Last year, a documentary shattered the bright and shiny illusion that aquatic theme parks, specifically Sea World, have given us over time. This documentary illustrates in alarming detail aspects of life at Sea World, as well as other aquatic theme parks, which kidnap killer whale cubs from their family pods and raise them in captivity for the entertainment of the masses. This kind of entertainment used to be quite popular. An animal performing tricks is a sublime form of entertainment for us as humans. However, How often to we as a society stop and think about how the performing animals are being fed and cared for? Has our society allowed our collective conscience to be sickened by the thought that these animals are not happy–that the last place in the world that they should be is in a concrete cage performing, and suffering, for our enjoyment? Blackfish director Gabriela Cowperthwaite answers these questions for us, whether we are prepared to hear the answer or not.
Blackfish deals with the nature of Orcas, otherwise known as killer whales, that are placed in captivity, and the resulting effects their captivity can have on the whales and the people who work with them. The documentary features several former Sea World trainers who give their own first-hand accounts of what their job was like, and working with one whale in particular. His name is Tilikum; he is the best-known Orca in captivity, and it’s not because he’s really good at waving at the audience. Tilikum is responsible for the death of three trainers since his capture in 1983 in Iceland. The death of Tilikum’s last trainer, Dawn Brancheau, was the incident that prompted Cowperthwaite to begin filming Blackfish. Sea World claims Brancheau was attacked, not because Tilikum’s angry disposition put her in danger, because she was wearing a ponytail–Blackfish heartily disputes this claim, and figuratively dives deep into Tilikum’s past to unearth the roots of his uncontrollable and spontaneous aggression. The former trainers, some of whom knew the trainers that have died by Tilikum’s jaws, give testimonials about the conditions he was kept in. In the film, Cowperthwaite points to Tilikum being placed with two female whales from other pods, resulting in multiple injuries and constant bullying; having food withheld when making a mistake during a performance; and the intrinsic limiting nature of captivity as a few reasons for Tilikum’s continuous aggression and dangerous nature.
Tilikum is not the only whale that has suffered at Sea World’s hands. The film shows instances where cub whales are separated from their mothers on purpose, causing the mother whales extreme emotional torture; this is, in a word, inhumane. The former trainers interviewed in the film all claim Tilikum’s past history was covered up with lies by Sea World representatives. They all assert in the film that they had to perform with these animals, knowing that they were risking their lives and further aggravating the whales for the purpose of human entertainment. Blackfish sheds light on the scripts the trainers had to learn for performances, the misinformation claiming the animals’ current habitat in the water park extends their lifespan further than if they were in the wild, and the façade that had to be maintained at all times: that the animals love being locked up, and love to perform for the crowds.
Further lending support to Blackfish‘s claims are the testimonials of marine-mammal scientists Naomi Rose, senior scientist at the Humane Society International, and Ken Balcomb, the senior scientist at the Center for Whale Research. Rose shows us through neurological brain scanning that Orcas’ brains have a capacity for emotion that outweighs the human brain’s capacity. This provides irrefutable evidence that splitting up an Orca family pod is like kidnapping the children from a human family, and ending the children’s life while the parents have to watch. Orcas forced to endure these events never recover. Their high capacity for emotion makes them loveable, playful, affectionate, and easy to feel comfortable with. But as Rose shows us, they can have just as much anger to match.
Both Rose and Balcomb show us that it isn’t smart, safe, humane, or practical to lock up animals that are of such intelligence and emotional capacity, then to expect them to be complacent and controllable. Other experts in the film assert that while there have been 70 documented Orca attacks on trainers, there has never been a single attack on humans by an Orca in the wild, further establishing the point that the time to lock up nature for our own amusement is past. Balcomb goes on to describe the scripts Sea World park workers read from during presentations, saying, “They make up stories about [the whales’] lifestyle, social structure, and lifespan, and try to sell it as fact. It’s like Disneyland telling a mouse biologist the way it is. It’s horseshit.”
Reception for Blackfish was overwhelming. After premiering in January 2013 at the Sundance Film Festival, CNN Films picked up the documentary for wider release. The film made such an impact that after Pixar’s John Lasseter and Andrew Stanton saw the film and spoke to Cowperthwaite, Pixar re-wrote the depiction of a marine park in the upcoming film Finding Dory. Others have praised Blackfish for delivering a persuasive and hard-hitting argument against the captivity of wild animals. Sea World repeatedly denied interview requests for the film and refused to make any contribution to its production. Later, Sea World issued a statement claiming that the film was full of inaccuracies and that the film withheld key facts (something that Sea World could have prevented if they had participated in the film’s production). Sea World still maintains its claim that they rescue, rehabilitate, and release animals back into the wild, and points to the fact that, as a result of the death of Dawn Brancheau, trainers can no longer be in the water with the Orcas. But is this enough?
We as a society should watch Blackfish in order to gain a true understanding of all of the wild animals that suffer daily for our amusement, and in tribute to the workers at Sea World and other aquatic theme parks who have been injured or killed as a result of this barbaric practice. We, as a population, must evolve beyond such sordid sources of entertainment. We owe it to nature, as humans, to take care of it, not exploit it to fit our own wants and desires. What kind of world will we leave behind if we don’t?
