SeaWorld San Diego SeaWorld ending orca breeding

When you step back from the "who won/who lost" paradigm you see that while orcas may have been the biggest draw for visitors once, they have become SeaWorld's biggest liability. Can anyone imagine that problem going away? SeaWorld made the decision that they could move forward, as a company and as an animal attraction, by developing in a new direction rather than fighting public opinion for decades. It may have been right for orcas or wrong for visitors or whatever but it feels like it was necessary for SeaWorld. They keep orcas and buy time to reinvent themselves. And they have turned the Humane Society into partners rather than adversaries. They have taken the wind out of the sails of some animal rights groups who will now have to find another focus. Of course they will, but it will be harder to rile up the general public about the horrors of meerkats in captivity.
 
Zooplantman said:
When you step back from the "who won/who lost" paradigm you see that while orcas may have been the biggest draw for visitors once, they have become SeaWorld's biggest liability. Can anyone imagine that problem going away? SeaWorld made the decision that they could move forward, as a company and as an animal attraction, by developing in a new direction rather than fighting public opinion for decades. It may have been right for orcas or wrong for visitors or whatever but it feels like it was necessary for SeaWorld. They keep orcas and buy time to reinvent themselves. And they have turned the Humane Society into partners rather than adversaries. They have taken the wind out of the sails of some animal rights groups who will now have to find another focus. Of course they will, but it will be harder to rile up the general public about the horrors of meerkats in captivity.
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Well said, Zooplantman. It may be a somewhat risky move to shift focus away from the orcas that have been the star attraction of Sea World, but from a business perspective, this decision is largely unassailable.
 
taun said:
So they can jump around calling this a victory when in fact they have helped mistreat (their words) these animals. But at least they can sleep easy behind their keyboards knowing that in 30/40 odd years there will be no more orcas in captivity.
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Respectfully:This is a little unfair/unreasonable. If you believe, as they do, that it is wrong to keep Orcas in captivity, then you can hardly be expected to support continuing this in order to get better conditions. I very much doubt activists place any real value on the relative improvements that were planned, expecially compared to achieving their ultimate goal.
Of course you can disagree with what they think, but their position is consistent within itself.
 
As he often does on this forum, ZooPlantMan brings a voice of reason and logic to a controversial thread.
 
I don't mean to be cynical, but this seems to be a public relations/financial decision first and foremost.

After Blackfish (2013) was released, Sea World faced severe losses in revenue due to a massive drop in visitation. They were clearly failing to counter the opinions of the increasing number of people who viewed keeping orcas in captivity in a negative light.

I'm not suggesting ceasing to breed orca in captivity is a bad thing, as it is the first step towards a very long road towards phasing them out, but that is just it, a very long road.
Given female orcas can easily reach 40-50 years of age in captivity, they will continue to have their drawcard species for at least another half a century.

Now, due to this annoucement, they can continue as they were before but with a counter argument to animal activists - "We're phasing them out like you wanted." Therefore improving their public image, leading to a recovery of visitor numbers.

As people have mentioned already in this thread, females can breed into their 30s and 40s. With several young calves, and another due next year, there is the potential (however unlikely) to reverse this decision in 20 years down the line, especially if there is evidence of a population decrease in the wild.
 
My concern is that 99.99% of visitors of Sea World will never see a live Killer Whale otherwise, and will simply not bother about them.

Sea World could change into an amusement park with roller coasters, water attractions, clowns and without any live animals. It would not attract activists, still make money and entertain the public, but nobody would care or notice whether wild animals exist in the ocean or maybe gone extinct in the meantime.

The biggest danger to wildlife today is that wild animals will be delegated into a fantasy world together with dinosaurs, aliens and wizards, and the public will entertain itself with computer-generated imagery and other artificial products without bothering about destruction of nature.
 
Zoofan15 said:
I don't mean to be cynical, but this seems to be a public relations/financial decision first and foremost.
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Your observation isn't at all cynical, merely stating a fact. SeaWorld was and always will be an entertainment corporation. Although they also do conservation. What other basis for a strategic decision would you expect?
 
Jurek7 said:
My concern is that 99.99% of visitors of Sea World will never see a live Killer Whale otherwise, and will simply not bother about them...
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And one hundred percent of all visitors to every aquarium and sea life park in the world will never see a gray whale or blue whale there, and the majority of them will never see a live one in the wild either. Yet whales have received international protection due to public outcry without people seeing them in person.
 
It was 1980s, when people actually needed live whales to make those documentary films. People also made Project Tiger in India etc.

Now wildlife documentaries simply lost their power when CGI started producing equally and more beautiful non-existing creatures and landscapes. There was a wonderful BBC movie about how oceans are endangered a few years ago. It didn't make much difference. People entertain themselves with two films about tigers in beautiful natural landscapes, without needing any tiger to be alive and any landscape to exist anymore.
 
Jurek7 said:
It was 1980s, when people actually needed live whales to make those documentary films. People also made Project Tiger in India etc.

Now wildlife documentaries simply lost their power when CGI started producing equally and more beautiful non-existing creatures and landscapes. There was a wonderful BBC movie about how oceans are endangered a few years ago. It didn't make much difference. People entertain themselves with two films about tigers in beautiful natural landscapes, without needing any tiger to be alive and any landscape to exist anymore.
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It's hard to give much weight to this argument when you consider how few people really get to Sea World to see the orcas there (and it's also very America/Western-centric). Pandas are as rare in zoological institutions outside China as orcas are (and until recently were far more so), but I don't think there was any less public interest in their conservation. While I do believe there is some benefit to conservation from people being able to see animals in zoos and aquaria, there are many species (some very charismatic ones) in need of more conservation help that orcas that are not held in captivity for a variety of reasons (in fact, orcas are probably among the most widely known of all marine animals and thus in less need of the "exposure" of captivity). And I simply don't buy your assertion that CGI has eclipsed the ability of nature documentaries to stun and awe.
 
jibster said:
The problem is,orcas are in no way the only species that a large amount of people find unfit to live in captivity. One can easily find many people who would argue the same for all cetaceans,as well as elephants,great apes,and I've even seen a growing belief that big cats are unfit to live in captivity. If you look at the page for the HSUS,you'll find many celebrating this as the first victory of many,and the HSUS themselves have cited this as "Baby steps" and that they are fighting for the other cetaceans at SeaWorld as well. To think the fight ends with orcas and is contained to orcas is frankly laughable. The anti-zoo movement is growing all the time,and we've already seen struggles with elephants at many zoos due to protesters,so while I respect your opinion,to claim my concerns are unfounded is not quite true.
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jibster said:
It's hard to give much weight to this argument when you consider how few people really get to Sea World to see the orcas there
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Don't joke. Only millions saw these animals directly, but billions seen them on TV. Popularity of killer whales, bottlenose dolphins and pandas was made by animals in zoos and national parks. Shamu, Flipper and Ling-Ling and Hsing-Hsing (pandas the diplomatic gift from China). In the wild, these species are poorly filmable. And yes, conservation depends not on showing every single species but making single animal ambassadors of larger problems. So killer whale is a symbol of oceans.

While I did actually seen all three animals in the wild, I understand that my personal way is not for all. When I was younger I naively believed that all people can be brought to share my views. But they cannot. Shows of trained animals do care for large segment of people, who otherwise would never get interested in wildlife at all.

The mistake of Sea World (and zoos) was that they idealized animals and nature too much. This created some imaginary view of whales, on which animal right groups piggybacked and exploited. Cetaceans should be presented more naturally - including their predatory behavior, violence towards their own species and other sea mammals.

I think Sea World should have responded to media hype about 'Blackfish' with their own film. Sea World would be in a perfect position to make a documentary about whales, research and oceanarium. Instead of face criticism, it would piggyback back on public interest created by 'Blackfish' movie and make their own shows more popular than ever.
 
Shellheart said:
jibster said:
The problem is,orcas are in no way the only species that a large amount of people find unfit to live in captivity. One can easily find many people who would argue the same for all cetaceans,as well as elephants,great apes,and I've even seen a growing belief that big cats are unfit to live in captivity. If you look at the page for the HSUS,you'll find many celebrating this as the first victory of many,and the HSUS themselves have cited this as "Baby steps" and that they are fighting for the other cetaceans at SeaWorld as well. To think the fight ends with orcas and is contained to orcas is frankly laughable. The anti-zoo movement is growing all the time,and we've already seen struggles with elephants at many zoos due to protesters,so while I respect your opinion,to claim my concerns are unfounded is not quite true.
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I totally agree with you.

This whole thing sort of reminds me of the whole MMR vaccine causes Autism myth. A small number of people with ulterior motives made accusations using bad, biased science and now we have a moral panic on our hands.
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Jurek7 said:
Don't joke. Only millions saw these animals directly, but billions seen them on TV. Popularity of killer whales, bottlenose dolphins and pandas was made by animals in zoos and national parks. Shamu, Flipper and Ling-Ling and Hsing-Hsing (pandas the diplomatic gift from China). In the wild, these species are poorly filmable. And yes, conservation depends not on showing every single species but making single animal ambassadors of larger problems. So killer whale is a symbol of oceans.

While I did actually seen all three animals in the wild, I understand that my personal way is not for all. When I was younger I naively believed that all people can be brought to share my views. But they cannot. Shows of trained animals do care for large segment of people, who otherwise would never get interested in wildlife at all.

The mistake of Sea World (and zoos) was that they idealized animals and nature too much. This created some imaginary view of whales, on which animal right groups piggybacked and exploited. Cetaceans should be presented more naturally - including their predatory behavior, violence towards their own species and other sea mammals.

I think Sea World should have responded to media hype about 'Blackfish' with their own film. Sea World would be in a perfect position to make a documentary about whales, research and oceanarium. Instead of face criticism, it would piggyback back on public interest created by 'Blackfish' movie and make their own shows more popular than ever.
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An excellent blog I follow on Tumblr pointed out that so much of this debacle beginning with Blackfish could have been avoided with better husbandry and better exhibits,and I'm inclined to agree. When people see animals in sterile,1990s(or 1980s?) era exhibits,regardless of the actual quality of life of these animals,the exhibit quality would still indicate a poor quality of life. Had SeaWorld gone with naturalistic exhibits and better husbandry techniques in the past,I think the anti-captivity movement would have gained much less traction. This should be used as a warning sign to other zoos and aquariums,change should be a constant thing.
 
FunkyGibbon said:
The excellent ZooNews Digest blog on Facebook has a number of articles pointing out the dangers of supporting HSUS (an organisation I previously knew nothing about). I won't link directly to the articles unless people need me to because it feels a little like plagiarism.

https://www.facebook.com/ZooNews-Digest-41410063216/
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I don't like them and I won't get into them, but one of the reasons I don't like them is because they don't seem to have a problem misleading the public when it suits them.
 
An excellent blog I follow on Tumblr pointed out that so much of this debacle beginning with Blackfish could have been avoided with better husbandry and better exhibits,and I'm inclined to agree. When people see animals in sterile,1990s(or 1980s?) era exhibits,regardless of the actual quality of life of these animals,the exhibit quality would still indicate a poor quality of life. Had SeaWorld gone with naturalistic exhibits and better husbandry techniques in the past,I think the anti-captivity movement would have gained much less traction. This should be used as a warning sign to other zoos and aquariums,change should be a constant thing.
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I doubt that would have made much of a difference. For years, the Sea World parks were pretty much protected by the Anheuser-Busch company. Once AB was sold to InBev and the theme parks were set off on their own as a publicly-traded company, AR groups knew they could begin putting the real pressure on Sea World. With the death of Dawn Brancheau, AR groups had further bite to take direct action.
 
FunkyGibbon said:
The excellent ZooNews Digest blog on Facebook has a number of articles pointing out the dangers of supporting HSUS (an organisation I previously knew nothing about). I won't link directly to the articles unless people need me to because it feels a little like plagiarism.

https://www.facebook.com/ZooNews-Digest-41410063216/
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Just one thing to note: I think, with probably few exceptions, those of who frequent this list are here because they love zoos, even if we can differ about certain practices. While I, and others, may agree with Sea World's decisions to end breeding orcas and may even agree with HSUS and PETA at least in part, the mere agreement on this one issue does mean that we "support" either organization. Some people take the position that because PETA and HSUS support something, we must all oppose it because otherwise it gives them credibility, greater leverage, momentum, or perceived support. This is a ridiculous idea. Even if I don't agree with many of PETA stances, I can agree with their position on some issues without endorsing the organization or its tactics. Otherwise, one could argue that anyone protesting roadside attractions that keep animals in substandard conditions are threatening the existence of all zoos.

I continue to respond to this thread despite knowing that few (if any) who read it will change their opinions about the Sea World decision because I think it's important that we recognize zoo lovers can respectfully disagree about this issue (and many others).
 
The argument that people won't see Orcas without SeaWorld is incorrect. It is far cheaper to go whale watching in the US than it is to visit SeaWorld. Roughly $35-50 for whale watching per person versus about $80 for SW.
 
Blackfish producer and director Cowperthwaite was on CNN the day after SeaWorld announced their orca breeding stop. Asked about zoos in general her reply could pretty much be summed down to: Sure there are some zoo animals that can't be released back into the wild and they should be moved to sanctuaries.

No surprises there.
 
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