Party Rocker said:
Then you either A) heard wrong or B ) heard wrong. Do not confuse a conservation message in WBurg with being a rescue organization... because you have already twisted the two.
Blackfish Airing on CNN
- Thread starter Jrbgwfan06
- Start date
Then you either A) heard wrong or B ) heard wrong. Do not confuse a conservation message in WBurg with being a rescue organization... because you have already twisted the two.
I really don't get why BGW and BGT are getting a bad rap for this, its seaworld folks, not BGW, I know their owned by the same company, but still, BGW and BGT have( hopefully) never mistreated animals to the level that seaworld allegedly has.
But Party Rocker said it right, its just a style of a film, similar to super size me and Fast food nation.
But Party Rocker said it right, its just a style of a film, similar to super size me and Fast food nation.
SeaWorld doesn't mistreat their animals. They try to care for them, but the killer whales' wild instincts take over and they turn miserable. And BGT & BGW get the bad raps only because they're owned by the same company.
Well I actually haven't been to seaworld since I was like 5 and haven't even seen blackfish except for a synopsis. I'm just saying that BGW and BGT shouldn't be boycotted because their under the umbrella with seaworld.
[split] Blackfish Backlash
Sorry for the double post, but I rewatched the movie and I had found a few things that I really thought should be put out there.
First there is the dorsal fin argument. One side argues that collapsed dorsal fins are normal; while the other side claims collapsed dorsal fins are not normal. In this argument, only one side mentioned how it relates to the health of the Orca. SeaWold make it clear that collapsed dorsal fins do not change the health of the Orca and do not nessacarily mean the animal is unhealthy. I could care less if a collapsed dorsal fin is normal or not. What I care about is three things. Is it healthy, what are the side effects and what causes it? Clearly SeaWorld has provided more insight on the argument where the movie only ever states that is is not normal and sad. Just because it is not normal does not always indicate a sign of being bad.
My next thing is the "former trainers". These people interviewed claimed to have been hired with no marine education. They continue to claim they do not know anything about the Orcas. The only thing they claim to really know is their interactions with them and training them. Periodically throughout the movie they will throw out random statistics and information relevant to Orcas. This is very contradictory. First you state you really have no education or knowledge of Orcas other than training them, yet you are trying to feed me educated information and I am supposed to take your word for it? What I have come to understand is that SeaWorld needs better educated and qualified trainers first off. Secondly, these people are trying to pass off information that they really didn't know but were more than likely scripted to say. The statistics may be right, but I surely am not going to put faith in someone who say they don't know anything and then starts talking to me like they know everything.
Those were my two biggest concerns in the movie. I may review the movie again to see if I can catch any more questionable material on part of the movie. Now I did want to point out, Zachary and I had stated there is some questionable material in the movie on SeaWorld's part. I just wanted to throw out some examples so people can get a better understanding.
Tilikum's story, how he was acquired and what policies were in place with his history having a violent attack. The movie was accurate in that Tilikum had killed a person prior to going to SeaWorld. Once at SeaWorld, there was very clearly no mention of additional safety policies in place around this Orca that had aided in the death of someone already. I want to see what happened from the transition from one park to another, what polices SeaWorld took to ensure team member safety around a known killer animal.
Now also there is the breeding program. Any domestic animal that injuries a person to the point of drawing blood is typically put to rest to ensure it won't go crazy and start seriously injuring again. Clearly there is a difference with Orcas here. You have a whale that aided in the murder of someone and was not put to rest like a typical domestic animal. It is not made clear as to why this was not answered. Then they continued to breed with Tilikum's sperm. It makes sense that you shouldn't breed animals with an animal that has a history of aggression. However, I was not presented any information of how genetic aggression really is, I was not provided any technical information explaining why they continued to breed him other than for money. This is a serious matter. If there is a chance any of the offspring can become aggressive, they should stop immediately.
In the last two examples above, the movie makes good points but fails to go into further detail about them and SeaWorld has yet to explain anything regarding those topics, that I know of. I am not saying the movie is completely accurate, but SeaWorld hasn't given me much information to work with.
So there you have it, two topics for each side of the story. Of course there are many more things like this in the movie, I just picked out a few things that seemed to be more notable to me. Hopefully this gives some insight to those who have not yet watched the movie. I know it is hard to take it in, but SeaWorld does have some explaining to do. That is all I am asking for a logical and reasonable explanation. I am not saying they are wrong on any level. I'm just saying they are withholding some vital information to make a full and accurate decision on this controversial move.
Sorry for the double post, but I rewatched the movie and I had found a few things that I really thought should be put out there.
First there is the dorsal fin argument. One side argues that collapsed dorsal fins are normal; while the other side claims collapsed dorsal fins are not normal. In this argument, only one side mentioned how it relates to the health of the Orca. SeaWold make it clear that collapsed dorsal fins do not change the health of the Orca and do not nessacarily mean the animal is unhealthy. I could care less if a collapsed dorsal fin is normal or not. What I care about is three things. Is it healthy, what are the side effects and what causes it? Clearly SeaWorld has provided more insight on the argument where the movie only ever states that is is not normal and sad. Just because it is not normal does not always indicate a sign of being bad.
My next thing is the "former trainers". These people interviewed claimed to have been hired with no marine education. They continue to claim they do not know anything about the Orcas. The only thing they claim to really know is their interactions with them and training them. Periodically throughout the movie they will throw out random statistics and information relevant to Orcas. This is very contradictory. First you state you really have no education or knowledge of Orcas other than training them, yet you are trying to feed me educated information and I am supposed to take your word for it? What I have come to understand is that SeaWorld needs better educated and qualified trainers first off. Secondly, these people are trying to pass off information that they really didn't know but were more than likely scripted to say. The statistics may be right, but I surely am not going to put faith in someone who say they don't know anything and then starts talking to me like they know everything.
Those were my two biggest concerns in the movie. I may review the movie again to see if I can catch any more questionable material on part of the movie. Now I did want to point out, Zachary and I had stated there is some questionable material in the movie on SeaWorld's part. I just wanted to throw out some examples so people can get a better understanding.
Tilikum's story, how he was acquired and what policies were in place with his history having a violent attack. The movie was accurate in that Tilikum had killed a person prior to going to SeaWorld. Once at SeaWorld, there was very clearly no mention of additional safety policies in place around this Orca that had aided in the death of someone already. I want to see what happened from the transition from one park to another, what polices SeaWorld took to ensure team member safety around a known killer animal.
Now also there is the breeding program. Any domestic animal that injuries a person to the point of drawing blood is typically put to rest to ensure it won't go crazy and start seriously injuring again. Clearly there is a difference with Orcas here. You have a whale that aided in the murder of someone and was not put to rest like a typical domestic animal. It is not made clear as to why this was not answered. Then they continued to breed with Tilikum's sperm. It makes sense that you shouldn't breed animals with an animal that has a history of aggression. However, I was not presented any information of how genetic aggression really is, I was not provided any technical information explaining why they continued to breed him other than for money. This is a serious matter. If there is a chance any of the offspring can become aggressive, they should stop immediately.
In the last two examples above, the movie makes good points but fails to go into further detail about them and SeaWorld has yet to explain anything regarding those topics, that I know of. I am not saying the movie is completely accurate, but SeaWorld hasn't given me much information to work with.
So there you have it, two topics for each side of the story. Of course there are many more things like this in the movie, I just picked out a few things that seemed to be more notable to me. Hopefully this gives some insight to those who have not yet watched the movie. I know it is hard to take it in, but SeaWorld does have some explaining to do. That is all I am asking for a logical and reasonable explanation. I am not saying they are wrong on any level. I'm just saying they are withholding some vital information to make a full and accurate decision on this controversial move.
Now my full response to Blackfish and it's supporters.
I’m going to start off by pointing out that you cannot become an expert on marine biology or animal behavior by watching an 80 minute movie. Luckily for you, I have a few years experience in the field working at an aquarium that does not have large marine mammals but have learned about animal behavior and training in captivity and I’d like to give my take on the movie itself and the backlash it’s caused.
The first thing I want to talk about is when Tilikum was captured. Back then, there was little regulation or industry standard about marine mammals. I will fully admit that the first “park” he was in was terrible, but that was just like every other zoo and park at the time. It didn’t matter if it was someplace like SeaWorld or a government owned aquarium, I can guarantee you that it’s animal care procedures were barbaric compared to today. It wasn’t until fairly recently that animal facilities learned how to keep animals properly. I have no doubt in my mind that if Tilikum was never at that first park, he never would have had as many issues. The same thing goes for animal collection, whales in the wild are more likely to be hunted for food than captured just for parks. There are rescues, but they are not able to go back into the wild and survive.
There are just so many things with the way it presents it’s “facts”. First of all, there is an insane amount of speculation and hearsay. When they present the incident at Sea Park, they bring in eye witnesses who are untrained guests from over 20 years ago to point out which whale of the three attacked the hotel which consisted of two additional dominant females. There’s also the incident where the guy was found in the pool one night. The conspiracy theorist level speculation feels like the movie is trying to say that SeaWorld not only knew about the guy, but almost fed him to Tilikum. This movie takes every potential hole (whether it’s a real hole or not) and blows it up to make the park look like a saturday morning cartoon villain, all while maintaining it doesn’t have an agenda. There were lots of comments said that bothered me, and that would take too much time to address, but one bit that bothered me in particular was a guy saying, "There are no recorded incidents of a whale attacking a human in the wild.". This is because the water where these whales live is very very cold. The guy is pretty much saying, "There are no recorded incidents of a person getting hit by a train on the moon, so we should ban trains on Earth."
There’s also the point where the movie tries to convince the viewer that SeaWorld is trying to produce a hyper aggressive killer whale line on purpose….I don’t feel I have to explain just exactly why this is silly.
Now let me talk about animal intelligence, specifically how much we know about it: very little. As humans, we have this awful habit of humanizing animals as a way to identify with them and this movie does a horrible job by making you sympathize with them. This causes a few problems, including the fact that they are, in fact, still animals. Don’t get me wrong, I love animals, and I’ve been surprised about how I’ve seen how they’ve learned and adapted in captivity, but pretending they’re just like people (which this movie does suggest) is the wrong way to go about this. I have no doubt that they have something that we could call emotions and they do have bonds with other whales. The movie spends a huge chunk of time talking about how the whales are sad when they get separated from their calves, and I don’t doubt that that’s the case. What the movie won’t point out though, is that an animal caring for it’s children is hardly only something that intelligent mammals do. Here’s a brief list: Birds, Crocodiles, Fish, Lizards, Octopi, Leeches. You read that right folks, the bloodsucking worms that you love to hate care for their young just like whales. There is, however, no major effort to save the humble leech, and this is because of my next point: People only give a shit about animals that are cute or majestic. I can pretty much guarantee that most of the people who suddenly felt inspired after watching Blackfish to care about animals have killed many spiders, those (mostly) harmless insects that were on this earth before you and eat all the pesky insects in your house. The difference between Tilikum and that twitching pile of legs on your wall is that Tilikum is much more friendly looking.
The one thing that spiders and killer whales have in common is that they are both animals. All animals are unpredictable and we lose touch with that. Going back to the fact that people only care about animals that are cute, we surround ourselves with “safe” animals like dogs and cats and are completely taken aback when we see animals being animals. When doing shows with any animals, things go wrong, an animal misses it’s queue, or whatever. It’s normal and it’s expected to a certain point. The problem with shows involving these whales is that because of the pure size of them, it’s a lot more dangerous to the puny human involved. You can teach a dog to sit, but you can’t teach a dog to not be a dog just like you can’t train a killer whale not to be a killer whale. People often lose touch of how brutal nature really is. People love lions but cringe when whenever they see a pride feasting on a carcass on TV. At one point the movie lists the trainer's injuries with sad music playing to try to make the view hate SeaWorld even more, but at the same time, it’s a rather frail monkey body vs a six ton carnivorous beast on it’s own turf, that’s what I would certainly expect the human body to do.
Another problem humanizing animals causes is that we assume they know the concepts like “life and death” or “this weird animal that feeds me can’t hold it’s breath as long as I can”. The point I’m getting at here is that these incidents, especially the ones not involving Tilikum, might not be acts of aggression. People have humanized these animals so much they consider them humans with fins, so we associate them having moral compasses where in reality, the know little more of humans besides “If I do this thing I get food.” They don’t hold grudges, they don’t get emotionally upset if something doesn’t go their way, none of that cartoon stuff. What makes me think that few of these incidents are legitimately aggressive is that if a whale wants to do serious damage to something, it will straight up bite and rip apart something. It won’t jump on it, it won’t drag it around for a bit, it will murder it like the carnivore it is.
Let me explain about how and why training in captivity works. Training is pretty much the act of getting something to produce the desired action. With animals in captivity, a lot of what you don’t see is to help make the care for the animal. Lots of animals are trained to go to a certain spot to eat to make sure that every animal gets the right amount of food, or if an animal is medical treatment, it will be trained to assume a certain position to make things the easiest and safest for everybody involved. The way it works now (not so much before as the movie touched on) is that if an animal does something that’s desired, it will be rewarded or given the promise of reward in the form of a whistle or clicker usually. If the animal does not perform the desired action, NOTHING HAPPENS, the trainer simple tries again and the animal will figure it out eventually.
Now as for the reason SeaWorld kept Tilikum doing shows, it’s complex, but SeaWorld is doing the best thing for the animals here. As the movie points out, animals being in captivity can get boring and trainers realize this. The trainers probably decided to alleviate this with Tilikum by having him do shows since it gets him active, thinking, and moving around. The movie also pointed out several times that Tilikum responded well to enrichment and training, so that had to do something with the decision. Some of the actions in the shows are designed to mimic natural behaviors as well. People are right, they don’t have to put on shows, but the animals would be bored and wouldn't be much better than the holding tanks at the first park.
One thing I see people complain about constantly is that SeaWorld is for entertainment only. This couldn't be farther from the truth. Yes, they make money, like any business. That money also goes towards one of the largest animal rescue and release organizations in the US that takes care of anything from flamingos to whales. They also do provide a lot of information on not only whales, but all the animals they have there. Making money is not evil if you use it for the right causes.
Now, the big question of if keeping intelligent animals in captivity is ethical or not. I worked with Octopi, animals that are more intelligent than dogs (at this point, I would totally feel more comfortable eating dog than octopi
), so I've had a chance to stew on this question a bit. I came to the ultimate conclusion of, "Ideally, we should not keep intelligent animals in captivity, but we need to." The reason I say that there is a need to keep them in captivity is to inspire and educate future generations. From personal experience, going to Sea World when I was a kid, seeing all those animals is actually what got me inspired to learn about the animals, learn how to take better of the environment, and donate my free time with the help and care of them so they can be preserved for years to come. There are many environmental issues on our hands these days, and the only way that they'll get fixed is if enough people care, and if a handful of these animals have to be taken out of their natural habitat to help with that, then it should be done. I will also say that a lot of these animals these days were not simply plucked out of the wild, that doesn't happen as much these days. A lot of these animals are rescues or have other circumstances where the can not be released in the wild again, so that does ease the ethical issue a bit.
Now lets talk about it’s supporters, the ones who claim to be environmental champions after watching the movie. Do any of you use birth control? That’s getting into natural waters and devastating fish populations because those hormones are causing a vast majority of fish in those ecosystems to be born female. How about that soap with the little beads that exfoliate your skin? Current filtration systems can’t catch those and they end up choking fish. Drink bottled water? There’s a good chance that ended up on the continent of plastic that’s currently floating in the pacific. Ever use latex balloon? Those end up in the water where animals, including the adorable sea turtle, think it’s food only to have the balloon block the intestines of the turtle causing a slow and painful death. Here’s my point: With so many threats to animals being caused by humans, in the grand scheme of thing, a handful of whales living in captivity is a rather small environmental problem on this spaceship Earth. While it’s good to a point that people are passionate about this, maybe the attention can be focused on things that hurt more animals. Though, those animals aren’t nearly as cute, so it doesn't matter.
tl;dr People only care about the whales because they're cute and Blackfish is full of crap.
I’m going to start off by pointing out that you cannot become an expert on marine biology or animal behavior by watching an 80 minute movie. Luckily for you, I have a few years experience in the field working at an aquarium that does not have large marine mammals but have learned about animal behavior and training in captivity and I’d like to give my take on the movie itself and the backlash it’s caused.
The first thing I want to talk about is when Tilikum was captured. Back then, there was little regulation or industry standard about marine mammals. I will fully admit that the first “park” he was in was terrible, but that was just like every other zoo and park at the time. It didn’t matter if it was someplace like SeaWorld or a government owned aquarium, I can guarantee you that it’s animal care procedures were barbaric compared to today. It wasn’t until fairly recently that animal facilities learned how to keep animals properly. I have no doubt in my mind that if Tilikum was never at that first park, he never would have had as many issues. The same thing goes for animal collection, whales in the wild are more likely to be hunted for food than captured just for parks. There are rescues, but they are not able to go back into the wild and survive.
There are just so many things with the way it presents it’s “facts”. First of all, there is an insane amount of speculation and hearsay. When they present the incident at Sea Park, they bring in eye witnesses who are untrained guests from over 20 years ago to point out which whale of the three attacked the hotel which consisted of two additional dominant females. There’s also the incident where the guy was found in the pool one night. The conspiracy theorist level speculation feels like the movie is trying to say that SeaWorld not only knew about the guy, but almost fed him to Tilikum. This movie takes every potential hole (whether it’s a real hole or not) and blows it up to make the park look like a saturday morning cartoon villain, all while maintaining it doesn’t have an agenda. There were lots of comments said that bothered me, and that would take too much time to address, but one bit that bothered me in particular was a guy saying, "There are no recorded incidents of a whale attacking a human in the wild.". This is because the water where these whales live is very very cold. The guy is pretty much saying, "There are no recorded incidents of a person getting hit by a train on the moon, so we should ban trains on Earth."
There’s also the point where the movie tries to convince the viewer that SeaWorld is trying to produce a hyper aggressive killer whale line on purpose….I don’t feel I have to explain just exactly why this is silly.
Now let me talk about animal intelligence, specifically how much we know about it: very little. As humans, we have this awful habit of humanizing animals as a way to identify with them and this movie does a horrible job by making you sympathize with them. This causes a few problems, including the fact that they are, in fact, still animals. Don’t get me wrong, I love animals, and I’ve been surprised about how I’ve seen how they’ve learned and adapted in captivity, but pretending they’re just like people (which this movie does suggest) is the wrong way to go about this. I have no doubt that they have something that we could call emotions and they do have bonds with other whales. The movie spends a huge chunk of time talking about how the whales are sad when they get separated from their calves, and I don’t doubt that that’s the case. What the movie won’t point out though, is that an animal caring for it’s children is hardly only something that intelligent mammals do. Here’s a brief list: Birds, Crocodiles, Fish, Lizards, Octopi, Leeches. You read that right folks, the bloodsucking worms that you love to hate care for their young just like whales. There is, however, no major effort to save the humble leech, and this is because of my next point: People only give a shit about animals that are cute or majestic. I can pretty much guarantee that most of the people who suddenly felt inspired after watching Blackfish to care about animals have killed many spiders, those (mostly) harmless insects that were on this earth before you and eat all the pesky insects in your house. The difference between Tilikum and that twitching pile of legs on your wall is that Tilikum is much more friendly looking.
The one thing that spiders and killer whales have in common is that they are both animals. All animals are unpredictable and we lose touch with that. Going back to the fact that people only care about animals that are cute, we surround ourselves with “safe” animals like dogs and cats and are completely taken aback when we see animals being animals. When doing shows with any animals, things go wrong, an animal misses it’s queue, or whatever. It’s normal and it’s expected to a certain point. The problem with shows involving these whales is that because of the pure size of them, it’s a lot more dangerous to the puny human involved. You can teach a dog to sit, but you can’t teach a dog to not be a dog just like you can’t train a killer whale not to be a killer whale. People often lose touch of how brutal nature really is. People love lions but cringe when whenever they see a pride feasting on a carcass on TV. At one point the movie lists the trainer's injuries with sad music playing to try to make the view hate SeaWorld even more, but at the same time, it’s a rather frail monkey body vs a six ton carnivorous beast on it’s own turf, that’s what I would certainly expect the human body to do.
Another problem humanizing animals causes is that we assume they know the concepts like “life and death” or “this weird animal that feeds me can’t hold it’s breath as long as I can”. The point I’m getting at here is that these incidents, especially the ones not involving Tilikum, might not be acts of aggression. People have humanized these animals so much they consider them humans with fins, so we associate them having moral compasses where in reality, the know little more of humans besides “If I do this thing I get food.” They don’t hold grudges, they don’t get emotionally upset if something doesn’t go their way, none of that cartoon stuff. What makes me think that few of these incidents are legitimately aggressive is that if a whale wants to do serious damage to something, it will straight up bite and rip apart something. It won’t jump on it, it won’t drag it around for a bit, it will murder it like the carnivore it is.
Let me explain about how and why training in captivity works. Training is pretty much the act of getting something to produce the desired action. With animals in captivity, a lot of what you don’t see is to help make the care for the animal. Lots of animals are trained to go to a certain spot to eat to make sure that every animal gets the right amount of food, or if an animal is medical treatment, it will be trained to assume a certain position to make things the easiest and safest for everybody involved. The way it works now (not so much before as the movie touched on) is that if an animal does something that’s desired, it will be rewarded or given the promise of reward in the form of a whistle or clicker usually. If the animal does not perform the desired action, NOTHING HAPPENS, the trainer simple tries again and the animal will figure it out eventually.
Now as for the reason SeaWorld kept Tilikum doing shows, it’s complex, but SeaWorld is doing the best thing for the animals here. As the movie points out, animals being in captivity can get boring and trainers realize this. The trainers probably decided to alleviate this with Tilikum by having him do shows since it gets him active, thinking, and moving around. The movie also pointed out several times that Tilikum responded well to enrichment and training, so that had to do something with the decision. Some of the actions in the shows are designed to mimic natural behaviors as well. People are right, they don’t have to put on shows, but the animals would be bored and wouldn't be much better than the holding tanks at the first park.
One thing I see people complain about constantly is that SeaWorld is for entertainment only. This couldn't be farther from the truth. Yes, they make money, like any business. That money also goes towards one of the largest animal rescue and release organizations in the US that takes care of anything from flamingos to whales. They also do provide a lot of information on not only whales, but all the animals they have there. Making money is not evil if you use it for the right causes.
Now, the big question of if keeping intelligent animals in captivity is ethical or not. I worked with Octopi, animals that are more intelligent than dogs (at this point, I would totally feel more comfortable eating dog than octopi
), so I've had a chance to stew on this question a bit. I came to the ultimate conclusion of, "Ideally, we should not keep intelligent animals in captivity, but we need to." The reason I say that there is a need to keep them in captivity is to inspire and educate future generations. From personal experience, going to Sea World when I was a kid, seeing all those animals is actually what got me inspired to learn about the animals, learn how to take better of the environment, and donate my free time with the help and care of them so they can be preserved for years to come. There are many environmental issues on our hands these days, and the only way that they'll get fixed is if enough people care, and if a handful of these animals have to be taken out of their natural habitat to help with that, then it should be done. I will also say that a lot of these animals these days were not simply plucked out of the wild, that doesn't happen as much these days. A lot of these animals are rescues or have other circumstances where the can not be released in the wild again, so that does ease the ethical issue a bit.Now lets talk about it’s supporters, the ones who claim to be environmental champions after watching the movie. Do any of you use birth control? That’s getting into natural waters and devastating fish populations because those hormones are causing a vast majority of fish in those ecosystems to be born female. How about that soap with the little beads that exfoliate your skin? Current filtration systems can’t catch those and they end up choking fish. Drink bottled water? There’s a good chance that ended up on the continent of plastic that’s currently floating in the pacific. Ever use latex balloon? Those end up in the water where animals, including the adorable sea turtle, think it’s food only to have the balloon block the intestines of the turtle causing a slow and painful death. Here’s my point: With so many threats to animals being caused by humans, in the grand scheme of thing, a handful of whales living in captivity is a rather small environmental problem on this spaceship Earth. While it’s good to a point that people are passionate about this, maybe the attention can be focused on things that hurt more animals. Though, those animals aren’t nearly as cute, so it doesn't matter.
tl;dr People only care about the whales because they're cute and Blackfish is full of crap.
Here's a great article by another ex-trainer that drops a few bombshells about the making and motivations behind Blackfish.
http://micechat.com/53915-blackfish-exposed/
The biggest thing to me is that one of the trainers in the movie was actually fired from SeaWorld for safety violations. This is huge because he's speaking out about how dangerous they are while ignoring that himself.
http://micechat.com/53915-blackfish-exposed/
The biggest thing to me is that one of the trainers in the movie was actually fired from SeaWorld for safety violations. This is huge because he's speaking out about how dangerous they are while ignoring that himself.
I apologize for the triple post, but people have responded well to the first one, so I'd figure I'd post this response I made to an animal rights person. Also, blame Evan if you have any issues.
This what I love about animal rights people. They're so short-sighted about animals that they can't see the whole picture of the situation. You look at Sea World and you only see cute animals stuck in a small pens that don't actually exist at Sea World. You don't care about the animals that aren't cute, you don't care about the animals that don't have feelings, you just care about the mammals (or a Sea Turtle because they're kind of cute). You don't see all the good they do, you only see the handful of animals you choose to look at because they give you a warm and fuzzy feeling.
Whether it's a PR campaign or not (I doubt it is because they've been doing it long before Blackfish or people started caring about animals) to deny that Sea World does good is, once again, short-sighted.
Why can't people get upset about something that really is doing damage to animals? Like shark-finning? Oh, that's too far away and doesn't have a convenient 90 minute movie to educate you. How about Global Warming? That means you have to change your lifestyle and use public transportation. Plastic going into the ocean? That means you have to actually bring a bottle for water with you or even go to a beach to pick stuff up. I guess Sea World works because you don't have to leave your house.
There are so many animals on the brink of extinction in the ocean, that most people don't even know exist. But no, tons of money that could actually help make a difference in the wild, where animals also live, is being spent instead of .000001% of the total animal population.
Here's a wild thought, maybe we should fix the environmental problems first and get the ocean's to a point where aquariums are obsolete, so we don't need animals in captivity anymore?
This what I love about animal rights people. They're so short-sighted about animals that they can't see the whole picture of the situation. You look at Sea World and you only see cute animals stuck in a small pens that don't actually exist at Sea World. You don't care about the animals that aren't cute, you don't care about the animals that don't have feelings, you just care about the mammals (or a Sea Turtle because they're kind of cute). You don't see all the good they do, you only see the handful of animals you choose to look at because they give you a warm and fuzzy feeling.
Whether it's a PR campaign or not (I doubt it is because they've been doing it long before Blackfish or people started caring about animals) to deny that Sea World does good is, once again, short-sighted.
Why can't people get upset about something that really is doing damage to animals? Like shark-finning? Oh, that's too far away and doesn't have a convenient 90 minute movie to educate you. How about Global Warming? That means you have to change your lifestyle and use public transportation. Plastic going into the ocean? That means you have to actually bring a bottle for water with you or even go to a beach to pick stuff up. I guess Sea World works because you don't have to leave your house.
There are so many animals on the brink of extinction in the ocean, that most people don't even know exist. But no, tons of money that could actually help make a difference in the wild, where animals also live, is being spent instead of .000001% of the total animal population.
Here's a wild thought, maybe we should fix the environmental problems first and get the ocean's to a point where aquariums are obsolete, so we don't need animals in captivity anymore?
Quad post, but some very damning information has come out. A trainer featured in the movie has come out against Blackfish, calling it "masterfully woven with lies and disinformation and just enough truth to convince almost anyone that didn’t know better".
http://micechat.com/54370-blackfish-backlash/
http://micechat.com/54370-blackfish-backlash/
I'm a little late to the party, but I finally saw Blackfish. I am not the biggest fan of SeaWorld, but I did enjoy the experience as a small child. I do believe that the park has been invaluable as an educational resource to millions and I do think they provide great financial assistance for environmental programs.
My main problem with this documentary is the hypocritical nature of its purpose. I can't help but feel that the makers of this film are attempting to profit off a horrible tragedy, all while mongering attention and making accusations against SeaWorld for attempting to make a profit off of something they claim to be unethical. They're doing the very thing that they're pointing a finger at SeaWorld for doing, except they're doing it far more deliberately.
As for the presentation of "facts," I don't believe any critical thinker can honestly view a short documentary such as this that presents only one view point and blindly agree with the information presented.
I do not support every action or decision SeaWorld has ever made. At its inception there was much less known about marine biology and the captivity and training of animals as there is today. SeaWorld is one of the many reasons we now know more than we once did.
Towards the start of the film we learn of the harsh ways that the park hunted whales for captivity. While I do agree that those methods are wrong, it was likely par for the course for the time period. Many of our current regulations did not exist then. Additionally, much of the focus was applied to the means by which Tilikum was captured, when in fact SeaWorld did not capture Tilikum, but acquired the animal later.
As far as the first attack on the Sea Land guest goes, we are left to rely on the witness of two regular guests. The film makes it clear that their testimony is to be trusted and they know which whale was responsible. This is proven by the fact that they identified the whale based on its unusually limp dorsal fin, yet later in the film they point out that every orca in captivity shares this distinct feature in an attempt to claim that it is a health issue. This cannot then be the basis for completely trustworthy evidence. If this is how the film presents its "facts," then we must be suspicious of other evidence given.
The trainers that are interviewed claim to have had no experience and were thrust into their roles with little experience and education. This completely defies the hiring requirements for the position. SeaWorld mandates a yearlong apprenticeship regardless of experience. Based on the editing of the interviews, it seems that their words could have easily been chopped up to produce a desired result.
The courtroom drawings bothered me as well. In the first one we get the head trainer remarking that a man is capable of rape, but that doesn't mean she should avoid interaction with men. The judge then says that comment will be struck from the record. If the comment was struck, how do we have access to it? It should not exist on any legal record. That doesn't make any sense. Later, we have people contesting her statement about Loro Parque not being affiliated with SeaWorld. They contend that this statement is a lie. In actuality, based on the statement we are provided with, she is correct. Loro Parque is not affiliated with SeaWorld. The whales may have originally come from SeaWorld, but that does not create an affiliation. Busch Gardens is affiliated with SeaWorld; Loro Parque is not. Furthermore, the film attempts to say that SeaWorld was responsible because they had previously owned the whales, but the interviewee clearly states several times that Loro Parque's trainers and techniques were not nearly up to the standard of SeaWorld. Fallacious arguments and illogical leaps abound.
We have multiple instances in the film of trainers claiming that they have no knowledge of incidents and attacks that have taken place at SeaWorld, then later they provide us with "test results" and other information gathered by SeaWorld after the incident that the park reportedly hid from the public. How did they gain this information without any other knowledge? This cannot be so easily believed.
At one point of the film, one of the interviewees states that SeaWorld knowingly has told guests that the lifespans of whales are shorter than they really are because it would not match the lifespans of the whales in captivity. A small amount of research has told me that this is scientifically untrue. In the wild it is believed that female orcas can live up to 50-60 years and possibly longer, but the average lifespan of a male is roughly 29 or 30 years. According to this, the information shown being disseminated by SeaWorld is not even false, much less knowingly so.
In regard to the man being found dead in Tilikum's pool, what does one expect to have happened? We are given many theories from obviously discontented former trainers, but nobody knows for sure what happened. If a man jumped in a pool with a killer whale, I would expect that man to die if he has no experience working with or training said whale. The film presents no hard evidence to prove that SeaWorld did anything wrong here. They only repeatedly mention that killer whales have never attacked humans in the wild and are not considered a danger to humans, and that is true since I don't make a habit of swimming in deep arctic water.
I can't even remember everything that I disagreed with about the film. I should have taken notes. The documentary presents little actual evidence and only takes one side. SeaWorld is not a perfect corporation, and they have indubitably made many mistakes, but I believe them to be just that: mistakes. Blackfish attempts to make it seem that the park knowingly made certain decisions that caused some horrible tragedies to occur. There is no evidence submitted to support this. SeaWorld is far from perfect, but they aren't villainous.
I am honestly appalled with the duplicitous way in which these filmmakers are attempting to gain from these horribly unfortunate instances. How dare they accuse a company of negligent greed when they themselves have created this slanderous mess. The makers behind Blackfish needn't concern themselves with the specks in SeaWorld's eye, for they have too many planks in their own.
EDIT: I do believe there are some issues brought up in the documentary that have some legitimacy. SeaWorld should address some of these, and if they are true, should admit that mistakes were made, which is understandable. For instance, the separation of the mother and baby whales seems wrong, and the hunting of the whales certainly was, too. I maintain that the crux of this documentary was based on conspiracy, fallacy, and manipulation. I would still like to hear a more detailed response from SEAS, however.
My main problem with this documentary is the hypocritical nature of its purpose. I can't help but feel that the makers of this film are attempting to profit off a horrible tragedy, all while mongering attention and making accusations against SeaWorld for attempting to make a profit off of something they claim to be unethical. They're doing the very thing that they're pointing a finger at SeaWorld for doing, except they're doing it far more deliberately.
As for the presentation of "facts," I don't believe any critical thinker can honestly view a short documentary such as this that presents only one view point and blindly agree with the information presented.
I do not support every action or decision SeaWorld has ever made. At its inception there was much less known about marine biology and the captivity and training of animals as there is today. SeaWorld is one of the many reasons we now know more than we once did.
Towards the start of the film we learn of the harsh ways that the park hunted whales for captivity. While I do agree that those methods are wrong, it was likely par for the course for the time period. Many of our current regulations did not exist then. Additionally, much of the focus was applied to the means by which Tilikum was captured, when in fact SeaWorld did not capture Tilikum, but acquired the animal later.
As far as the first attack on the Sea Land guest goes, we are left to rely on the witness of two regular guests. The film makes it clear that their testimony is to be trusted and they know which whale was responsible. This is proven by the fact that they identified the whale based on its unusually limp dorsal fin, yet later in the film they point out that every orca in captivity shares this distinct feature in an attempt to claim that it is a health issue. This cannot then be the basis for completely trustworthy evidence. If this is how the film presents its "facts," then we must be suspicious of other evidence given.
The trainers that are interviewed claim to have had no experience and were thrust into their roles with little experience and education. This completely defies the hiring requirements for the position. SeaWorld mandates a yearlong apprenticeship regardless of experience. Based on the editing of the interviews, it seems that their words could have easily been chopped up to produce a desired result.
The courtroom drawings bothered me as well. In the first one we get the head trainer remarking that a man is capable of rape, but that doesn't mean she should avoid interaction with men. The judge then says that comment will be struck from the record. If the comment was struck, how do we have access to it? It should not exist on any legal record. That doesn't make any sense. Later, we have people contesting her statement about Loro Parque not being affiliated with SeaWorld. They contend that this statement is a lie. In actuality, based on the statement we are provided with, she is correct. Loro Parque is not affiliated with SeaWorld. The whales may have originally come from SeaWorld, but that does not create an affiliation. Busch Gardens is affiliated with SeaWorld; Loro Parque is not. Furthermore, the film attempts to say that SeaWorld was responsible because they had previously owned the whales, but the interviewee clearly states several times that Loro Parque's trainers and techniques were not nearly up to the standard of SeaWorld. Fallacious arguments and illogical leaps abound.
We have multiple instances in the film of trainers claiming that they have no knowledge of incidents and attacks that have taken place at SeaWorld, then later they provide us with "test results" and other information gathered by SeaWorld after the incident that the park reportedly hid from the public. How did they gain this information without any other knowledge? This cannot be so easily believed.
At one point of the film, one of the interviewees states that SeaWorld knowingly has told guests that the lifespans of whales are shorter than they really are because it would not match the lifespans of the whales in captivity. A small amount of research has told me that this is scientifically untrue. In the wild it is believed that female orcas can live up to 50-60 years and possibly longer, but the average lifespan of a male is roughly 29 or 30 years. According to this, the information shown being disseminated by SeaWorld is not even false, much less knowingly so.
In regard to the man being found dead in Tilikum's pool, what does one expect to have happened? We are given many theories from obviously discontented former trainers, but nobody knows for sure what happened. If a man jumped in a pool with a killer whale, I would expect that man to die if he has no experience working with or training said whale. The film presents no hard evidence to prove that SeaWorld did anything wrong here. They only repeatedly mention that killer whales have never attacked humans in the wild and are not considered a danger to humans, and that is true since I don't make a habit of swimming in deep arctic water.
I can't even remember everything that I disagreed with about the film. I should have taken notes. The documentary presents little actual evidence and only takes one side. SeaWorld is not a perfect corporation, and they have indubitably made many mistakes, but I believe them to be just that: mistakes. Blackfish attempts to make it seem that the park knowingly made certain decisions that caused some horrible tragedies to occur. There is no evidence submitted to support this. SeaWorld is far from perfect, but they aren't villainous.
I am honestly appalled with the duplicitous way in which these filmmakers are attempting to gain from these horribly unfortunate instances. How dare they accuse a company of negligent greed when they themselves have created this slanderous mess. The makers behind Blackfish needn't concern themselves with the specks in SeaWorld's eye, for they have too many planks in their own.
EDIT: I do believe there are some issues brought up in the documentary that have some legitimacy. SeaWorld should address some of these, and if they are true, should admit that mistakes were made, which is understandable. For instance, the separation of the mother and baby whales seems wrong, and the hunting of the whales certainly was, too. I maintain that the crux of this documentary was based on conspiracy, fallacy, and manipulation. I would still like to hear a more detailed response from SEAS, however.
Regarding the baby from their mother, the baby is only taken away from the mother after the mother has stopped weening the baby. The way whales were captured did happen at a time before people knew what they did now. Animal care is constantly evolving and changing for the better, so that doesn't happen any more in most places, certainly nowhere SeaWorld has any affiliation with.
My mother just happened to catch it on CNN late the other night, now she thinks she knows everything about it -__-
When my mother watched it, she said she lost sleep over it. I asked her if she "bought-in" to the movie, but she said she noticed some of the lies, and was worried about the fact that some people will believe it and raise turmoil with SeaWorld. She isn't nearly as crazy about the parks as I am, but I am glad to see that some other people do recognize fact from fiction. I think part of it was also due to the fact that she used to be a journalist. I'm sure she was outraged at how much these people were able to twist the truth just to get a sensationalized movie about it. I have personally lost just about all respect for CNN. They can't keep this kind of thing up if they want people to take their word for anything.