“Free Willy” Paved the Way to Ending Whale Captivity (Part 2 of 3)
By Hannah Hindley
Hannah Hindley is a naturalist, science writer, and conservationist. She is the recipient of the Barry Lopez Prize in Nonfiction, the Ellen Meloy Desert Writers Award, and the Thomas Wood Award in Journalism, among other honors – see more of her work at hannahhindley.com. She often spends summers among the wild whales in Alaska, working as a wilderness guide.
BLACKFISH
Inside an MRI scanner, vibrating radio waves reveal a hidden world that we could only guess at when Free Willy was filmed. In the years following the movie’s release, scientists have unveiled mesmerizing complexities in the minds of cetaceans.
Humans and orcas both have the same emotional center in our brains, called the limbic system, but orcas have a whole extra lobe connected to their limbic system – suggesting that their emotional capacity and social bonds might be more sophisticated than the human brain can even comprehend. These neurological discoveries aren’t unique to orcas. Dolphins have a third again as many folds in their brain as humans do (the larger the brain’s surface area, the more specialized functions it can support). Belugas have one of the most complex neocortices on Earth – more intricate, even, than that of humans. This is the part of the brain involved in high-level cognition like problem-solving and self-awareness.
We continue to document cases where whales and dolphins save the lives of humans and other animals – acts of altruism across species lines that behavioral scientists still cannot explain.
We continue to document cases where whales and dolphins save the lives of humans and other animals – acts of altruism across species lines that behavioral scientists still cannot explain. We’ve begun to understand the ways that intricate humpback whale songs evolve, the ways that orcas teach dialect to their young, and the ways that sperm whales use distinct sounds, called codas, to identify each other “by name.”
For too long a time, we distinguished ourselves as the only animals to have spindle neurons: structures in the brain that are responsible for high-level communication, adaptive thinking, memory, and perception. We know now that whales, too, have spindle neurons in their brains. And the most compelling connection of all: these specialized neurons are what allow us – humans and whales alike – to love, and also to suffer.
On the tail of these discoveries, twenty years after Free Willy first screened in theaters, the documentary Blackfish took the latest cetacean neuroscience and challenged the idea that these animals should be kept in captivity. We know now that orcas are highly social, staggeringly emotionally evolved animals with brains that can feel suffering similar to ours. And we’ve seen how captivity affects them – ranging from violence (as in the case of Blackfish’s poster child Tilikum, a captive orca at SeaWorld that has drowned three people) to depression.
California passed IMMP-supported legislation banning orca breeding and performances in the state, and eventually, thanks in part to campaign work by IMMP and other organizations, SeaWorld agreed to end all orca breeding and importations at their facilities.
A male orca at SeaWorld, San Diego. Male orcas in captivity virtually always have drooped dorsal fins. Wild orcas seldom show such an aberration. Photo Credit: Mark J. Palmer/EII
If we know these things, wondered the audiences of Blackfish, how can we still allow these enormous sentient beings to be isolated and confined? As with Free Willy, phones rang off the hook. IMMP made presentations at screenings of Blackfish, urging the audience to take action to help captive whales and dolphins.
Change came slowly, but now the term “Blackfish Effect” is used to describe the disastrous impact well-made media can have on the indomitable powers that be. Blackfish was accompanied by action. SeaWorld’s stocks collapsed, audiences pressured Southwest Airlines to null their 25-year partnership with the amusement park, and SeaWorld was forced to pay $65 million for lying to investors about the impact Blackfish had on its finances. Former SeaWorld trainers continued to assail the company for their inhumane practices. California passed IMMP-supported legislation banning orca breeding and performances in the state, and eventually, thanks in part to campaign work by IMMP and other organizations, SeaWorld agreed to end all orca breeding and importations at their facilities.
Still, orcas perform at their parks. At SeaWorld’s three US parks alone, 18 orcas – whose lives, at least in the wild, can be as long as 80 years – remain in concrete tanks. These whales suffer from stress, boredom, abnormal and aggressive behaviors, compromised health and premature death, yet SeaWorld refuses to allow for retirement of any of the orcas they hold in captivity.
Globally, there are at least 50 orcas in captivity.
SeaWorld argues that releasing animals that have spent so long in captivity would be a death sentence (Keiko died of pneumonia five years after his return to his home waters in Iceland), despite evidence that retiring captive orcas to seaside sanctuaries would greatly increase their quality of life and longevity. With every passing day it becomes more clear that SeaWorld’s motivation is to derive the maximum profit from exploiting orcas and dolphins for the rest of their lives.
Globally, there are at least 50 orcas in captivity, and more continue to be bred and captured, although a coalition of international organizations and grassroots Russian groups, coordinated by IMMP staff, has temporarily blocked captures of wild orcas in the Sea of Okhotsk, the only recent area where orcas have been trapped for captivity. In the face of worldwide outrage at the mass captures, the Russian government released ten orcas and 87 beluga whales, from temporary holding pens in the notorious Whale Jail, back to their ocean home – they’d been captured to be sold to aquariums in China. More than 300 belugas are kept still captive, and over 1000 bottlenose dolphins. All told, over 3000 cetaceans live in captivity now, across all species.
Tilikum, a male orca, was involved in the deaths of three people. His story was central to the shocking documentary, Blackfish. He died in 2017 at SeaWorld Orlando. Photo Credit: Mark J. Palmer/EII
Three thousand minds; three thousand caged bodies. We know too much about the interior lives and intellect of these animals for this to stand. All cetaceans deserve freedom.
When the jet plane transporting Keiko, the orca star of Free Willy, touched down in Iceland all those years ago, Dave Phillips looked out the window. Dawn was rising, and as the plane descended, he could see, lining the hills below, hundreds of children standing in the first light, holding up signs that read “welcome home.” Triumph – and hope, too – were palpable in the early morning air.
Keiko was the first captive orca whale to be released back into wild waters. What will history say of us, if he remains the only one?
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Hear Dave Phillips’ discussion of Keiko with BBC Radio.
(To Be Continued)
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There are many ways you can help. Write letters to members of Congress in support of the SWIMS Act, for example (more on this in July, when we expect the SWIMS Act to be reintroduced). You can pledge not to go to aquariums and other facilities that hold captive whales and dolphins. And you can donate to the International Marine Mammal Project to help stop the capture, killing and harassment of these magnificent beings globally. Thank you!
