Most amusement parks seem just to be about rides,thrills, and pure fun and entertainment. That made SeaWorld stand out as an unique place where marine life could be viewed and appreciated up close while also in an entertaining way. However, with the release of the documentary Blackfish in 2013, the park’s shady practices with their animals in captivity came to light. This documentary specifically focused on the orcas and, in particular, one named Tilikum. With interviews from former trainers to give a first hand account of the inner workings of SeaWorld, the documentary sought to lay out the inhuman treatment of the orcas that led to many of them, primarily Tilikum, lashing out aggressively towards several trainers, causing severe or fatal injuries.
Introducing the running of the orca shows in the beginning, the documentary then backtracked to meticulously create a timeline of Tilikum’s life in captivity to show a correlation to why he would have acted out aggressively enough to kill a trainer. While watching these observations being laid out, I thought one of the most compelling pieces presented was tied to the fact that in the wild, orca children never leave their mothers’ sides their entire lives. “The orca brain just screams out intelligent awareness,” said Lori Marino, a neuroscientist who was interviewed for the documentary. “These are animals that have highly elaborated emotional lives…Everything about them is social.”
However, in captivity, the orcas were without mother or family but were instead thrown together with others they didn’t even know, depriving them of an essential part of their social being. A horrible side effect of this was that the whales would act out violently towards each other. Tilikum was especially affected by this aggression because of his slower, larger movements that made him an easy target for the females he was around, causing them to be able to rake his skin with their teeth. This led to him having deep cuts all over regularly.
All these factors and more, like starvation of the animals, were reasons why Tilikum was overly aggressive towards many trainers throughout his lifespan and why some of these acts even led to trainer deaths. “When you have a relationship with the animal, you understand that he’s killing not to be a savage. He’s not killing cause he’s just crazy, he’s not killing cause he doesn’t know what he’s doing. He’s killing because he’s frustrated and he’s got aggravations and he…has no outlet for them,” said former Sealand trainer Christopher Porter.
While watching this documentary, it was very difficult to not feel deep outrage at the terrible conditions the whales were subjected to. It was awful to realize while watching how preventable the deaths of those trainers could have been if SeaWorld had changed their operating system and been open and honest about what had happened and the danger that all the trainers were in. Throughout the entire documentary, they continually blamed the injuries and fatalities on the trainers and denied again and again that Tilikum, or any of the other whales, had been aggressive at all.
This documentary, although difficult at times to watch, was well done and poignant in its commentary on the factual evidence and video footage it gathered along with the former trainer interviews that were direct looks inside the world behind SeaWorld. I would definitely recommend this documentary to anyone who is interested in or passionate about ethical animal practices and wanting a look into the lives of animals in captivity who would not otherwise have the ability to tell their side of the story.
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