what do u think of seaworld

[gone fishin]

I believe it does not matter whether SW is driven by money or altruistic motives. They are making changes. However there will always be some that are not satisfied until every animal is back in the wild.

 

[Cu455]

That's exactly what I want to go see an aquarium with no fish. After that I will go to a bar with no beer.

 

[Ztrain]

I believe it does not matter whether SW is driven by money or altruistic motives. They are making changes. However there will always be some that are not satisfied until every animal is back in the wild.

And at that point when the're all back in the wild and there are no public aquariums or the theme parks it will be interesting to see how many conservation efforts survive. When the kids growing up without exposure to these things don't really care about the things they've never seen. Sure we can dredge a new path there for a shipping lane nothing there but water, approved. To most people what you can't see doesn't exist.

I love that through activism they are trying to remove what most peoples first exposure, awareness, and education starts about the creatures they want to protect. Personally never would have been interested in anything aquatic if it wasn't for my experiences as a kid at The Living Seas in EPCOT.

 

[uwiik]

Whether you like it or not, the extinction of certain animals is inevitable. If you wanna stop this from happening, then the whole friggin world will need to enforce one child policy like China so we human can plumet in number from the earth so human don't need to eat as much fish so all the fish in the world can lead a happy wild life...hey better yet, why not take turns and feed our children to the sharks???!!! That will surely keep the sharks happy!! I am all in for conservation and animal rights, but what hardline animal activists are doing is no different than A!-Q43d@...

Without institution like Sea World, zoo, public aquarium, or even home reefkeeper or corals exporter like me catching and keeping animals from the wild (FOR MONEY), there will be no artificial or natural propagation effort to conserve the animals we all love (Once again money being one of the motive). I really cannot stand the hypocrites that lives in Lala land blaming other people for making money, from Orca or other animals in that matter. Stop blackmailing Sea World for you being poor!!

Not long ago nobody know that Acropora can be propagated easily, thanks to 'evil no good doers' reefkeepers who destroys the reef now everybody knows how to breed corals thus preventing the previously inevitable extinction of corals from the earth....Now that Sea World managed to breed the Orcas and made boatload of money from it suddenly everybody brands Sea World as an evil money machine institution that torture Orcas on daily basis for money, please get real and grow some brain, we all live in real world, it's a freakin Orca, alive and breeding, I really fail to see any problem with that!! Compare to how many elephants you contribute to kill everyday so you can have that nice timber floor!!

 

[Zoodiver]

Zoodiver... I respect your position; your profession. We can agree to disagree on what drives their money machine whether altruistic or corporate greed. Either way we are evolving and our understanding of this world is growing. Cirque du Soleil revolutionized the circus and with it the advent of non-animal focused entertainment. I hope SeaWorld can do something of the same. It looks like they are responding to the public's changing attitudes of animal welfare, even if i believe its money driven. They are moving in the right direction and that is a good thing.

I can respect that and I can see why you have the perspective you do.

I guess I stand firm in my thinking because I've sat at the table with the guys in suits who run these mega sized mult-million dollar parks. They talk about money - but it's how to increase ticket sales to do more for the animals and expand the ability to display more to the public.

Talk of a 'natural' marine mammal exhibits has been going on long before social media and Blackfish made protesting parks the 'trendy' thing to do. It started with smaller animals back in the late 80's and early 90's to see exactly what does and doesn't work. Manatees went from concrete to full natural replications of lagoons and water ways with other smaller aquatic animals. Polar bears started getting fresh water streams and salt water pools with snow, ice, dirt and grass mixes. Sea lions got rocks and currents that change direction. About five years ago, I had a lengthy discussion with a marine mammal curatorial staff about the challenges of putting dolphins onto a mixed living reef display with fish, turtles, coral... the whole nine yards.

Progress is always being made, and I think that is something we all can be happy about in the end.

 

[shark2]

I think that every worker at Sea World should have to stand in a cell which is 6 inches wide for 7 days in a row once a year. The point of the six inch wide cell is so there is not enough room to sit or lie down. So thay individual will have to stand.

The workers at Sea World are the equivalent to a corrections officer at a jail. Except the animals did nothing wrong.

 

[KafudaFish]

I think that every worker at Sea World should have to stand in a cell which is 6 inches wide for 7 days in a row once a year. The point of the six inch wide cell is so there is not enough room to sit or lie down. So thay individual will have to stand.

The workers at Sea World are the equivalent to a corrections officer at a jail. Except the animals did nothing wrong.

Sharks are cool. I have 2 swell sharks.

Why do you want to punish a professional when you see nothing wrong with what you are doing?

Why do you keep sharks?

 

[shark2]

?..

 

[shark2]

Why do you want to punish a professional when you see nothing wrong with what you are doing?my sharks live in a resort not a jail cell. If you want you can send me to a resort once a year so I know what it fells like. Its not a punishment for them. Its job training.

Why do you keep sharks?because I want to. What do you have against sharks?

 

[KafudaFish]

So you believe that the workers are punishing the animals by taking care of them to the best of their abilities and you are doing your animals a favor by keeping them in a shark resort?

Are you providing the best care possible for them?

I have nothing against sharks btw nor do I have any issue with a person keeping a shark if he or she has the resources available to do the job correctly.

I am just curious how you reached your decision about punishing the workers.

 

[ChimolaFish]

I don't think the people who work with the animals at sea world have anything other than altruistic intentions. But it's clear that orcas shouldn't be kept alone in extremely small enclosures. The fact that sea world can up and double three enclosures and not go broke, shows they obviously aren't providing the best possible care from the corporate level. But even if they made the attempt, we just can't replicate the complex social structure, as well as the need for the orcas to travel hundreds of miles at a time. We should ban the breeding of orcas, learn what we can from those in captivity, and when they die sea world can continue keeping other animals that do well in captivity.

 

[shark2]

So you believe that the workers are punishing the animals by taking care of them to the best of their abilities and you are doing your animals a favor by keeping them in a shark resort? yes, sometimes someones best isn't good enough

Are you providing the best care possible for them? If by them you mean my swells then no.

I have nothing against sharks btw nor do I have any issue with a person keeping a shark if he or she has the resources available to do the job correctly.

I am just curious how you reached your decision about punishing the workers.I don't know why you keep saying punish. You need to switch it to educate. In the Marines I was water boarded during SERE. It wasn't a punishment but a learning experence.

 

[maoiwowie]

CU455... I dont need to see an Orca waving at me with his fin or jumping high in the air and splashing around for my entertainment. Id rather watch women in hot bathing suits. Save the fish for the natural displays.

 

[Ztrain]

CU455... I dont need to see an Orca waving at me with his fin or jumping high in the air and splashing around for my entertainment. Id rather watch women in hot bathing suits. Save the fish for the natural displays.

Women in bathing suits waving a flipper at you? :eek1:

 

[ReefPharmer]

I dont know why some people are getting the concepts of lack of space and abuse by individual workers confused. There are different types of animal cruelty. I am fairly certain that most will agree that taken any animal and placing it into an enclosure 4x its length isnt something to be supported. If you take a 3 inch yellow tang and place him in a 12 inch tank, most here would flip out and yell about abuse...

I am certain that tangs travel FAR LESS territory than orcas when you take in inch of body length per meter traveled . In other words, if I "should keep" a yellow tang in a 5 foot tank (per http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1946079), an orca should be kept in an area that is close to a football stadium.

I am certain that most workers in SW orca exhibits do their best in training these (or other) animals to behave in a predictable manner (in no small part due to the fact that if they do not get KW to trick or treat, they will be fired and someone else will get their jobs). They do develop relationships if they are training them for long enough. This has nothing to do with the relatively tiny living quarters which are provided for KW.
"Some animals are best left in the wild". We often say that about the large angelfish, tangs, groupers etc. Why is it that its fine to say it here, but its a different story when it comes to animals that are much more intelligent but are able to splash spectators on command?
(ps I enjoyed my visits to zoos and SW as much as the next person but I was less educated on the subject back then).

 

[Luiz Rocha]

"Some animals are best left in the wild". We often say that about the large angelfish, tangs, groupers etc. Why is it that its fine to say it here, but its a different story when it comes to animals that are much more intelligent but are able to splash spectators on command?

Exactly, while I agree that Sea World is a great educational tool, I don't think the orca's habitat come anywhere near what they have in the wild. A reef tank replicates a fish natural habitat in many ways, a pool doesn't.

 

[Zoodiver]

I still see a lot of "I think" or "I feel" they need more space.
It's been proven they thrive how they are. Where is proof otherwise?

 

[shark2]

Has anyone ate whale? Sea World should donate all the whales they kill to the Kurds in Iraq that are sruck on the hill.

 

[billsreef]

Has anyone ate whale? Sea World should donate all the whales they kill to the Kurds in Iraq that are sruck on the hill.

Let's not go down the path of utter nonsense.

 

[shark2]

Let's not go down the path of utter nonsense.

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