Orcas In the Wild—Free!

Flying Orca

I just found this photo from Ms.OpRoar on Twitter. It led me to an amazing article in The Daily Mail, Look Out, He’s Behind You! Eight-Ton Orca Leaps 15ft Into the Air to Finally Capture Dolphin He Wanted for Dinner After Two-Hour Chase. Given the attack is on a dolphin, this must be a pod of transient whales; residents don’t prey on dolphins. But the main thing is that I had no idea that Orcas could jump that far out of the water. It’s an amazing counter example to the captive animals we keep at places like SeaWorld.

For more, see my article on the great documentary Blackflish. You really should see the documentary if you haven’t already. We need to get SeaWorld and the similar parks closed down. What we are doing to these animals is nothing short of torture. In the future, we will see this captivity for what it is: slavery. I am so disgusted. The least any of us can do is to boycott these parks.

Let me just quote one bit from my article:

There is a lot of emotional content in Blackfish. I jumped out of my seat a couple of times. But there is also a lot of information. For example, despite the claims of SeaWorld, Orca in the wild live to be about 50 on average. But they can live to be 90 years old. In captivity, they usually die by the age of 25. The film put me through the wringer, but I can’t recommend it more highly.

It is so beautiful and heartening to see these beautiful, intelligent creatures living free the way they were born to. I still feel sorry for that poor bottlenose dolphin, but at least it was allowed to live its life free, and not as a trained circus freak. I fear I am becoming radicalized. But how can you not when you see great pictures like this one that show how wild Ocras live. Click over to see a lot more.

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