Hannah+G’s+Final+AmEx+2014+Speech

=Title of Speech= What SeaWorld Is Doing Wrong

=Text of Speech= Nearly a month ago, along the Canadian coast of British Colombia, a familiar guild of black and white was spotted among the ocean waves. This assembly of killer whales, known by followers and researchers by the title of the “Southern Resident Killer Whales” or simply the “J Pod”, is a group comprised of over 25 whales that have been patrolling the oceans for several decades. None other than the famed orca, Granny, who is estimated to be a ripe 103-years-old and is still swimming strong, maintains her position at the head of the pod. Granny has been tracked since 1911, meaning that she was alive and scouting the seas during the sinking of the ill-fated Titanic, and is now regarded as the oldest killer whale in all of recorded history. Granny has been gifted with a longevity that is not uncommon in many wild killer whales, as they tend to live lifespans between 60-80 years, and yet the degree of health found in her and in the members of her pod is remarkable. News regarding Granny’s age and fitness are awe-inspiring to scientists and onlookers alike, and cultivate public interest in making conservation efforts to protect whales like her. However, there is only one corporal institution that is not so pleased to hear about the release of the J Pod’s whereabouts and well being, and it ironically happens to base its entire existence on the species itself.

SeaWorld is regarded as a popular summer destination for tourists and has held the proud title of “adventure park” since it opened its gates in 1964. Following its opening, SeaWorld expanded into two other locations in Orlando, Florida, and San Antonio, Texas, and to this day an average of 4,311,000 people attend the San Diego park each year. Visitors are drawn to this chain of adventure parks for its numerous attractions, many of which involve captive marine animals of a large array of species. And yet the most famed attraction among SeaWorld’s parks have remained its killer whales, which have gathered enough publicity to become mascots in themselves, and are undoubtedly what draws the majority of the crowd in. The popularity of captive marine mammals has spread immensely across the country and overseas, and according to the Born Free Foundation, over 2,100 individual toothed whales and dolphins are being held in captivity in 343 separate facilities in nearly 63 countries. SeaWorld is at the source of this statistic, as it began this practice and continues to hold the most amounts of killer whales in captivity. And yet, as the park proudly boasts its 50th anniversary and its supposed success involving the improved conditions of captive orcas, it also conducts the detriment of secrecy. Where SeaWorld carries its pride of fifty years it also carries the 222-ton burden of 37 dead killer whales, all born and brought into environments that are unsuitable for their needs and hazardous to their health. There is another side to the famed “Shamu” that is purposely hidden from the eyes of the public – and even from fellow employees – that would surely impact the corporation; a company that is so horribly mislabeled that it has become falsely associated with conservation and anything that extends past commercialism.

In October of 1965, a young orca of the Southern Resident pod was captured and leased to the newly founded SeaWorld in San Diego. Dubbed Shamu, this calf of no more than three years of age marked the first orca intentionally seized from its native habitat. Shamu was significant for breaking yet another statistic as the first whale to live for over a year in captivity. She consequently lived a very short life, full of longing, and died after spending barely six years in a tank. Her death was caused by a disease known as pyrometra, which is a condition most commonly found in household pets and ultimately results in the poisoning of the blood. The disease is completely unheard of in wild killer whales, and the factors of Shamu’s conditions contributed greatly to her spiking decline in health over such a rapid period of time. A large part of this is stress – stress caused by lack of proper nutrients, stress regarding the forced merging of social groups, stress from an unnatural environment; you get the picture. A captive orca’s life is anxiety-ridden from day one, and little has changed since the days of ignorance in which the original Shamu wasted away. To this day, a number of SeaWorld’s orcas live to be between 15-20 at their oldest, which is extremely short-lived in comparison to their wild counterparts.

Orcas are sentient, intelligent creatures with structural ways of living; they instinctively run on a matriarchal system, which is somewhat parallel to that of humans in which their pods are made up of families. Mothers and calves live together for the entire duration of their lives. When placed in marine parks, this natural system is interrupted for the sake of filling up tanks, and leads to an intense amount of anxiety on the whale’s part. Despite SeaWorld’s claims, several insiders and previous employees state that the separation of families still occurs, almost regularly, and that the controlled assimilation of whales with no relation yields nothing but negative results. Other symptoms of apprehension arise from poor diet and hygiene, and are quelled during showtime with the regular (and inhumane) use of drugs similar to Xanax and Valium in order to relieve aggression. This practice is all too systematic among SeaWorld’s employees in attempt to disguise the animals’ obvious discontent, and even though there is blatant proof of the wrongdoing behind this, the facility still claims that their procedures are what are considered a “normal” and “healthy” part of an orca’s life.

Several names have come and gone, often unrealized, branded beneath SeaWorld’s name, but perhaps the most notable orca next to Shamu is the now-infamous Tilikum, the focus of the 2013 documentary //Blackfish//. Tilikum was seized along the coast of Iceland in 1983, and was placed into captivity along with two other female orcas that immediately placed him at the very bottom tier of their social assembly. The forced assimilation ended with violence and aggression towards the male orca, and after a period of seclusion Tilikum was held responsible for the death of a young trainer in a burst of sudden agitation. In his next environment in SeaWorld, Orlando, Tilikum was once more faced with the same aggression that was pressed upon him during his initial arrival in captivity. He experienced obvious health problems, notably his collapsed dorsal fin, of which SeaWorld associates falsely described to be a common ailment in killer whales, whereas it is in fact a direct result of harm caused to collagen fibers due to too-frequent exposure to the air. In two other out-of-the-ordinary occurences, Tilikum was involved in the deaths of more human victims. The most recent death was of Dawn Brancheau, a trainer, who was killed immediately following a performance that demonstrated particularly strange behavior amongst Tilikum and his interactions with his environment and other whales. SeaWorld’s response to this 2010 tragedy was grim and brief, describing the incident as if it were a playful accident and demeaning the intelligence of both the trainer and the animal. SeaWorld is in denial that captivity is the problem, and yet there is yet to have been a single case in the wild where a killer whale has harmed a human being. The park’s associates were ridden with discomfort when asked to discuss the circumstances of Ms. Brancheau’s death and Tilikum’s condition, but it was later revealed in a video recorded and shared by the Humane Society that the whale was isolated from all human contact and familial relationships with the occasional exception of his grandson. Nothing apparent had been done to restore Tilikum’s mental state and help ease his aggression. The whale’s segregated state had moved him into a rapid shift into depression, and onlookers have appropriately labeled him the “Loneliest Whale in the World”.

It is at that point where you ask yourself, what is the purpose of this? Why is a corporation housing unhealthy, miserable animals for the sake of human entertainment? What is this supposed organization doing for the animals themselves? The answer is, very little. The SeaWorld chain of parks is no more than a corporate funhouse that treats its animals as the advertisements that do the real selling of their tickets and their merchandise. They hide behind flashing backdrops and inspirational slogans that have got so little to do with their actual performance in the world of conservation. SeaWorld actually spends 0.0006% of their funds to the rehabilitation and conservation of wildlife – the rest is purely profit and is dedicated towards nothing more than commercial spending. The company defends itself only by avoiding the real questions regarding Blackfish and regarding their conditions, and with a required plea of ignorance signed by incoming employees, they can safely hide under the water. Why else would they continue with the trend of using the stagename “Shamu”? If they actually addressed the whales as individuals with separate names and separate lives, people would catch on to the always-changing bunch of actors who can’t even live ten years to play out their own role. SeaWorld overlooks their animals. They overlook their complexity, their intelligence, and their belonging in the natural world. The organization does not belong within the definition of a zoo but rather as a segment of a marine monopoly. In the words of Jacques Cousteau, “There’s about as much educational benefit studying dolphins in captivity as there would be studying mankind by only observing prisoners held in solitary.”

In the world that I will grow old in, I no longer wish to see the life of a living thing to be equated to the profit it produces. I am tired of hearing of these animals being treated as though they are disposable, and those who are gone have become nothing more than a group of 37 trapped under a single alias. I want there to be an increase in health and an increase in happiness among these creatures, a development that can be gained only outside of their fiberglass prisons and numbed state of mind. I want to see orcas receive the freedom that they were born to achieve. In the America I wish to grow old in, I want to see the tanks emptied.

=Cite Your Sources=  //Blackfish//. Dir. Gabriela Cowperthwaite. Dogwoof, 2013. Graaf, Mia De. "Revealed: SeaWorld Whales Are Pumped with Valium and Xanax to Control Their Aggressive Behavior as Animal Rights Group Say 'it's the Final Straw' for Crisis-hit Park." //Mail Online//. Associated Newspapers, 03 Apr. 2014. Web. 10 June 2014. "Here's All the Places Around the World That Ban Orca Captivity." //TakePart//. N.p., n.d. Web. 09 June 2014. "Orca Aware." //Orca Aware//. N.p., n.d. Web. 10 June 2014. "SeaWorld Only Spends 0.0006 Percent of Revenue on Animal Rescue and Rehabilitation." //Grist//. N.p., n.d. Web. 10 June 2014.