Many of the people who visit SeaWorld usually go for the performances that the marine animals perform every day. Animals like orcas and dolphins deliver amazing stunts like jumping out of the water, doing flips, and most of all, they allow their instructors to stand on either their noses or backs. What the crowd doesn’t think about is: how do the trainers get them to learn and perform their stunts on demand?

Gabriela Cowperthwaite, a director, writer and producer, had interviewed previous employees/trainers who had worked at SeaWorld, about the animals’ living conditions. Also, she collected shocking footage of the creatures’ treatment while held in confinement, and thus created Blackfish. Blackfish is a documentary exposing the hard truth on marine wildlife in captivity all throughout the eleven theme parks located across the United States.

Although SeaWorld contains marine animals of all kinds of species, Blackfish mainly focuses on the killer whales, or orcas. Because of their large size, you would expect them to live in a wide enough body of water to swim and move freely, but sadly, that’s not the case.

The orcas live constantly under a roofed space that acts like a bath tub for them. They don’t receive sunlight, and they are sealed away from any contact. The only times they are allowed to at least swim or communicate with other orcas, is when they are forced to practice for their performances.

SeaWorld unnaturally takes animals that are used to living with thousands of miles of ocean range around them, to stay put in a bathtub. Also, during their training, SeaWorld’s trainers use techniques, like underfeeding and violence by other whales, to learn their performance routines.

In addition, the time the whales spend an absurd amount of time training and practicing, which equals to most of their day; this is done in water that is so shallow (up to 40 feet deep) that they cannot find any shade to protect themselves from the hot, glistening sun. As a result, the whales can’t help but get sunburned. The thing is, the audience can’t see their sunburns, so the employees cover them up with black zinc oxide, since it matches the darkness of their skin.

The following examples of how SeaWorld mistreats their marine animals isn’t included in Blackfish film.

An even harsher result of being held in captivity, is the common fact that a vast majority of the male orcas that reside at SeaWorld happen to have collapsed dorsal fins. According to Dictionary.com, dorsal fins are the integumentary expansion generally developed on the back of aquatic vertebrates. It is very rare to find an animal in their natural habitat to have a collapsed or bent dorsal fin. As stated in, marinelife.com, a male’s dorsal fin isn’t supported by bone, but by a connective, fibrous tissue called collagen. Because they swim about one-hundred miles per day, the strides of the water provide enough pressure to the fin to keep it strong, healthy, and most of all, straight. Basically, it is almost impossible for an orca’s dorsal fin to collapse, or become bent, like they do when held in captivity.

According to seaworldofhurt.com, which is a very popular website promoting the freedom of marine wildlife, the USDA (United States Department of Agriculture) “conducted an investigation and cited the marine park for several violations of the Animal Welfare Act, including the use of expired surgical materials, some almost a decade old. The USDA also documented that a dolphin tank and the areas surrounding the orca performance tank were in disrepair and contained cracked and crumbling concrete and rusty beams that could pose a threat to the health and safety of both the animals and workers.”

Imagine being stripped away from your home to live in a bathtub where you aren’t able to feel the tides of the ocean brush against your skin, or taste the natural sense and freedom of the ocean. SeaWorld has the money, and power to give these animals a bigger home, or send them to the appropriate sanctuaries. Nonetheless, the park chooses to ignore the safety of the animals, and stick with the same cruel, merciless methods they have used for the past 50 years.

SeaWorld has proven that they are incapable of being trusted to provide care for marine wildlife.