Publisher’s Notebook

• Right a Wrong: End Orca Captivity •

ANNE SOBLE

The recent death of the 20-year-old orca that died while giving birth to a stillborn calf at a marine park has led to renewed calls for the marine mammals not to be kept in captivity. Environmental and marine wildlife organizations are asking the National Marine Fisheries Service to draft regulations to prohibit any more captive breeding and ultimately phase out the public display of orcas.

The six-ton male orca that fathered the calf killed a trainer at the same park. It wasn’t the first time. That the animal has likely been so impaired by being kept in isolation that he injures those around him is viewed as a small price for the park to pay for his breeding capability. That the orca knows nothing but a small chlorinated concrete tank in which he can only swim in circles and is deprived of using echolocation to communicate is barbaric and sadistic.

No marine mammals thrive in captivity, and some scientists even conjecture that they may purposely end their own lives when conditions become unbearable. Even without premeditated action, captive orcas die decades before their average life expectancy in the wild, which is 80 or more years for females and 50 years for males.

It is reported that most confined orcas die before they reach 20. Over the past 24 years, marine specialists say almost two dozen orcas have died at marine parks with nearly all of them less than 25 years of age. Over the past four decades, 25 orcas have injured or killed their trainers. Four people have been killed as a result of their public display, but there is not a single recorded instance of people being killed by orcas in the wild.

Video footage was shown on television over the weekend of a large pod of orcas interacting with passengers on a boat and “playing” with lines and poles. The wild orcas were curious and peaceful. The display of captive orcas and dolphins only serves to fill the coffers of the so-called parks that some say should more accurately be called torture chambers. Watching these animals be forced to do unnatural tricks for food, onlookers learn little to nothing about these magnificent animals.

The NMFS is deliberating possible changes to the Marine Mammal Protection Act. Few hope it will be so enlightened as to stop all captive breeding and public display. With so much unethical behavior everywhere else one looks, a marine conservation ethic may be too much to ask for. Resources should go to rescuing and rehabilitating sick and injured animals rather than forcing healthy marine mammals into servitude.

Thursday, June 10, is the deadline for public comments to the NMFS regarding revisions of the MMPA regulations. There is still time to contact NMFS and urge it to phase out marine parks and, until then, create stricter regulations and oversight for facilities with public display permits, and prohibit any further captive breeding or capture of marine mammals in the wild.