What to do with captive killer whales - bbc online

Killer whales: what to do with captive orcas?

Kalina, the first captive born orca, and her calf

By Matt Walker Editor, Earth News

The recent attack by a captive orca on its trainer at a SeaWorld facility in Orlando, Florida has again raised questions about our relationship with these top predators.
No-one knows what triggered the latest incident, and experts agree that is almost impossible to determine why the orca, called Tilikum, reacted as it did.
But it does highlight the tensions that occur when we choose to interact closely with huge marine predators.
It is also debatable what to do with those orcas that remain in captivity.

The release of Keiko demonstrated that release of long-term captive animals is especially challenging Scientists reporting on attempts to return an orca named Keiko, star of the film Free Willy, back to the wild

"They are highly social animals, that tend to live in cohesive groups, so it's quite an artificial environment to capture them and put them in a small area," says Dr Andrew Foote, an expert on wild orcas from the University of Aberdeen, UK
"The tragic events are a reminder that orcas are wild, strong and often unpredictable animals," says Danny Groves, of the Whale and Dolphin Conservation Society (WDCS).
Wild attacks
Reports differ, but there have been up to 24 attacks by captive orcas on people.
Contrary to popular perception, attacks by wild orcas on people have also been recorded, though no-one has been hurt.
Researcher Chris Pierpoint of the Marine Mammal Observation Association was working in Antarctica when he once subjected to a rather sophisticated, planned attack by a group of orcas.
Wild orcas in the region cooperate to hunt by swimming together towards seals resting on ice flows.

ORCA FACTS There are currently thought to be 42 orcas held in captivity around the world, with at least 10 born there In the wild, killer whales join social clubs where different pods interact Only last year, it was discovered that two different types of killer whale are living off the UK

As they do so, they create a bow wave that washes the hapless seal from the ice and into the water.
"Chris Pierpoint had that done to him when in a rib in Antarctica," says Dr Foote, though he wasn't thrown overboard.
"A famous incidence occurred in the 1960s when a surfer was knocked off his board, but he was fine, the whale didn't bite."
A couple of years ago in Alaska, a child swimming in the sea also described how an orca made a bee-line toward him, before aborting a supposed attack at the last minute.
One idea is that air bubbles in neoprene wetsuits can confuse the echolocation of orcas, so they do not realise that they are approaching a person.
But the scarcity of such attacks underlines the difficulty in pinpointing their cause.
"It's really isolated incidences. Killer whales live in cold water so they don't overlap with people much," says Dr Foote.
Send them home?
What the latest attack by a captive orca reveals is just how little we still know about the animals, in captivity and in the wild.
For example, we are only just glimpsing how intelligent orcas really are and the complexity of their society.
Few insights come from studying captive whales, though some have helped reveal their acoustic behaviour.
"But the science doesn't justify the captivity. One thing I would hope is that this unfortunate incident might lead to a considered discussion on phasing out these marine parks."

So what can or should be done with captive orcas?
One option is to hope that such an incident never happens again, or ensure it cannot by preventing trainers from encroaching too close to the poolside.
Another is to euthanize any whale considered too dangerous to be kept in captivity.
The final option, and that which on the surface appears the most palatable from an animals rights perspective, is to release those whales still in captivity back into the wild.
The WDCS has repeatedly called for captive whales to be returned, not least because captivity appears to drastically reduce their life expectancy.
But that is not as simple as it sounds.
A study published by US and Danish scientists last year in the journal Marine Mammal Science documents the attempts to return a killer whale named Keiko from captivity back to the ocean.
Captured in 1979 as a near two-year-old calf, Keiko found fame as the star of the 1993 family film Free Willy, after which public pressure grew to release him back to the wild.

Keiko at the Oregon Coast Aquarium in Newport in 1998

Training for his reintroduction began in 1996, and after 2000 his trainers began taking him out into the sea on open ocean swims designed to prepare him for a wild life.
But Keiko rarely interacted with wild orcas, and never integrated into a wild pod.
He also struggled to learn how to hunt, making shallower and less frequent dives than wild whales.
Eventually, and despite the best efforts of his trainers, he could not break his need for human contact, and kept following or returning to the trainers' boat.
Keiko eventually died, still semi-captive in 2003.
"The release of Keiko demonstrated that release of long-term captive animals is especially challenging and while we as humans might find it appealing to free a long-term captive animal, the survival and well being of the animal may be severely impacted in doing so," the report's authors write.


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