This is Gudrun's story. Gudrun was caught close to the coast of Iceland on 25 October 1976. She spent time at Dolfinarium Harderwijk in the Netherlands until she moved to SeaWorld Orlando in 1987. She is the mother of Taima and Nyar, who both also died young.
Gudrun had perfect markings and an unusually straight dorsal fin for a captive whale so she was used often on the slide-out to let children and trainers sit on her, often while she was heavily pregnant.
Nyar was a sickly baby and often was visibly weak. She did not do well in captivity. During shows Gudrum appeared to try to drown her several times. Her daughter Taima would go on to do this to her own calves as it is speculated she learned the odd behavior from her mother as she watched. Nyar only lived to be 2 years.
Several months before Nyar's death in 1996 Gudrun went into labor again, SeaWorld had bred her before she would have bred again in the wild as it takes a lot out of a mother. She was in labor for 20 hours and was unable to deliver. SeaWorld used a metal hook to remove the dead calf and used a winch to pull it out. This caused internal bleeding inside Gudrun. She died 4 days later.
Gudrun and others like her suffer in captivity. You can help stop it by not attending marine parks and by spreading the word.
~Kimberly Miller
This is Keto's story. Usually when people hear about an orca involved in the death of a human they think of Tilikum, star of Blackfish, but Keto is another that has killed.
Keto has lived a traumatic life, living at every SeaWorld (including Ohio which has since closed). Not only has he lived at those 4 locations but he now lives in Loro Parque in Spain. It is this constant stress of establishing new relationships in the already stressful life in captivity that may have led to his overly dominant and aggresive behavior. Orcas in the wild have never killed a person.
On Christmas Eve 2009 while still swimming with humans despite his known aggression he fatally drowned his trainer, Alexis Martinez, just two months before Tilikum would kill Dawn Brancheau.
It was the fact that Keto was still doing water-work with trainers despite his behavior that lead the authorities to discuss the desirability of these shows with such animals and warn of the lack of ability to fulfill the most important principle of preventive action, the avoidance of risks.
These deaths should serve as a reminder of the damage captivity does to the intelligent brain, and make us question the judgement of keeping these sentient animals for our own selfish entertainment.
(It is of note that Keto has now been put with orca Morgan, in what appears to be an attempt to breed them, despite his aggression and her young age. Humans never do seem to learn)
~Kimberly Miller
