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[Coaster]

Hi everyone, long time no talk. I'm on Thanksgiving break, finally with a little bit of time to sit down and catch up on my favorite SDC website. I'm posting this here because it has to do with all the Seaworld parks, not just the movie. There are reports that Seaworld's attendance has actually dropped since the release of this documentary, and that does not surprise me at all.

One night at school I caught the middle and towards the end of the Blackfish documentary, a movie about the treatment of killer whales in the Seaworld parks. It sparked my interest and I wanted to watch the rest so my girlfriend and I rented the movie and watched it from the beginning to the end. Let me just say, it is eye opening! As someone who has been to all three Seaworld parks and loved every visit, I found it shocking the things that the company has hidden from both the public, and its trainers.

After watching the movie, I have come to the opinion that Seaworld could still make a great profit by opening sea pens, out in the ocean for their orcas to be viewed and marveled at. I feel a killer whale is just much too powerful of a creature to be kept in a concrete tank after watching this documentary, I guess I was naive. Opening sea pens would allow both the company to continue to make a profit, but also allow a killer whale to live its life in an ocean environment. I feel this especially needs to be done for the whales who have lived their life "in the business."

Anyway, if you haven't seen this documentary, I HIGHLY recommend renting it and spending an evening watching it. If you have seen it, please post your comments, thoughts, and opinions here. I'd love to hear them.

[chittlins]

I haven't watched this yet but I take documentaries with a grain of salt these days. I've seen some hatchet jobs on tracking and other things that are touted as truth and it's nothing close.

[History Buff]

A grain of salt indeed.  I was at SeaWorld, this summer, and the crowds were not scarce.  All shows were full, and all lines were long.  I, too, have now been to all three parks, but I enjoyed the parks more in '84 and '93 than this summer.  The shows have transformed to Cirque-style, and there is very little interaction between the trainer-hosts and the audience or the animals.  These days, the whales and dolphins perform to loud music with videos playing on screens upstage.  Trainers are only there for feeding/rewards.  Between dolphin jumps, trapeze artists and high divers perform, with no animals in the performance areas.

[Coaster]

I did take some of it with a grain of salt. They presented their side, with nothing in the documentary coming form Seaworld's point of view saying they just refused to be interviewed. But regardless, I do believe orcas are much too powerful of a creature to be kept in those tanks. It doesn't seem right anymore.

[misskim]

While I believe Sea World does some wonderful ocean rescue things, after watching this documentary I don't think we'll be going back. I feel the orcas just really should not be kept in captivity and that Sea World seems to be thinking of their profit rather than the animals when it comes to orcas.

[Gilligan]

I watched a few minutes of it on CNN, but not really understanding what it was.  It seemed like every time I turned on the tv, there it was, and I would skip over it.  I wish now I had watched the whole thing. 

[chittlins]

Like I've figured, it's a bunch of edited to the hilt hooey that's full of half truths, lies and nonsense that's been seized  upon those that would like no animal in captivity. CNN is especially hypocritical in promoting and profiting off this propaganda piece being how they are big sponsors of the aquarium in Atlanta where you can do a combo tour of the two joints. Oh, that Aquarium has Belugas in captivity. Sad to see Sea World having to  see entertainers cancel concerts because of the horde of social media activists bombarding artists' websites and pages.

Now someone that's in the credits speaks out.

http://micechat.com/53915-blackfish-exposed/

[rubedugans]

I watched it on NetFlix, and like any documentary, I knew going in that there was going to be a side exposed that isn't necessarily the mainstream school of thought.

It DID bring up the deaths that were glazed over by a majority of the media, and I am not okay with that one. I dis not want to go before the movie ( I was forced to go by the family while in San Diego, and of my 1 1/2 wks in California, this was the low point. It has nothing to do with PETA, and all that Jazz, I just found no interest in the place.

[History Buff]

Just to mention it:  the Budweiser people also operate Grant's Farm in/near St. Louis.

[Swoosh]

SeaWorld is owned by Merlin not A-B.  The parks were sold off when InBev bought A-B.  AB-InBev ran the park for 2 years and then sold them off.  Merlin runs the parks (and Busch Gardens) under the marketing "Sea World Adventure Parks" but they are still in the Merlin portfolio much like Legoland, Sea Life, Madame Tussauds, the Dungeons, and the London Eye (and soon to be Orlando Eye)

[chittlins]

SeaWorld is owned by Merlin not A-B.  The parks were sold off when InBev bought A-B.  AB-InBev ran the park for 2 years and then sold them off.  Merlin runs the parks (and Busch Gardens) under the marketing "Sea World Adventure Parks" but they are still in the Merlin portfolio much like Legoland, Sea Life, Madame Tussauds, the Dungeons, and the London Eye (and soon to be Orlando Eye)

They took Sea World/Busch Gardens public with an IPO. While it's not mentioned in that film, one of the "experts" in that film believe that animals should share the same rights as humans. As for the trainers, they took a career path with dangerous animals and that entails inherant risks associated with it. It's no different than being a crop duster. Your job can kill you.

[Swoosh]

Same rights as humans? So you mean they have to work to have food... um, yeah, that's what they're doing. *rolling eyes*

IF PETA got their way and all of the animals were set free, they would die within months.  These crazies just don't get it.

[History Buff]

I did not know that, Swoosh.  Interesting.  I just had this image of PETA taking on the Clydesdales.  That would make for an interesting Super Bowl commercial!

[chittlins]

I read this:

The neurologist who features prominently in the film, Dr. Lori Marino of Emery University, is Science Director for the Nonhuman Rights Project, a fact not disclosed in the film. This organization's mission statement is "to change the common law status of at least some nonhuman animals from mere "things,"which lack the capacity to possess any legal right, to "persons," who possess such fundamental rights as bodily integrity and bodily liberty, and those other legal rights to which evolving standards of morality, scientific discovery, and human experience entitle them."

[Junior]

What absolute BS. Some folk don't have things better to do than that? I'm not for mistreating an animal, but animals with rights like people?
C-R-A-Z-Y!