Article #10: Marine Mammals in Captivity

This article, put out by the Humane Society of the United States, explains the life of marine mammals in the wild vs. in captivity and explains the many reasons why this act of capturing and presenting these animals for amusement (shows) shouldn’t be allowed. In the wild, marine mammals such as killer whales (orcas) and dolphins have plenty of room to live their lives.  These mammals spend the majority of their time swimming for miles at a time in the wild, but when placed in captivity they are limited to the small, enclosed pool that they are forced to live the rest of their lives in.  In the wild, these animals typically spend 80%-90% of their time underwater only coming up to the surface to breath. In captivity these animals spend the majority of their time at the surface since they don’t have room to dive down and spend their time under the surface.  Spending the majority of their time at the surface is unnatural and can cause many health complications such as skin problems and dorsal fin collapse.  Dorsal fin collapse is a huge problem that occurs to almost all captive orcas.  This condition occurs when the orca spends the majority of their time at the surface allowing gravity to pull the dorsal fin down.  Normally, the fin would be supported by water so it would stand straight up, but since the orca doesn’t spend the majority of its time under the surface dorsal fin collapse occurs. 
The method that these animals are captured with is another issue.  The process of capturing wild marine mammals is violent and disrupts social groups, splits up families, and snatches individual animals from the water.  It can also cause extreme stress to the animal which could potentially lead to death and once in captivity the deaths caused by stress are increased.  Capturing wild orcas and dolphins is the only way that they will be able to be seen in captivity since they don’t breed well in captivity and if they do give birth to offspring the offspring risk a high mortality rate. 

"Marine Mammals in Captivity : The Humane Society of the United States." RSS. The Humane Society of the United States, n.d. Web. 17 Apr. 2013 http://www.humanesociety.org/issues/captive_marine/facts/marine_captivity.html


I have never really seen the captivity of marine mammals to be a problem until I read this article.  Now, I understand some of the consequences that the events of capturing and putting these animals in captivity has on the animals health and wellbeing.  I have been to Sea World in Orlando, Florida and have watched the different dolphin, orca, and seal shows and I thought that the shows were really fun to sit and watch.  After reading this article, I can see how watching these shows and the animals in captivity can be fun for us but having the animals suffer for something that we enjoy isn't the nicest thing we could be doing.  I didn't realize how many health problems that these animals can suffer due to being in captivity, its just unnatural for them to be stuck in a small enclosed area when they should be out in the ocean where they belong.  I could understand having animals in captivity if that is where they have lived their entire lives but being taken from thier natural habitat and be thrown into an unknown environment being forced to put on a show isn't right.  If the animal has lived its entire life in captivity thats all it has ever known, it wouldn't know how to live out in its natural habitat.