I sometimes wonder if performing animals appreciate the applause they get, the way human performing artists do.
Sure you can. There are people walking around expecting The Rapture any day now. And the lambs will lie down with the lions.
Woody Allen/ But they won’t get much sleep. \Woody Allen
Spoken as someone who doesn’t expect to be the one who dies in the ocean.
Sentencing an animal to death so it will die “the way it’s supposed to be” - according to you - is just as much imposing your desires on the animal as cutting it up and eating it would be.
Bees. My God.
Contrary to what most people say, the most dangerous animal in the world is not the lion or the tiger or even the elephant. It’s a shark riding on an elephant’s back, just trampling and eating everything they see. 
Yeah, zoos are horrible! Imagine giving an animal a secure environment tailored to its natural one where it gets free food and free healthcare from top-notch vets. What a horrible existence that must be!
Oh, and most animals live considerably longer in captivity than in the wild. They don’t have to worry about pesky predators or natural disasters.
Jack? Is that you?
I learned at the oceanarium (did I mention I worked in one? :p) that all dolphins are whales (Odontaceti or toothed whales, specifically, like belugas or sperm whales). So it’s correct to refer to Orcas as dolphins but it’s also correct to call them whales.
So maybe this whale dolphin had an identity complex and felt it needed to reinforce his “killer whale” name?
Huh, I thought it was a T-Rex in an F-15.
Yeah, “Killer Dolphin” is barely a notch over “Killer Koala”. It had to be Whale. I mean, Moby Dick for crying out loud.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-IJBbtkBMMs You should be worried about cows.
Spoken as someone who doesn’t expect to be the one who spends the rest of his life confined in a tiny space doing silly tricks for his captors.
In my opinion, the “life” that these creatures have been sentenced to isn’t worth living.
Yeah, right.
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Are you serious?
“Captive Orcas can’t be released because they might not survive in the wild.”
Tilikum is an Orca. That’s how it applies.
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I was obviously too subtle: “better dead than in SeaWorld” stuff is nonsense. It sounds like the kind of thing PETA members say when they “free” chickens. Of course the chickens can’t survive in the wild, so they’re just killing them by starvation.
I find some of what capeo said (and what I’m reading on other articles about captive orcas) to be prety persuasive as a reason these whales should not be kept in aquariums. But the animal doesn’t have principles and you are projecting yours onto the whale. Animals will pretty much take whatever kind of life they can get. People might put “live free or die” on a license plate but if you’re familiar with domestication, you might realize a lot of animals are happy to do tricks and give up their freedom in exchange for food and shelter.
If people are going to kill the poor thing, at least have the decency to kill it painlessly, instead of sentencing it to a slow death in the wild just so they can pat themselves on the back over their nobility.
I don’t have a dog (or a whale) in this fight, but are you sure that factory chickens can’t survive in the wild? Factory turkeys, I could believe, because those critters can barley walk , but the mass-produced chickens I’ve seen look pretty much like regular barnyard chickens, and I know those can go feral and do just fine in tropical to temperate climates. Not so much in Michigan in January.
They’re called “killer whales” because they kill and eat whales. So, Spanish sailors named them “ballena asesina”, “whale killer”. Somehow, that got turned around in English as “killer whale”.
In general, I am not opposed to keeping orcas or other intelligent creatures in captivity. Moreover, as places to be a captive killer whale go, SeaWorld is where it’s at - they have by far the best facilities for orcas in the US.
I am vehemently opposed to keeping animals in captivity if you can’t do it properly, and a number of marine parks and other keepers have orcas in much smaller enclosures than SeaWorld’s.
Tilikum is a special case. He is the largest killer whale in captivity by some distance, and even SeaWorld’s facilities aren’t really big enough for him. However, they are doing him a favor - he was rescued from Sealand in Vancouver, whose tank was far too small for him.
On the whole, SeaWorld is a net good for marine life. In addition to their own breeding programs, they also sponsor an awful lot of research, and help raise awareness of threatened species.
I’m not an expert on chickens, but I think many of them have the same problem the turkeys do. And between climate, predators and traffic, there are probably a lot of places a chicken would not survive if you “liberated” it from captivity.
I’m sure the trainer was a lovely woman, but to all intents and purposes she was also a gaoler.
Assuming orcas have a high level of intelligence (say that of a chimpanzee or a teabagger) and are self aware, it brings it to another ethical level.
If a dog kills a human, it is put down. Dogs are socialized and a dog that kills a human is abnormal to the extent that it must be destroyed, since dogs share the same enviroments as humans.
But orcas aren’t. If we consider this orca as a non-human person, its actions are really quite justifiable. Assuming I was captured, or raised in captivity, enslaved and forced to labour. Without having broken any laws. Wouldn’t it be morally justifiable for me to kill one of my jailors if given the chance?
And yes, I do eat the occasional hamburger. The difference, to me, is that cows aren’t intelligent or self aware (as far as I know). I’m still on the fence on whether my eating of meat is justifiable now that I don’t need it to survive or be healthy, and I’m leaning towards it not being that, so I might be a hypocrite.
That’s a great line! May I swipe it on occasion?