Sorry sorry, like I said I am not really into the business side of things with all this theme park stuff! I should have said it the other way around, my bad... the point I was trying to make is that I object to their continued ties- because, as I said, I think Sea World, for better or for worse, will not recover so I don't want BGW to go down with it. But again, sorry my bad, that probably makes my post confusing and I apologize.
As for the ethics stuff, I don't want to majorly derail this conversation but to put it briefly, I disagree with the very notion of keeping orcas and dolphins in captivity. It can be the best, most humane, most modern captivity ever, but I object to it on the grounds that I think captivity is inherently cruel for certain animals. I could go on at length about where I personally feel that line should be drawn in terms of what animals are suitable for captivity and which are not, but in short it's a combination of the intelligence of the animal and our ability to simulate their natural environment. Orcas and dolphins are very smart, and there is nothing we can do to even remotely approximate their natural habitats spanning thousands of miles of ocean, so to me that is clearly a case of an animal that should not be kept in captivity. But that is my own personal opinion and I respect that others here may feel differently.
Sorry to double post but just wanted to add- I really don't mean to divert this into a discussion of animal welfare because this really isn't the place, the only reason I raised that point was to explain the reasoning behind my question, which is what is the likelihood or possibility, given the current financial situation, that BGW may be able to cut ties with SEAS? And again, please forgive me because I really really don't have a grasp on the business side of this stuff so feel free to tell me if there's something I'm just not getting.
