals or whatever they can still attack if you don't know what you're doing
@@lord_apollyon7158 “COULD NOT AGREE MORE”!!!!!
A wild animal is still cute in the wild. It should be allowed to stay there
Imagine throwing a human for years in a small room without windows, without social interactions with other people, forcing him to do things he never would do if he would be free. The social isolation alone breaks every intelligent social being (i know, they kept him with other orcas, but as far as I know, the others never let him into the group). It’s also unclear what experiences he made with humans in general. I think I don’t have to mention the range of aggressive human behavior, if they don’t get what they want. They made a 10 ton depressed psychopath. It’s a miracle this sh… doesn’t happen on a monthly basis.
Anthropomorphic arguments that attribute human emotion to wild animals (even other mammals) have no scientific basis and are an oversimplification of complex and poorly understood animal behaviors.
Not to mention that Tilicum was stolen from his mother at a very young age, and then placed in a small pool with three adult female orcas who terrorized and abused Tilicum, like scraping their teeth against his back, what a horrible way to be treated, alone in a small tank with 3 adults and no monitoring whatsoever. I believe that as a result of this, he went insane and killed three humans.
His mother stayed in the area where they took him away, she cried endlessly and separated from the pod to remain here. She died a few years later, still mourning the loss of her son. So sad what these so-called family entertainment organizations did to their animals. Then SeaWorld trying to blame the victims. Disgusting.
Happens in prisons everywhere all the time.
It's called solitary confinement, or "the hole".
I remember being taken to Sealand in Victoria as a child and still remember how small the tank was for a whale that size.
You're the first anyone I've ever heard of calling Tilikum by his stage name Shamu I had no idea that he was a killer. I always assumed it was a different whale
Shamu was the stage name for multiple animals, there was always one they’d call Shamu but they had actual names.
"Shamu" was never the name of any captive whale that I'm aware of, at Sea World or otherwise. As long as there were whale "shows" at Sea World, "Shamu" was a ROLE in those shows, played by as many orcas as Sea World could train to play the role. They'd even have different "Shamu" shows going on at the same time, obviously with different whales playing the "Shamu" role in the different shows. There were a few other named roles in some of Sea World's shows over the decades -- I remember "Namu" & "Kamu" being two of them. But since Sea World adopted "Shamu" as their mascot, they always had to include that role in their shows; there was the added advantage that since "Shamu" wasn't an actual whale, Sea World wouldn't ever have to say that "Shamu" had died, even as dozens of whales who played the part did die over the decades. I feel like Sea World has always been deceptive about this. No one at Disneyland tries to convince kids that the "cast member" in the Mickey suit is REALLY the ACTUAL Mickey Mouse -- they admit that Mickey's a cartoon character. No one pushes the narrative that Harrison Ford is REALLY Indiana Jones, like that's his stage name or alter ego or something -- we all know Indy is fictional. All the whales at Sea World had & have human-given names, but NONE of them have actually been named "Shamu" -- "Shamu", Sea World's mascot, has always been a fictional character, & Sea World is VERY disingenuous about that. Strange, since most companies don't pretend their mascot is a real entity -- no one expects the Michelin Man or Mr. Clean to have been alive at some point. The closest thing to "Shamu" is probably Betty Crocker, a mascot of the Gold Medal/Betty Crocker/Pillsbury conglomerate, who also never existed & has always been a fiction, played by many, many women over the decades. Unlike those women, though, the whales cast as "Shamu" didn't get any choice in the matter...
This reply is too long already, so why not add a little extra context? One of the many orca "actors" who played Shamu COUNTLESS times (before public pressure forced Sea World to stop making their animals perform) got named Corky II by humans, though her official "designation" is A16. She was born in 1965 (even older than ancient me!) & was captured off British Columbia, Canada, in 1969, along with some of her family members. She's been at Sea World since they bought her in 1987, & she's the oldest whale in captivity, having outlived her family, her mates, & many friends. I stan her so hard!
You are wrong Buddy in the 1980s I saw him and they explicitly called him shamu and they sold t-shirts with his likeness on it
I saw Shamu at Sea World Orlando right after Kamu was born. Can't remember the exact year, early 90's.
@@sammy9103"Shamu was an actual female caught & sold to SeaWorld in 1965 she died just a couple years later.. There's been a dozen or so " Shamu's" no one saw HER in the 70's, 80's, 90's, 2000's anywhere. In Orlando we were told "she" had Mammu a baby but, that wasn't true. Since then (in Orlando alone) Tilikum died. 2 females have bashed their heads till death.. Not being mean just I live 45mins away from Orlando SeaWorld is no place anyone goes.
Great video (as always). I’ve always been a fan of sea-life exhibits and shows. At 64 years old, I’ve seen the entire evolution of those exhibitions, from the tiny portable pools that orcas (and other creatures) were first displayed in right up to the large parks and stadia that eventually became their homes. The older I get, the clearer it becomes that imprisoning such creatures and forcing them to perform is obviously cruel and a sure recipe for disaster. I miss seeing them up close, but I can’t condone the terrible treatment (so obvious in hindsight) that we humans inflicted upon them.
Sometimes I feel bad about how often I had been to SeaWorld when I was younger and living in California. Heck, even as a kid at one point I wanted to be a Killer Whale trainer too. But, I swim as good as a rock, so that didn't happen. I know it was a time that a lot of people didn't know better. Late 80s to mid 90s. And after realizing how bad it is for them, and how captures like they had in Free Willy was not an exception, I avoid it completely. I live in Canada now, and will go whale watching one day. There are awesome areas for that. But Captive Orcas or shows featuring regular dolphins, are just not worth it. I wont go swimming with them either. All of these animals should be in pods with families. I wont change the world with how I think maybe, but at least I want nothing to do with it now.
Watching whales in the wild is wonderful -- if you get the opportunity, don't pass it up.
Same! I remember as a kid, my dream was to do the program where you got to swim with dolphins. I never got to do it, and now I'm glad I never did. If I ever go back to Sea World, it would be for the rides because I really want to ride Emperor and finally get my Dive Coaster credit
this poor whale. he had a terrible life and I believe he was intelligent enough to know something was wrong with his life and to feel depressed and lonely
I see all kinds of emotional comments here, but I think it really boils down to predators being unpredictable, especially when in an unnatural setting. You're rolling the dice every time you get near them because being an obedient puppy isn't really in their programming. Of course, many of our favorite forms of entertainment involve risk and we don't usually remember the poor guy who fell during a circus act.
I wouldnt even say its exclusive to predators either. Elephants have been notorious for killing people out of anger and stress.
I randomly watched a documentary about this LAST NIGHT and u come out w a vid the next day 😳 shits wild
My husband and I tried to have a discussion about this in a restaurant in Chicago. (We had just gotten married & were traveling around to meet the relatives) Got told off by a waiter because the owner was a relative or something of the trainer. How the heck were we supposed to know?! Never ended up watching Blackfish or anything, because all I can think of is some random person is gonna come out of the woodwork and get mad at me 😶 Stupid, I know! But glad I can finally listen to something about the topic... I hope that waiter or the owner doesn't show up here & tell me off😹
Crappy waiter!
Blackfish is good. I mean hard to watch, but informative. Since its release there seems to be a shift in public opinion, so I don’t think your views are quite as controversial now
@@averycheesypotato Tbf, he would have to deal with his boss. But that really sticks out. That & the maitre d' who wouldn't bring me to my waiting family, who was in some room I didn't know about. He wouldn't shut up, just kept asking questions and talking. HE was bad, and I was so embarrassed. The other guy, can't blame him so much. But it certainly was an unforgettable moment!
@@gohawks3571Thats zoomers for you
Yes, this is one I've heard iterated upon over & over. But it's a good event to cover & have circulate.
Because this certainly was gross negligence on SeaWorld's part, and for many folks growing up their first exposure to what animal cruelty can lead to; especially when it is performed by a heartless corporation onto a sapient & sentient being.
On a final note, rest in peace to those who lost their lives.
Just wanted to say I appreciate your usage of the word 'sapient'. You don't see it very often. I don't think most people even know it's a word. They seem to use sentience when they mean sapience, and then never really talk about sentience properly at all, lol
I went to SeaWorld once...family outing kind of thing, we all went. I was studying marine mammals at the time so suffice to say that SeaWorld's edumacation on marine mammals was severely one sided. Regardless something happened which I will never forget. It was in during the dolphin pre-show. Apparently the pair were supposed to push the trainer around the pool by his feet. Well they pushed the trainer directly toward the wall, let him go before he'd hit it but still it was not part of the show. How do I know? The abject look of fear on the trainer's face. The dolphins stopped before the wall, watched the trainer drift into a soft hit against it and then swam in a circle and dove to the deep part of the pool. If they had done a fin high 5 it would have been perfect. The trainer jumped out of the pool, shaking of course, got himself together after I asked if he was OK. He said yea but he was taking a break after that and possibly leaving. I'll never forget what he told me, "This is the third time they've done that and I'm done." I pointed out that they let him go, it was in their terms what we considered a joke. He said he didn't think it was funny and walked away. No idea if he quit but I think he did. The pair of dolphins watched him walk off and then just looked at me. I shrugged and smiled at them. Communication and personification warning but I swear those pair were laughing. They continued to ignore the trainers and just did their own thing until they got put into the ridiculously small pool where they couldn't even swim around - a part of the park nobody is allowed to see but I did. Ever since that encounter I joined the group to get SeaWorld shut down as an education center and reclassified as a zoo (which is what it is). Still working on that and it's been a few decades.
He shouldn't have been torturing those animals in the first place.
@@Qrtuop No idea if he knew what he was doing to the animals. Their indoctrination is so deep it borders on brainwashing. But if that kid did leave, all the better and perhaps he joined the fight.
Fabulous, your work to get SeaWorld shut down. FWIW, thank you. ❤️
Now, THAT's the Sea World I got to know & despise in the 1980's! Great anecdote.
This is exactly why is best to leave wild animals where they belong where they can roam around wild and free.
Where humans can kill them all off. I see a point in AZA zoos and sanctuaries, to shelter animals unable to survive on their own or prevent extinction until we can sort our own crap out. Whales are an exception to this, since there is no way we can approximate their natural habitat.
No. Hunt them all down.
@@mushyroom9569what?
Wow, I had no idea. Thanks to this video, I've gone down a rabbithole of watching numerous documentaries about orcas. Fascinating creatures! They shouldn't be imprisoned and made to do tricks. No wonder Tilikum lost his mind.
Thank you doing your research and giving out accurate and non biased information. So many get it wrong.
One small error here: according to NOAA, the average lifespan for male orcas is 30 years, and they can live up to 60. Lots of sources will claim orcas live much longer than they do because they're referencing the oldest individuals on record.
In contrast to the females, which live for much much longer
The oldest one was 86 iirc
@@GandalfTheTsaagan About 20 years longer on average (again according to NOAA). But it's remarkable that some individuals can live so much longer than that (RIP Granny).
I genuinely have no idea how Seaworld is still in business.
Definitely don’t have the stomach to watch this but thank you so much for making this.
Tilikum’s story has stuck with me ever since I first watched the Black Fish documentary about Sea World. His life makes me so sad. Orcas are such social, intelligent animals, and should never have been in captivity. RIP Tilikum, and RIP Dawn.
Tilikums Story fascinated me for years! thank you for this awesome Video
It was NOT her PONYTAIL. Tilikum grabbed Dawn's ARM. It was mentioned in BLACKFISH, and in the book Death At Seaworld.
I've never been to SeaWorld, but I remember a time when it was one of the most popular attractions in the U.S.
The Blackfish documentary changed everything. Keeping these intelligent creatures captive for entertainment is now frowned upon.
I still don't understand how we view circuses as inhumane but are totally OK with parks like Seaworld. It's the same thing. Incredibly intelligent yet unpredictable wild predators kept in horrible conditions as mere instruments of entertainment, kept in their place by endless abuse. I'm not anti-captivity, since there are ways to do that properly, but no wild animal should ever be forced to entertain people. You can see the consequences. Poor animals and poor keepers
That's a really good point. If there was a theme park called "Jungleworld" and it's main attraction was a bunch of tigers or something jumping through hoops on stage with lights and music I can't imagine that would be well received by the public. It would rightfully be called a circus. But do it with orcas or other dolphins and it's suddenly fine?
Thank you for doing this one, immeasurably 💙
Thank you for covering this -- I have a very weak spot for orcas and it made me so happy to see Tilikum come up on one of my favorite channels in such a respectful, careful way.
Kiska, Corky II, Kandu V, and/or Luna would be other orcas that may be interesting to cover, if you were so inclined, even if it's one lump video or shorts. Kiska was the only captive orca in Canada for years, Corky II is debatably the oldest (Tokitae is within a year's estimated difference), has had multiple calves but none survived, and was involved in Kandu V's nightmarish semi-public death, and Luna was a lost calf that tried to bond with humans in Puget Sound, but people mangled the response and he was accidentally killed.
There's also the wild floppy-fin duo, Port and Starboard, but that's more horror for the sharks and shark fans.
I stan Corky II so hard. She's a year older than I am!
Thank you so much for doing this video. I have followed the stories on the captive whales for years. I'm kind of a weirdo cause I know a lot of their names, but I just think they need to saved from their imprisonment so badly. Poor Tilly :(
"Say their names" can apply to more than human victims!
For another kind of horror, look up "Kiska," the Ocra that lived alone in Marineland park in Canada for over a decade. A very sad, scary fate to befall anyone, and that's before the many allegations of animals mistreatment from the park :(
I also think the story of Lolita the orca should be talked about more. She's been suffering in a very small tank for 50+ years.
While Kiska’s fate was tragic, her legacy is that she was the last captive orca in Canada.
May there never be another!
While I am not at all against zoos and similar in general, Orcas are one animal that I believe should not be kept in captivity. I don't see ay way that we can keep them stimulated and happy and with enough space to thrive in captivity.
Only way would be if the zoo happened to have a huge saltwater lake...
many zoos these days also function as conservation and wildlife rehabilitation facilities, but the "let's keep whales or dolphins in kinda large swimming pools and make them perform tricks in front of loud crowds of people" type stuff really needs to be left in the past for good
this goes for all cetaceans. whales and dolphins get so horribly depressed they can go as far as self harming and attempting suicide. they dont belong in aquariums, ESPECIALLY not to work all day for the enjoyment of humans
Why are you not againts zoos?
ah so youre selective about what animals we can cage and torment for our amusement..
how cosmopolitan of you ..😒
That is so desperately sad. I grew up loving Shamu, never knowing....so sad. For him and especially those he killed.
This was a surprise, at least to me. A nice change-up; thanks for exploring something a little different!
The fact that people think it’s okay to take any animal out of the wild (& their natural habitat) to capture & train them just to become entertainment for humans, is astonishing & horrifying to me. He was only two years old 😢
SeaWorld shouldn't exist.
Poor poor creatures. They are such beautiful and intelligent animals, thry deserve so much more than the way humans has treated them.
Excellent channel! I have been a consumer of your content for nearly 3 years now, and never miss a one.
This was a good one, I stop watching for a few months and then binge. Probably a top 5 for me!
1. It wasn't a show it was a dining experience. And there were less than 50 people.
2. The females at SeaLand were known to have many aggressive incidents. Tilikum didn't have any leading up to Kelties death. Nootka and Haida were the ones holding keltie, before Tilikum got to her.
3. Females live to 60 on average and Males 30.
4. All trainers are aware of the incident and it is in the whales handbook profile. So before even working with them they are aware of Tilikum's history.
If you have never been to sea world, don't none of us in the family really thought about it until we were at the orca enclosure. the sight of multi ton super predator's who are meant to range the globe, doing circles of an over large fish bowl is still one of the most depressing sights I've personally witnessed after decades. Heart breaking.
As a child I loved Shamu..when I moved to an Island my soul understood being trapped in what someone else thinks is paradise..
Sea World really did everyone a disservice by implying there was ever an orca actually named Shamu. "Shamu" was never the name of any captive whale that I'm aware of, at Sea World or otherwise. As long as there were whale "shows" at Sea World, "Shamu" was a ROLE in those shows, played by as many orcas as Sea World could train to play the role. They'd even have different "Shamu" shows going on at the same time, obviously with different whales playing the "Shamu" role in the different shows. There were a few other named roles in some of Sea World's shows over the decades -- I remember "Namu" & "Kamu" being two of them. But since Sea World adopted "Shamu" as their mascot, they always had to include that role in their shows; there was the added advantage that since "Shamu" wasn't an actual whale, Sea World wouldn't ever have to say that "Shamu" had died, even as dozens of whales who played the part did die over the decades. All the whales at Sea World had & have human-given names, but NONE of them have actually been named "Shamu" -- "Shamu", Sea World's mascot, has always been a fictional character, & Sea World is VERY disingenuous about that. Strange, since most companies don't pretend their mascot is a real entity -- no one expects the Michelin Man or Mr. Clean to have been alive at some point. The closest thing to "Shamu" is probably Betty Crocker, a mascot of the Gold Medal/Betty Crocker/Pillsbury conglomerate, who also never existed & has always been a fiction, played by many, many women over the decades. Unlike those women, though, the whales cast as "Shamu" didn't get any choice in the matter...
This reply is too long already, so why not add a little extra context? One of the many orca "actors" who played Shamu COUNTLESS times (before public pressure forced Sea World to stop making their animals perform) got named Corky II by humans, though her official "designation" is A16. She was born in 1965 (even older than ancient me!) & was captured off British Columbia, Canada, in 1969, along with some of her family members. She's been at Sea World since they bought her in 1987, & she's the oldest whale in captivity, having outlived her family, her mates, & many friends. I stan her so hard!
Really good organization on this one wow, I never knew he killed 3, I only knew of the last 2. Crazy, thank you for your videos
So sad to see this beautiful creature with its fin that cannot even stay upright in captivity. These human monsters deserve what they get!
I'm of the opinion that the larger and more intelligent an animal is, the less we should keep them in captivity (barring the animal having a reason for needing to stay in captivity, such as Winter the dolphin or any other animal that otherwise can't be released into the wild for any other reason). I hear too many stories of orcas and elephants languishing in captivity because of how hard it is to care for such a large and intelligent animal.
That's wild. To think they killed Harambe over literally the idea that he might hurt one kid.
Nice Vid as ever :) Just wondering if you have looked into the recent ( ish ) attacks on small boats by Orcas?
As far as I can tell it sounds like one Orca might have been injured by the prop on a boat and then that warning spread between the pods. Just shows how intelligent these wonderful creatures are.
It also started after the initial Covid lockdown period, I think?
I thought maybe that for once they weren't bothered by us, so when we came back they were like hell no stay away again forever, because they'd finally had true peace again in our own habitat.
I'll never understand how people keep animals in conditions like this. Not just orcas, not just SeaWorld. I see it everywhere, from small animals like hamsters all the way up to orcas and elephants. Every single animal kept by humans must have a vast amount of space (measured by how much space they occupy in the wild/how far they move in a day) and most need additional options to exercise. They also need all kinds of stimulation, depending on the animal they need that stimulation to be changed regularly too or they will get bored by it. Every social species also needs an appropriately sized social group and it's necessary to make sure none of the animals is being bullied away from the group. And even then wild animals pretty much should only ever be in captivity under certain circumstances: conservation and rehabilitation programs. This means no keeping wild animals in places where they don't naturally belong, especially in climates they're not made to live in, it means not using them as props in theatrical shows, it means keeping human contact to a minimum with most animals. There is exceptions where the animals do just fine with some of this not being followed as strictly, as long as the basics (enough space, enrichment, social group of needed and proper environment) are covered. We have "Wildparks" (Wild meaning wild animals in this case) here in Germany that oftentimes have animals like boar and deer in gigantic areas with lots of forest and all that. There's spaces to watch the animals, but they can also hide away from humans if they like to. Usually it's possible to feed them but only with specialised food or they've got a list of healthy stuff you can bring from home. These animals have a gigantic amount of space and the same enrichment as in the wild (it's basically just a fenced in piece of nature, not an artificially built "scene") and get to have their social groups like they do in the wild too. They do get fed, so they definitely can make it through times where food is sparse and it's up to them whether they wanna interact with humans or not. Sadly not every Wildpark is this good, I've definitely seen bad ones too, with way too little space, there's definitely outliers there too, but the concept, of done properly, can work very well and offer an opportunity to learn about these animals while still keeping them in a good environment. That's not to say that Germany doesn't also have zoos, they definitely do and I do not like it for the reasons listed above
Also, while I did briefly mention it, I'm not going to get into pet care here, as that's not the topic of the video. But the basics definitely apply here too. Inform yourself if you're going to get a pet, so you can make sure they're provided with all they need (and more)
I remember going to see a killer whale show at Marineland in Niagara Falls when I was very young, and was thrilled by it. Now I'm sad that such shows even exist. This story is sad all around.
MarineLand no longer has orcas at least. It’s always been a weird place, but like you I did not fully understand how the animals were treated there when I was a kid