Two days later, SeaWorld announced that it was expanding the pools in its facilities and investing in improvements in the orcas’ habitat. Critics quickly pointed out that SeaWorld had to take a financial hit for the company to realize that it had to remedy its public image by belatedly throwing some money at the whales. On August 19, 2014, it was revealed that SeaWorld would not appeal the OSHA ruling to the US Supreme Court. It would have to abide by the federal agency’s prescriptions and make it safer for trainers to work with the whales. Meanwhile, the company’s fortunes continued to plummet. In early December 2014, the stock hit a record low of $15.32.
The world appeared to be turning against SeaWorld. Was victory in sight?
12
A Vision for the Future
The prospect of a SeaWorld in financial decline does not fill me with glee. The company may be motivated by greed and it may have exploited both orcas and trainers, but SeaWorld is, paradoxically, the best hope for the 30 killer whales that it owns.
In its confrontation with orca advocates over proposed legislation to ensure the well-being of its killer whales, SeaWorld does little to hide the fact that it is, first and foremost, a business and more interested in conserving its assets and profits than in conserving species. During testimony for California’s proposed orca law, a lobbyist representing SeaWorld said that if Assemblyman Bloom’s bill passed, SeaWorld would simply move its whales out of California because it could no longer make money on them in the state. Or else, the lobbyist threatened, if California forced SeaWorld to change its killer whale policies, then California itself should foot the bill. “You ban them, you buy them.”
The corporation lined up witness after witness to testify to the economic losses the San Diego area would suffer if SeaWorld decided to decamp. The core of the company’s arguments to keep things as they are was financial and economic.
SeaWorld is missing an opportunity here. If it had a true vision of the future, the company could argue that it is the only institution that can afford to take care of most, if not all, of the 30 whales it owns—because those whales cannot be released into the wild. They have become so dysfunctional due to years of captivity that they would likely not survive in nature. Their socializations are abnormal; they are also hybrids of orcas that would never have occurred in nature; and they are now increasingly inbred. The responsible way to free captive whales is to reinsert them into the family units they were originally taken from. But the whales in the system who were taken that way are a small number: Kasatka, Katina, Ulises, Corky, Tilikum. I do not know whether the records of their pods of descent have enough information to determine where they could be reintroduced—and whether their families will even take them back. We don’t even know if Kasatka’s mother survived her capture.
The remaining whales were born in captivity. SeaWorld has so tampered with the fertility cycles of its female killer whales—who are fertilized at abnormally young ages—that they may never be able to adjust to the society of free matriarchal whales. Furthermore, true freedom would be a difficult adjustment because the orcas of SeaWorld don’t know how to hunt for their own food. They have also been conditioned psychologically to interact with humans in complex reward-for-behavior scenarios that could make integration into the wild world of the ocean frightening. Their health—their teeth especially—has been badly compromised. Without the constant pulpotomies that we performed to relieve their tooth abscesses, they would become even more susceptible to infection or die of hunger and malnourishment. Only SeaWorld has the staff and the know-how to pay close attention to the ills of captivity.
The problem is that SeaWorld can’t make that argument because it would contradict the current image it projects of itself as the benign protector of the orcas in its care. All of the reasons its orcas cannot be returned to nature stem from the fact that they have been psychologically and physically damaged by captivity.
So what can SeaWorld do? It can take responsibility and revolutionize its business model to appeal to the burgeoning generation of Americans and people around the world who are increasingly convinced that keeping orcas—or any animal—in circus-performer captivity is morally and ethically wrong. SeaWorld can accede to the prescription of California’s orca bill and build out sea pens that the public can visit—for the price of admission—to learn how captivity transforms cetaceans. A sea pen is an open ocean enclosure anchored to the ocean floor that provides a vastly more natural environment for the orcas. It is the closest sanctuary that human beings can construct for orcas whose lives and behavior have been compromised by captivity. SeaWorld cannot fully make up for its sins but it can atone—and teach the rest of humankind about its mistakes in the process.
At the very least, there should be an attempt to gather up all the solitary killer whales in captivity—that is, from marine parks that own only a single orca—and put them in a more social environment. Kshamenk, the Argentine orca whose sperm was used to inseminate both Kasatka and Takara, is one such lonely whale, swimming in Mundo Marino, a marine park outside Buenos Aires. Lolita lives alone in the Miami Seaquarium; Kiska in Marineland in Ontario. The sizes of their tanks are constricting. The conditions under which these solitary whales live are sickening—and all for greed.
I once thought sea pens were not the way to go, but more and more I hear discussions that conclude that such structures are indeed feasible. Certainly the expertise to care for the whales exists. Most if not all of the employees now in charge of the orcas could continue to look after the whales in these enormous open water sanctuaries.
They would no longer be performer-whales. The current Shamu Stadium spectacles have no educational content; anything informative is miniscule in comparison to the glitter that increasingly hogs the limelight. There is no dignity to the shows.
I would stop the artificial insemination program. I want this to be the last generation of orcas in captivity. SeaWorld and other marine parks can help the rest of the planet learn this lesson—and make some profit in the process of improving the lives of their surviving captive whales. And as the years go on, the company can formulate new ways to make a business out of truly educating the public about marine life and the real lives of orcas, born free and living free.
Will SeaWorld do this? Even after the company announced the expansion of the orcas’ habitat—what would appear to be a major concession to years of criticism—CEO Jim Atchison said, “We are not apologizing for what we do or how we do it.”
Atchison claimed that the pool expansion plans predated Blackfish. I don’t see how that is possible. For five years at SeaWorld of Texas, we tried to get the corporation to allow us to build one more small back pool so the whales didn’t have to spend so much time in the 8 foot deep med pool. That would have given Texas nearly the same amount of water volume as the California and Florida parks. We were repeatedly denied.
The corporation is clearly putting a Wall Street–friendly façade over what has turned out to be bad judgment—the decision to fight popular opinion over the treatment of captive orcas. The fact that SeaWorld is now a publicly traded company means that it has other pressures to contend with. It must show a profit every quarter otherwise its most important audience—the stockholders—will divest themselves of their shares in search of more satisfying investments. Looking at it through that prism, the decision to expand the pools is good public and investor relations and probably a strategic move to prevent a bigger drop in admissions to the parks. It was just as important for Atchison to maintain that its policies were never wrong. That strategy backfired as SeaWorld stock continued to fall. On December 11, 2014, Atchison announced he was stepping down.
I cannot be optimistic about change coming from the top at SeaWorld. I suspect that someone in upper management is already planning to expand SeaWorld’s operations overseas—perhaps, including sales of calves to new marine parks in Russia, China and the Middle East. Indeed, in an
SEC filing prior to its IPO, SeaWorld declared that it was looking for “potential joint venture opportunities that would allow us to expand internationally by combining our brands and zoological and operational expertise with third-party capital.” I worry about the news of orcas once again being captured in the wild by the Russians—and a new market for killer whales and an expanded gene pool.
Already, SeaWorld is enmeshed in a controversy over the young female orca Morgan in Loro Parque. Morgan was ill and rescued by the Dutch, who nursed her back to health. By law, she was to be returned to the wild. But because the aquarium holding her claimed at the time that they had problems identifying her pod, she wound up in SeaWorld’s Spanish affiliate. Now, animal rights activists are fighting to free her even as SeaWorld has listed her as one of the orcas the corporation owns. Dr. Ingrid Visser says, “It is unclear how her ownership was transferred to SeaWorld.” She has spent the last four years fighting court battles for Morgan in association with the Free Morgan Foundation. “Morgan was the first new blood to come into the captivity industry in nearly two decades,” says Dr. Visser. “That made her possibly the most valuable orca held in a tank at that time.” According to Dr. Visser, SeaWorld has since been trying to breed Morgan with Keto, the male orca who killed Alexis Martinez. Any offspring that Morgan produces will be owned by SeaWorld, says Dr. Visser, “clearly illustrating why they were so desperate to gain ownership; that it wasn’t about rescuing her, it was all about her breeding value.” In the meantime, Morgan’s residence at Loro Parque has not been peaceful. Dr. Visser says she recorded more than 320 puncture and bite marks on the young whale after only seven months at the Spanish affiliate of SeaWorld.
I foresee SeaWorld expanding overseas, where it would no longer be beholden to pressure from US legislators and public opinion. The premise of the company—to make money off the façade of conservation—has not changed from the 1960s and 1970s. And, if Americans learn to see through the terminology—“conservation through education”; “raising awareness for the species”; “in the care of man”—then there will be fresh audiences overseas who may still buy into the mythology.
It is intriguing that SeaWorld is being taken to task by some of its stockholders. In a lawsuit, the Rosen Law Firm alleged that the company had failed to make clear in its SEC filing to register its IPO that it had “improperly cared for and mistreated” its orcas; featured and bred Tilikum; and “consequently created material uncertainties and risks existing at the time of the IPO that could adversely impact attendance at its family oriented parks.” The lawsuit specifically claims that the company “made material false statements” when it denied the allegations made in Blackfish. (At the time of writing, SeaWorld declined to comment on the lawsuit.)
If SeaWorld had a visionary leader, he or she would realize that the stock downturn was proof of a more critical development in the marketplace: that the potential audience has become savvier about animal rights. SeaWorld can shore up longer-term profits—and public goodwill—if it gets with the new spirit of the times and allies itself with the changing public philosophy. We are all evolving on social issues.
Speaking out against SeaWorld, however, has presented me with a very personal conflict. Some of the SeaWorld officials designated to defend the corporation’s training methods are people I admire and who once were friends and supporters of mine. Kelly Flaherty-Clark always treated me with nothing but kindness. I admire her even though we are now on different sides of the debate over orcas. Her loyalty to SeaWorld did not keep her from testifying at the OSHA hearings that Dawn Brancheau did not break any rules or training protocols during her fatal session with Tilikum. Her testimony directly contradicted that of SeaWorld’s expert witness Jeff Andrews.
When the time came to decide to speak out against SeaWorld, the most difficult hurdle for me was realizing that I would be on the opposite side of Chuck Tompkins, head of Animal Training for SeaWorld. He has always been supportive of my career and I felt as if I would be betraying him. I know he loves the whales. If there was a problem with a whale, he was always ready to help. When the trainers in Texas and I were concerned after Sakari, Takara’s calf, hurt her jaw, Chuck assured us with a plan of action in case the baby orca was still not eating or opening her jaws 48 hours after the incident. He was a great counselor when it came to talking about our relationships with the orcas, warning us never to underestimate them. And when I came out against SeaWorld, he did not join in the vicious attacks on me that came from other officials of the corporation.
If you believe that God gave humankind dominion over all animals, we are entrusted with a huge responsibility. We should not use our power to inflict harm and pain—and profit from it. The battle for the future of SeaWorld’s orcas is part of that debate on the ethics of humankind’s relationship with the other inhabitants of this planet. Television journalist, author and animal rights activist Jane Velez-Mitchell put it this way: “This is the emerging social justice of the 21st century.”
My life and career have evolved through four stages as the job I wanted more than anything else became a kind of grieving for a shattered dream. In the beginning, I was completely naïve: everything about the whales was wonderful even though I couldn’t tell normal from abnormal, or healthy from unhealthy. Proximity to the whales was thrilling and seemed to be all that mattered. Then, I reached the second stage, when I realized that all was not right with SeaWorld; but I was still too low on the totem pole to do anything about it. I was still enthralled with my dream job and in love with the whales; and I believed that the company felt the same way about the whales and me. Then the moment came when I realized all that was false—but still held out hope. I knew the company was not really there for the orcas or me, that it was all about money; but I had become a high-ranking trainer and believed I could battle the wrongs and influence change from within. But I couldn’t. This book is about how I reached the fourth stage: leaving, leaving behind my complex relationships with the orcas, abandoning my identity. I had always seen myself as a killer whale trainer—until I could not. All trainers are at one stage or another. I am in the final stage of grief over my career.
What am I today now that I have left SeaWorld? When I began this part of my life’s journey, I was wary about being labeled an activist because I didn’t want to be seen as the kind of radical animal rights agitator that SeaWorld loathed. Those feelings were reinforced when I teamed up with the people making Blackfish. During the promotion of the film, there was a conscious effort by the crew to make sure it was not labeled an “activist” film. We had huge and necessary support from the animal rights community, but being categorized as “activist” would work into SeaWorld’s strategy of discrediting its critics as unreasonable radicals from the fringe. SeaWorld has always argued that the constituents of those views hurt the animals they claim to be trying to help.
The “activist = radical” tag provokes such immediate, unthinking reactions among my former colleagues at SeaWorld that, after what I thought was a sedate interview on Real Time with Bill Maher in July 2013, a number of them accused me of crossing over and becoming “a radicalized extremist.” You would have thought I was a 9/11 hijacker if you had heard the tone of our conversations.
How would I choose to describe myself then? I don’t really see myself as the man with the megaphone, though I’m glad there are people who do that. I see myself as speaking on behalf of those who have no voice themselves, who cannot speak for themselves: the whales. The perfect word is “advocate.” There is still a lot of work to be done to change laws and win hearts and minds.
Former trainers and colleagues turned animal rights advocates John Jett and Jeff Ventre, along with former SeaWorld trainers Carol Ray and Samantha Berg, have formed the website Voice of the Orcas, which is an invaluable resource for information and insight about what’s happening in the marine park industry. I’d like to help as well, counseling active trainers harboring doubts about wha
t to do with their careers and how to deal with doubts that may have arisen through the years about the work they are doing. I want to be their advocate too.
I’ve been interviewed so many times about the whales that my answers are almost automatic. But one question stopped me. It was the ninth in a list of 13 emailed to me for a story in the United Kingdom. “If you knew then what you know now, would you do it again?” It would take me three weeks to be able to answer with clarity.
I valued my years with those whales. I loved the orcas. If I didn’t have the career I had, I would never have been able to help expose the industry for what it is. I would never have been able to have the hands-on, first-person proof of just how intelligent, just how remarkable the whales truly are and, at the same time, realize how incredibly inadequate our efforts have been to give them everything they need to be able to thrive and be healthy in captivity.
A simple “no” would mean I was abandoning my dreams—and abandoning those whales. The memories are priceless. But if saying “no” means that these whales could have been free, that they would never have had to live a life in captivity in SeaWorld, then the answer is “No, I wouldn’t have done it.”
One big tough question I get asked a lot is: What do you say now to the kids who idolize you and want to be you when they grow up? Should they still have the same dream? What does the boy who grew up to get his dream job as an orca trainer tell another kid with the same dream today?
When I was in Texas in the final period of my career, a mother and daughter used to come to see me. The young girl was just like me: she wanted to see the Shamu show all the time. They would stay after to ask a lot of questions, just like I had done when I was a kid. The girl wanted to be a killer whale trainer as fast as she could—and she and her mother were willing to do whatever they needed to make that happen. She was probably 11 when she first started asking questions. And because her commitment to her dream reminded me so much of myself, I didn’t hesitate to give them all the encouragement and advice that I could. I became their favorite trainer and they would come to the park to watch me do shows and take photographs of me at work. It was a genuine friendship.
Beneath the Surface: Killer Whales, SeaWorld, and the Truth Beyond Blackfish Page 23
