Comparing Captivity And Sea Life In The Wild

To further my research I decided to look into some of the comparisons between sea life in captivity and sea life in the wild. Cetaceans (marine mammals) can normally travel up to 100 miles each day, including hunting and socializing with other mammals or members of their pods. Meaning they keep close family ties and have good team work with each other. In captivity, cetaceans are housed in small enclosures/tanks. This means that they cannot swim in long straight lines or dive very deeply like they normally would do in the wild. They are also enclosed, quite commonly, alone. This takes away any opportunity for socialization. A lot of the time if animals are housed together, they’re not compatible for each other as they are not normally sharing

They have the freedom to make their own choices on when they eat and rest etc. But when in captivity, the animals spend around 80% of their time at the surface, looking for attention and food from their carers and trainers because these are the people that make choices and decisions for them. Cetaceans usually eat different fish and sea creatures and some mammals even eat other mammals. Orcas and dolphins travel in pods, this helps with hunting and keeping safe in general whilst orcas commonly dive thousands of feet looking for food and also work as a team to hunt down and catch their prey. When in captivity, the cetaceans are fed only a limited amount of fish, which are dead. This is very different to how feeding is in the wild as they do not need to hunt and catch their prey. In captivity food is often given as a positive reinforcement during training, meaning they do have to work for it, but by performing tricks and entertainment, which is very unethical. When they feed, the mammals are given vitamins to take the place of the nutritional value they would usually get from fish, but don’t because the fish has been

In captivity, cetaceans listen to the noise of filtration systems and pumps and when there are a lot of people around, they listen to people yelling and clapping every day. Concrete and glass generally reflect sound and the enclosures in captivity are made of these materials. This makes artificial sounds even worse for the animals which can cause distress. This also means that their echolocation skills cannot be used as in captivity there is no need for it, there is nowhere to explore. In the wild, cetaceans are always surrounded by other sea life and play an important role in the marine systems. These animals have evolved for millions of years becoming some of the top predators on the planet. Cetaceans in captivity are in artificial environments that are extremely sterile and lack stimulation. In captivity the water in the tank must be filtered and treated with certain chemicals to avoid any health problems. They may still suffer some bacterial/fungal infections that can be