Letter to Editor in response to March 07 Cal/OSHA report

Dear Sir,

After reading reports of the recent findings of the Cal/OSHA document investigating SeaWorld and risks to trainers from captive killer whales, as Captivity Officer for Marine Connection, a UK-based dolphin and whale protection and welfare charity, I was keen to respond.

Incidents such as that in November 2006 when a trainer was held underwater by a killer whale serve as an indication of the stress that these animals face when held in captive environments. In the wild these animals can and will travel huge distances, they dive hundreds of feet and use their aggressive and honed predatory skills to feed; there are no barriers. Captivity offers killer whales a world just a fraction of the size of their natural range, they rely totally on humans for food and barriers are in every direction they turn. Wild killer whales would spend only 10-20% of their time on the ocean’s surface but in captivity this dramatically increases causing their dorsal fin to collapse under increased gravity; an image which is so indicative of captive killer whales today.

Captive killer whales are simply a caricature, a “Disney” character which bears no relation to their wild counterparts, nullifying any educational benefit. True education is to see the animals in the wild where they interact within close-knit pods exhibiting natural behaviours which are rendered useless in captivity.

We should not be concentrating on a report on how to “control” these captive animals’ behaviour, rather we should be addressing whether, in this day and age, they should be kept in captivity at all.

Andrina Murrell
Captivity Officer
Marine Connection