For years, the Sea World debate has been going on between animal rights advocates and Sea World themselves.
Rumors were being spread that Sea World was not only abusing their animals, but they capturing animals that did not need help, according to Yahoo News.
I have been to Sea World and beyond the excitement and beauty the whales and dolphins display I had my suspicions about the acts the animals were being forced to do.
In 2013, a documentary titled ”Blackfish” was released, which exposed Sea World for holding orca whales in captivity and not releasing them. This endangered species should not be held in a small place jumping up and down to food thrown at them. They need to be released in order to help bring their population up.
I see the importance of having the whales available to the public so that we can admire them but the people in the crowd are too mesmerized to see the animals are being treated poorly for financial gain. Sea World claims they use the money for research and protection of the animals yet the orca whales are still kept in small tanks. Recently, Sea World has posted ad campaigns to prove the accusations are wrong but it has done little help as more people have done their own research and expressed their opinions on Sea World. This has not only affected their name but also their revenue, which dropped by three percent this year, according to Yahoo News.
In order to gain back supporters, they have created a website called AskSeaWorld.com, but as expected, it was just an outlet for people to further their negative commentary about Sea World. Even one of Sea World’s former whale trainers, John Hargrove spoke out about the horrible treatment of the whales he witnessed. ‘
“The way it works is you keep your mouth shut,” Hargrove said.
It was brave of him to write a book and speak out, but like all scandals, it will end with bargaining and spectacle. Big businesses, such as Sea World, fool people into thinking that it is just an innocent establishment but behind the scenes, money is being shuffled around and people are getting rich off of it.
