Whale Trainer Dies During Rehearsal of Twisted, Exploitative Show
When I hear "Christmas spectacular," I think snow, lights, and a tree—really, it doesn't take much to make me happy. For the twisted folks at Loro Parque in Spain, however, it's apparently not Christmas without some animal exploitation. Wholesome and heartwarming? Yeah, right.
There was nothing festive about the death of a captive orca's trainer during the rehearsal for the zoo's Christmas performance. The whale hit the trainer, who drowned after being underwater for several minutes.
Freedom must've been first on this orca's Christmas wish list. Orcas swim up to 100 miles a day in the open ocean, so confining them to tanks in theme parks is like confining a person to a bathtub.
Captured from their ocean homes by boats that chase orca pods to shallow waters so that the animals can be surrounded with nets that are gradually closed and lifted onto the boats, some orcas die from shock or stress. Others slowly succumb to pneumonia when water enters their lungs through their blowholes.
After they are torn away from their homes and families, these animals are then forced to learn circus-style tricks from trainers who withhold food and isolate animals who refuse to perform.
At the top of my New Year's wish list? A PETA theme park in which the only "animals" forced to perform are the animatronic kind.
Posted by Logan Scherer
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in my opinion that is.
So, do you people actually research where SeaWorld gets their animals , or do you just go with the story most beneficial to your agenda? Sea World has not rounded up and captured a whale for their parks since the 1970s when their license to do so was revoked.
This took all of 5 minutes of research to figure out.
I don't believe the orcas should be in SeaWorld at all (their life span is reduced by more than half on average, and most don't live past 25), but -please- stop spreading misinformation just to get people to agree to your cause. Any new whale (including dolphins ) at Sea World parks since the 1970s was either conceived and born in captivity, or purchased from another park (in which case you'd have to research how that park got the whale, and so on).
And if you don't understand anything but slogans: The more you lie, the more animals die. Every time you make something up or attempt to deliberately mislead people with stories like this, you wind up convincing far more that you're not to be trusted. I don't think I have to explain why that hurts PETA in the long run.
When are people going to learn that marine mammals do not belong in captivity. They get bored, frustrated, and probably angry at the fact that they are no longer with their families and are confined to a small space. I often wonder how the people who own these places would feel if someone came along and took their children and locked them in a closet. It's the same thing.
It's about time these marine parks took their profits and created a sanctuary for all these animals to be retired to. They owe them that and the maintenance and care for the rest of their lives.