SeaWorld to stop breeding killer whales in victory for campaigners
SEAWORLD is to stop breeding killer whales in a major concession to animal rights activists over practices at the company’s theme parks.
The decision, which is to have immediate effect, was announced by Joel Manby, SeaWorld’s president, and came after California’s coastal commission enacted a ban on breeding captive sea whales – also known as orcas – at the company’s facility in San Diego.
In a further climbdown, the company also said it was ending theatrical shows with the whales and replacing them with “new, inspiring natural orca encounters”.
The performances will end at San Diego next year before being phased out at SeaWorld’s parks in Texas and Florida in the following years.
The moves followed accusations from campaigners that it was treating whales cruelly and inhumanely.
Pressure mounted in the wake of a 2013 CNN documentary, Blackfish, which chronicled the fate of Tilikum, a captive whale at SeaWorld’s park in Orlando, Florida, that was involved in the deaths of three people, including a veteran orca trainer.
The film led to a drop in SeaWorld’s visitor numbers and prompted several high-profile musical acts, including the Beach Boys and Willie Nelson, to cancel concert appearances at the Orlando park in 2014.
Criticism intensified last week after the company announced that 35-yearold Tilikum was gravely ill from a bacterial lung infection and may be dying.
Mr Manby acknowledged that changes in social attitudes had heralded the end of the breeding programme. “As society’s understanding of orcas continues to change, SeaWorld is changing with it,” he said.
“By making this the last generation of orcas in our care and reimagining how guests will encounter these beautiful animals, we are fulfilling our mission of providing visitors to our parks with experiences that matter.”
SeaWorld had not collected any orca from the wild in 40 years and most of those in the company’s theme parks had been either born there or spent most of their lives under human care, he said. The policies have been adopted in cooperation with the Humane Society of the United States, which praised SeaWorld for a “game-changing commitment”.
Jubilant animal rights campaigners pledged to step up pressure on SeaWorld to free its captive whales – despite the company’s claims that such a move would result in the deaths of orcas unused and ill-equipped to survive in the wild. Ingrid Newkirk, of People for Ethical Treatment of Animals, said: “SeaWorld has taken a step forward but more must come.”