I spuddle.

A long time ago – 1999, to be exact – I wrote and published a YA novel called Dream Water.   I wanted to write a book about a group of teens who (as children) had witnessed the worst possible thing I knew, and how they continued to deal with the trauma of that through their lives.   I based the book on a real-life incident, an incident that in a lot of ways changed my life and certainly my point-of-view.

The incident was the 1991 drowning death of a trainer at our local marine park (Sealand of the Pacific).   The trainer was killed by a whale named Tilikum.   I did not know the details of the accident at the time that I wrote the book, I just knew that it had occurred.   I fictionalized it and used it as a starting point for a novel that, in turn, I could use as a platform for discussion about keeping whales in captivity.

In writing the book, I learned a lot of things that are shocking.   Some things — once you know them — you can’t ever forget.

***

When orcas are captured in the wild for very lucrative sales to marine parks, the most common (and easiest) method is to follow this checklist:

1.   Find a mother and a baby.

2.   Kill the mother, usually by simply shooting her with an AK47, or the more traditional method of spearing.

3.   Drag the mother’s corpse behind your boat.

4.  The baby will follow you wherever you go.   Thus solving the problem of how to pull a live, fighting whale in a net.

5.  Name your price.

They say that this practice is now illegal — it is most certainly morally reprehensible — and for the most part, SeaWorld and its ilk now breed their own captive whales.   Tilikum was one of the last whales who was captured in the wild.   Details of his capture off the coast of Iceland have never been released.

***

When I was a young child, going to Sealand was a treat.  I can still remember exactly how it looked, the particular salty smell of the air there, the buckets of fish that got tossed in the water, the tiny whale pool with the three orcas, circling.   A trainer would stand up on a lifeguard stand, holding a hoop.  The whales would jump through it.  It was like a cartoon come to life.   Like magic.

When encouraged with fish, the whales would spit on the crowd.   They would attempt — in their too-small pool — to demonstrate whale behaviors.  This was “better” than the big American parks where trainers got onto the backs of the animals and performed acrobatics.

THIS was “natural”.

****

When I got older, the coveted summer job in town was the one at Sealand.  I applied, but I never got the job.   Instead, I worked at the Haunted Mansion.   I worked at Miniature World.   I sold ice cream and tickets to play mini golf.   I never got to work with the whales, no matter how many times I said that I wanted to be a marine biologist, that I really really loved the whales.

I had this idea of myself as some kind of Whale Whisperer.   The whales would love me, I just knew it.  I had been going to see them at Sealand for so long, I felt like I knew them.   We had a connection.   I felt it.   I loved them.

But I never got the chance.

***

When Keltie Byrne was killed by Tilikum, I was living in Vancouver.   I read the story over and over.   She was around the same age as me.

She could have BEEN me.

I was so shocked, it was as if Mickey Mouse had suddenly become Jack the Ripper.    There was a disconnect.

A whale did that?   But whales are so beautiful.

We love the whales.

Don’t they know that?

And that’s when I started doing my homework.

****

As a race, we humans tend to personify whales, orcas and dolphins in particular.    We are always rabbiting on about how smart they are, how they have langauge, how they are SO LIKE US.    But the truth is that apart from the fact that we are both the top of our food chains, we have little in common.

They are 12,000 pound predators built to survive in the ocean.

We are measly in comparison.    We would not survive for more than twenty minutes in the waters where these animals thrive.

They travel thousands of miles a year, following their food supply.   They fight for dominance.    They kill.

We are seekers of entertainment.   We are governed by money.

They have no comprehension of the value of cash.

We are kings.

And in our kingdoms, we have made killer whales our court jesters.

They are kings.

But their kingdoms don’t look like ours.

***

Up until last fall, the SeaWorld franchise was owned by Anheuser Busch.   Yes, the beer company.   Every year, the profits from the SeaWorld parks totalled in the near-billion dollar range.    Last year, Anheuser Busch sold the chain to another conglomerate for 2.7 billion dollars.   TWO POINT SEVEN BILLION DOLLARS.

Corporations do not answer to anyone except their shareholders.  Their entire purpose is to generate revenue.   It is not to “save the whales”.   Their job is not to care, it is to make more and more and more money.   Period..

And the amount of money that these animals generate is mind-boggling.   How much money people are willing to pay to watch the so-called domestication of a killer whale is unbelievable.    Millions of people drag their kids out to see shows there every year.   Year on year, they perpetuate the myth that whales are entertaining and fun.

It is a fact that the whales are the biggest attraction at these parks.   That’s what people are paying to see.

They willfully overlook the facts.   Such as, the whales do not EAT if they do not perform.

Just yesterday, someone very close to me said, “Well, they wouldn’t do it if they didn’t want to.   You can’t MAKE a whale do something.”

Maybe if you breed the whale for the entire purpose of your entertainment, he won’t know any different.

Maybe if you punish him for NOT entertaining, he’ll learn to “like” it.

At Sealand of the Pacific, there was a misguided attempt on the part of a Free The Whales organization to cut the nets and release the whales.  As a result of this, the whales were kept in locked pens at night, no more spacious than a horse’s stall.   They became sick.   They became aggressive.

They started blowing blood from their blowholes because their circulation was becoming impeded.

Trainers quit.   Trainers complained.   The animals were getting sick and their behavior was changing.

There were plenty of red flags.

But still, they performed.

But they probably wouldn’t have if they didn’t want to.   Right?

***

Whales are constantly using echolocation, which in small pools continually bounces off the walls and eventually begins to affect the whale’s sanity.   Yes, their sanity.   If we are going to humanize the entire whale species, imbue them with emotions and human motivations, then we must also accept that they can be tortured.   That they can be driven crazy.

Take a human.   Kill his family.   Imprison him.    Feed him.    Break him down and then teach him to perform.

Applaud him.

How is it not the same thing?

Would we pay to see a person in the same circumstance?   A kidnapped child, forced to do acrobatics for food?

Would YOU?

***

There is now a public voice that is piping up and saying, “You can’t blame the whale.”    As though that is even an ISSUE.

It’s not even about BLAMING the whale.    The whale is an animal.   A wild animal in the truest sense.

****

Tilikum — the same whale who killed Keltie Byrne in 1991, went on to kill a homeless man in 1999 and another trainer.   Yesterday.   At SeaWorld in Florida.   You’ve probably seen it on the news.

I don’t blame the whale, although I do think this is a whale who has (and is) a serious threat and a serious problem.  I do not think the whale should be destroyed, but I do agree with PETA and feel very strongly that he should be removed from SeaWorld.   He should be kept in a coastal sanctuary, fed, and looked after until he dies of natural causes.  He cannot be released — he would not survive in the wild.

He cannot — and should not — be kept as a tourist attraction.

Who do I blame?

I blame the people who put him there.   I blame the hunters who caught and sold him for millions to Sealand of the Pacific.   I blame Bob Wright who, in turn, sold him to SeaWorld for a reported $10,000,000 in 1991.   I blame SeaWorld for covering up the death of the homeless man and muddying the story with half-truths and continuing to make the animal perform even though it was NEVER intended that he perform again.

He was sold for stud.

Period.

But then you have a whale, right?  And you have an audience who wants to see more and more and more of that whale.   LOOK AT THE WHALE!   OMG!   HE’S SO AWESOME!

Yes, he is.

He was probably awesome in the wild, too.

More awesome.

There, he was born to be a king.

***

Ultimately, I blame the audience.   The audience, after all, turned this into a billion dollar industry and it is not going to stop.   It is never going to stop.

You cannot stop something with such an unstoppable force behind it.   Money — that kind of money — is as powerful as any other force on earth.

The ONLY way to stop the barbaric capture and on-going mistreatment of killer whales is to stop the flow of money.  STOP paying your money to go see them.   STOP viewing killer whales as ENTERTAINMENT.   Just stop.   Period.

STOP IT.

Stop taking your kids to see the whales.   Stop encouraging them to believe that these animals exist for our amusement.   Stop perpetuating the myth that the animals enjoy it.

Certainly the ones who were born in captivity know nothing else.   If you bred a human for the purposes of entertainment, would that make it OK?  Would you say, “The entire reason that I had this baby was so that I could sell them to the circus.”   So the ongoing mistreatment of the child would be acceptable?

Would you say the child liked it?    Because he knew no better?

I don’t think so.

We are not gods.

We are not kings.

We do not get to make these choices.

****

When I was doing my research, I ran into an interesting assortment of people who worked at marine parks and stated again and again that marine biologists and scientists were employed by SeaWorld.   That the animals weren’t mistreated at all.   (The pools are bigger now.   They are “nice”, after all.)   That taking them out of the ocean and putting them in a small tank and “encouraging” them to perform tricks so that rich corporations could get richer isn’t inherently “mistreating” them.

SeaWorld staff have helped stranded animals, rescued whales in the wild, done good work.   They have a charity.   They raise money.   Apparently this is supposed to negate the very basic fact that 42 orcas (20 of whom are owned by SeaWorld, who are fast becoming the globe’s go-to guys for orca breeding and sales) are still — even after all we know, all we’ve learned — our court jesters.

It doesn’t negate anything.

****

Staff from marine parks who have quit will say that the marine biologists and vets who work at SeaWorld are mostly concerned with the following:

1.  How to keep the whales alive.

2.  How to breed the whales so that more whales are available.

3.  How to balance antibiotic dosages to reduce the infections that plague captive whales.

Very noble, no?

NO.

****

Yesterday at around the same time as Dawn Brancheau was being drowned in the mouth of Tilikum, I was on the school playground, talking to a friend about EXACTLY this subject.    About how Keltie Byrne died.    About why I’m so fiercely opinionated when it comes to the subject of captive orcas.   About why I will NEVER take my kids to a marine park that keeps orcas.

It was exactly the same time.   I just mention it because I find it chilling.   Even while I was saying the words, “That particular whale will likely kill any and all humans who fall into his pool,” he was doing just that.

It was entirely, 100% predictable.

In the wild, Tilikum would likely have been a dominant bull.  How can we expect a dominant bull to be a clown?   It makes no sense.

***

SeaWorld has released a series of statements in light of the most recent accident.   They want to be off the hook for this.   They are pleading innocence.  After all, trainers weren’t “allowed” in the water with Tilikum because he was “different”.

That’s true.

Most of SeaWorld’s whales are captive bred.

Tilikum was a wild whale who was forcibly confined.

Yes, he’s “different”.

And Dawn Brancheau wasn’t, after all, “allowed” to be in the water with him.

The fact that eyewitnesses report that the whale dragged her INTO the water, notwithstanding.

****

The most recent news from this story is that SeaWorld will not euthanize the animal.    Was that ever really being considered?   Come on now, he’s worth tens of millions of dollars.

TENS OF MILLIONS.

No way would they euthanize that animal.   Never.

On Thursday morning, cars snaked out of the parking lot of that marine park.   People were lining up to see.   One woman, who actually witnessed the accident with her two preschoolers, came back.   Because her kids “didn’t get much of a chance to see the whales properly”.   REALLY?   They saw a predator killing prey.   Haven’t they seen enough?

THAT woman, SHE is the problem.

All those people who lined up to visit the VERY NEXT DAY.   THEY are the problem.

THIS IS NOT ENTERTAINMENT.

****

I obviously feel really strongly about this.   The bottom line is that I do not see why — cannot COMPREHEND why — we view killer whales as animals that should be grateful and happy to do tricks for us.    I do not understand it.

Please help me to stop this craziness.   We are the only ones who can.

Remember how there used to be circuses with wild animals?   Elephants being caravanned around the country.   Lions being controlled by a man with a whip.

You don’t see those too much anymore.   Public opinion of circuses changed.   The circuses changed.   A “circus” now is something different.

So let’s change public opinion about marine parks, too.   Let’s make them something different.   I’m going to repeat myself now because this is important:

Stop buying the tickets.

Stop treating these animals like they are toys.

Stop teaching your children that THIS is what orcas were meant to do.

Please.

Just STOP.

Filed under: Whales