{"id":17140,"date":"2015-05-12T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2015-05-12T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/live-hakamagwp.pantheonsite.io\/news\/tanked-killer-whales-captivity"},"modified":"2017-11-08T23:46:05","modified_gmt":"2017-11-08T23:46:05","slug":"tanked-killer-whales-captivity","status":"publish","type":"custom_news","link":"https:\/\/hakaimagazine.com\/news\/tanked-killer-whales-captivity\/","title":{"rendered":"Tanked: Killer Whales in Captivity"},"content":{"rendered":"

Killer whales held in captivity live shorter lives than wild whales, according to a new study<\/a>. This may not be the most surprising scientific finding, but the data adds to the debate over the ethics of keeping captive whales.<\/p>\n

Twenty years ago, scientists published a study<\/a> looking at how well killer whales fare in captivity. They found that before 1995, killer whales in captivity had a 94 percent chance of surviving the next year compared to a 98 percent chance in the wild. Since 2005, that percentage for captive animals has crept up to match the number for wild killer whales.<\/p>\n

In this latest paper, published in Marine Mammal Science<\/em><\/a>, the journal of the Society for Marine Mammalogy<\/a>, researchers found that although captive and wild whales now have the same likelihood of surviving from one year to another, those in tanks haven\u2019t fared as well over the long run. The researchers concluded that only 27 percent of captive killer whales live until they\u2019re 15; in the wild that number is estimated to be around 80 percent<\/a>.<\/p>\n

As the researchers found, not all aquariums are equal. Comparing longevity at American theme parks to similar tourist attractions in Russia and China, the researchers found that killer whales in the United States live roughly eight years longer than the ones held in foreign facilities.<\/p>\n

\u201cI just can\u2019t express enough how important this paper is\u2014to have scientifically robust and up-to-date assessments of the data is invaluable,\u201d says Ingrid Visser, a marine biologist from New Zealand\u2019s Orca Research Trust, an advocacy organization, that was not involved in the study.<\/p>\n

Doug Demaster, science and research director of the Alaska Fisheries Science Center and co-author of the paper published in 1995, says his data, which he updated in 2013 and presented at that year\u2019s Society for Marine Mammalogy meeting<\/a> but hasn\u2019t yet published, supports the paper\u2019s findings. \u201cThey did a real nice job of adapting one of the medical techniques used for looking at survival,\u201d he says. \u201cPeer reviewed publications are the gold standard in our business, so they get a lot of credit for working this up and getting it published.\u201d<\/p>\n

SeaWorld trainers emphasize in their advertising material<\/a> that killer whales live as long in their facilities as in the wild. But this peer-reviewed study challenges that claim, showing that when taking 30 years of data into consideration, that\u2019s not the case. \u201cThere\u2019s something going on in the captive environment\u2014specifically for captive-born whales\u2014that\u2019s notably different than for whales in their natural environment,\u201d says lead author John Jett.<\/p>\n

Jett is a visiting researcher at Stetson University in Texas, but he is also a former trainer at SeaWorld. Jett and the other author who worked on the paper\u2014Jeffrey Ventre<\/a>, a rehabilitation doctor and former chiropractor from Washington State\u2014also both appeared in the 2013 documentary Blackfish<\/em><\/a>, a film critical of theme parks like SeaWorld.<\/p>\n

But their analysis, says Todd Robeck, a reproduction biologist for SeaWorld, is \u201cnot only inaccurate and misleading, it\u2019s inconsistent.\u201d Using the same data sources, Robeck says he can\u2019t replicate the paper’s results. What\u2019s more, he says, is that the paper\u2019s conclusions on how wild killer whales may survive past certain vulnerable ages don\u2019t jibe with the currently available longevity data.<\/p>\n

\u201cI know there\u2019s a fairly large anti-captivity sentiment in a lot of the members of the [Society for Marine Mammalogy], which is fine, but I didn\u2019t think it would spill over into science,\u201d says Robeck. \u201cI assumed it was an objective forum, but I\u2019m questioning that now, which is very disappointing for me from a professional standpoint.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cMy duty as a researcher is to be objective,\u201d says Jett.<\/p>\n

\u201cDo I believe captivity is not a good thing for the animals? Absolutely, and I\u2019ll be the first one to tell you that. But anyone who understands the science will read it and immediately they will recognize that I had no agenda.\u201d<\/p>\n

The debate over captive whales is a complex one, but what this most recent study could do is help researchers better understand what causes killer whale deaths in captivity, says Jett. The detailed survival curves he and Ventre compiled illustrate at which life stages captive killer whales\u2019 health suffers most.<\/p>\n

Separating calves from their mothers, for instance, could increase the chance of the calf dying from stress. Spatial constraints and infections that force caretakers to give killer whales a constant stream of antibiotics could also play a role, he says. Those are factors scientists could investigate further. Hopefully, says Jett, the findings can affect change\u2014or at least better inform decisions.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A new study shows that killer whales kept for show live shorter lives than those that swim free.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":12536,"menu_order":0,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"acf":{"hero_video_url":null,"hero_video_caption":"","deck":"A new study shows that killer whales kept for show live shorter lives than those that swim free.","authors_group":[{"by_group":"by","contributors_group":[15723]}],"word_count_override":"","podbean1":"","podbean2":"","redirect":"","geolocation":null,"related":[16128,16935],"twitterimage":19917,"facebookimage":19917,"twitterdescription":"","edited":"","factchecked":"","code":"","no_old_story_flag":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hakaimagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/17140"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hakaimagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hakaimagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/custom_news"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/hakaimagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/17140\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20749,"href":"https:\/\/hakaimagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/17140\/revisions\/20749"}],"acf:post":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hakaimagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/16935"},{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hakaimagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/features\/16128"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hakaimagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12536"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hakaimagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17140"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hakaimagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17140"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hakaimagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17140"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}