Orcas were not the only animals at SeaWorld exhibiting aggressive behavior. Several instances have been documented in which dolphins have acted aggressively to both a SeaWorld trainer and SeaWorld patrons. According to USA Today’s article, “Captive animals ' attack on trainers and public” dolphins have engaged in aggressive behavior. “In 2000 a dolphin entangled a trainer in a net, spun her around and held her underwater during a dolphin capture exercise. The trainer suffered three factures and torn ligaments in her right arm.
Blackfish written by Gabriela Cowperthwaite. From the start attraction at Sealand of the Pacific in 1969, the aquarium grew attention for their orcas that would perform. Years later a two year old whale was captured and arrived in 81’. His name was Tilikum, coming in at two years old and 4,000 pounds. How do you go about taking orcas out of their setting, changing how they feel, and go about certain lies of how situations occurred?
Director, writer, and producer, Gabriella Cowperthwaite, in her documentary, Blackfish, describes the shameless hunting and treatment of killer whales. Cowperthwaite’s purpose is to persuade us into opening our eyes to the reality of what we are doing to killer whales by confining them in captivity. She invents an emotionally wrenching tone in order to transmit to the adult viewers that living in captivity may not be acceptable life for the whales. The film effectively showed that the whales should not be kept in captivity by giving the audience examples of their signs of aggression and displays of emotion. Cowperthwaite begins her documentary by showing how killer whales can become barbaric when held captive.
Unlike in the wild, where orcas tend to avoid human interaction, there have been dozens of fatal and non-fatal incidents involving captive orcas and humans. The most famous example of this features the largest captive orca in history, Tilikum, who was initially owned by Sealand in Victoria, B.C, before being sold to SeaWorld for their breeding program. Over the course of his life, he directly caused the deaths of three humans: two trainers, Keltie Byrne and Dawn Brancheau, and one trespassing man, Daniel P. Dukes. The most well-known of the three deaths, Dawn Brancheau, was witnessed by a live audience during a SeaWorld Orlando show in 2010, during which she had been suddenly yanked into the water by Tillikum, who not only scalped her and tore off her arm, but also refused to release her body for nearly an hour. Years of abuse and mistreatment had accumulated to anger and exhaustion in the orca, and eventually, he snapped and lunged towards the closest human, who unfortunately happened to be Dawn.
Tilikum was not the only orca mentioned in the documentary but since he is well known (because of SeaWorld) caught they eye of many. Former Sealand trainers interviewed say that the park’s female killer whales would aggressively gang up on Tilikum especially when they were confined in a 20-foot-by- 30-foot pool overnight (Halverstadt). Aggressive behaviors has led to three deaths by Tilikum. Many say that this behavior comes from a aggressive side of Tilikum that is a side that doesn’t want to hurt anyone but has such a anger because he is being held captive. To be taken out of your water and away from your normal everyday living is very disturbing but what causes lots of emotions to go up is when we see that orcas are getting separated from other orcas they have lived with their entire lives or even birthed.
Over the years there has been controversies with the way SeaWorld treat the animals and the type of behaviors animals portray as a result of its enclosures. SeaWorld's defense of capturing
Blackfish (2013) is an American documentary film directed by Gabriela Cowperthwaite and produced by Manuel V. Oteyza. The documentary primarily concerns the controversy of captured Killer Whales at the theme park Sea World, primarily that of Tilikum, an Orca responsible for the deaths of 2010 SeaWorld trainer Dawn Brancheau and two other individuals. The documentary begins with this incident but goes as far back to the 1970 's show the audience how young Orcas are captured in the wild and taken from their families and natural environments. Since its release at the 2013 Sundance Film Festival Blackfish has achieved both critical acclaim and caused controversy regarding SeaWorld 's treatment of its animals as well as retaliation from SeaWorld as to the legitimacy of the film 's claims.
The target audience of this documentary is the general public that includes a big emphasis on the customers of SeaWorld. The filmmakers are trying to inform the public of the inhumane treatment and the conditions that the orcas face while at amusements parks such as SeaWorld. As described in the film, orcas are seen as intellectual animals that are aware of their surroundings. Because of their intellect, orcas don’t belong in a place SeaWorld and should be released.
Habitat for Humanity Financial Review This paper will evaluate Habitat for Humanity’s overview of their income statement, balance sheet, statement of cash flows, and analyze changes over the next three years. It will provide an overview of the nonprofit organizations ability to provide understandable and reliable financial information to the public. It will also discuss the importance of following the Financial Accounting Standards Board’s (FASB) ruling on what nonprofits are required to report. Pie Chart of Income Statement Habitat for Humanity shows a very well rounded pie chart of their revenue sources verses their expenditures in 2016.
For years people have been captured by the beauty and grace of Orca whales. SeaWorld is a big reason for this love to watch the whales before. There they have designated time slots where the whales and trainers come out and perform a show with several jumps as well as the animals will spray the surrounding audience. The whales and their trainers form a bonds with certain whales not all the whales get along with a person. A trainer from SeaWorld described it as signs that the whale would show to a certain person.
Furthermore, this can be the cause of all the incidence including to what happened to Dawn Brancheau who was completely mutilated by a whale. Despite the interview with a former trainer, from a document which was published after the release of Blackfish by SeaWorld to object
Do you remember that day that you and your family took a trip to that one park? That one that you got to see many different types of sea animals, dolphins putting on shows, and getting to even interact with the sea animals in a great learning experience. That park is SeaWorld. When you were there, you might have not noticed the stuff that was happening behind the scenes. Lately, the animals have been very sad and not living healthy lives.
I never thought that professional trainers would hurt them in any way. I even believed that if they were taken to an amusement park than it would be the same as living in the ocean. I was wrong. They need space, a social life, real food and much more. I think that these orcas are humans living in the ocean because they are so much like us.
Orcas are incredibly smart, so the mother orcas would swim away from where the herding was happening. As a result to this, SeaWorld began releasing planes that would fly over the sea and find the mothers, because the orcas had to come up for air eventually. They would throw bombs into the water, so the orcas would be forced to go into nets. One of the whales, named Tilikum, who recently died in January of 2017, was kidnapped from the ocean at the young age of two. A man named Ted Griffin, who helped capture the whales, killed a mother whale in front of her daughter, to later be named Shamu; the first performing whale at SeaWorld.
Almost all whales die of bacteria in the lungs or lack of exercise. While Seaworld claims that these shows inspire children, the whales are getting sick. The whales are forced to to tricks for food. None of these stunts would naturally happen in the wild. Seaworld is in it for the money.
