I’d like to start off my speech by asking you question.

And that is, how would you feel if you lived in a

bathtub for your whole life? Now I know this question might seem a little weird but that question relates
to the lives of Orca Whales. Because they do live in a bathtub with a size of pools compared to the huge
ocean that they would live in if they weren’t in captivity. So today, I’m going to be telling you about the
issues of Orca Whales in captivity, and why Orca Whales should be freed from captivity. First, I will be
talking about why orca whales are wanted for entertainment at SeaWorld. Second, I will compare the
lives of Orca Whales in the wild vs. their lives in captivity. And lastly, I will be talking about the expenses
of in habiting Orca Whales at SeaWorld.

Before we are going to the first topic, I would like to tell you a brief explanation about Orca captivity. So,
Orca captivity is a place where the orca is being kept or captive inside a big aquarium or thank. The
purpose of this captivity is to save the orcas (especially who left out from its pod, having injuries, and
having disability that make them cannot survive in the nature) train them and breed them, with the aim
is to get them back to the ocean when they ready to be release. One of the most famous Orca captivity
or Marine Park in the world is Seaworld that located in USA. Seaworld is well-known for their marine
creatures performance, especially their orca whale. People maybe think that the orcas that perform in
front of them are happy and healthy, but is that the true reality?

Topic #1:

Orca Whales are known as one of the most intelligent animals in the animal kingdom.
On Greymattersjournal.com, Lars Crawford’s article titled, “Killer Whales are non-human Persons” he
compares the human brain to the brain of an orca whale. He states the whales Cortical folding which is
just the wrinkle like appearance of the mammal brain is similar to the human brain, because they both
have a high amount of cortical processing and that’s the process of thought, memory and basic motor
skills like language and social abilities.
So that’s why SeaWorld and other marine parks around the world desire to have an Orca Whale as one
of their performers. Because they are so smart it is really easy to train them.

On us.whales.org, article titled, Brain Power, it states, “Research and observation in recent years have
revealed that whales not only have the ability to learn as individuals, but those individuals can then pass
their new knowledge onto others.”
Because the whales can pass on knowledge to each other it is much more efficient to bring in a new orca
than any other sea animal to be displayed on the show. So, an older Orca can train other orcas. This
makes the marine park management only have to spend half of that time and money so it’s much more
efficient to have Orca Whales as performers than any other sea animal.

Transition: But this brings me to my second point

Topic #2:
From the documentary movie “Blackfish”, Howard Garret and Lori Morino, said that the whales aren’t in
their families, or pods; they are just simply put in random assemblages by management, because of this,
the orcas can act aggressively towards other orcas, and there will be biting and will leave a teeth mark
on their body.
So if SeaWorld is putting completely different orcas together then they are more than likely to lash out
and attack each other so therefore they shouldn’t be putting different orcas together but instead leaving
them in the wild where they can be with their pods that they belong to.

Now relating back to my question at the beginning of my speech, us.whales.org states that, “In the wild
Orca Whales swim 100 miles a day, they would have to swim 1400 times around the main pool to be
equivalent to what they would swim in the wild.” So you can see that they are being placed in pools 14
times smaller than their natural habitat which is ocean.

And some more facts comparing the lives of Orcas in the wild to their lives in captivity are…

– 92% of orcas in marine parks do not survive past the age of 25, but in the wild they can live up to 80-90
years of age.
– Also, Due to the shallow pool the whales that are kept in have a 100% dorsal fin collapse due to gravity
pulling it down from being above water. And this occurs in less than 1% in the wild.

Transition: Which leads me into my last point.

Topic #3:

That SeaWorld spends millions of dollars on their animals yearly just for food, shelter and any medical
care. Where in the wild there is zero money spend on orca whales. Cnn.com, October 11, 2015 Ann
O’Neill states, “The California Commission unanimously approved SeaWorld $100 million plan to double
the size of its killer whale habitat.” So instead of releasing the animals into the wild for a much smaller
cost they are choosing to spend millions of dollars on something that will only put more anxiety and
stress on the whales? That just seems crazy. Now some say that this is good because they are being put
in bigger pools so they can move around more. But I think they should still be released where they can
have miles upon miles to just swim straight. If they insist on keeping to captive the orcas, I suggest to
captive the orcas in Sea sanctuary. That way, The Orcas can live in their natural habitat and also still get
supervision and control by the experts.

Transition: And Finally, we come to a conclusion.

Conclusion:

I first told you why Orca Whales are wanted for entertainment. Second, I gave statistics and compared
the lives of Orca whales in the wild vs. in captivity. And Lastly, I told you about the expenses of in
habiting orca whales. So from hearing both sides of this argument and hearing the evidence supporting
the argument, I hope you can decide whether or not you would agree with setting Orca Whales free
from captivity. Or perhaps you have any suggestion in mind on other way to captive the orcas instead of
keeping them in the pool.

Thank you.