Why Is Tilikum To Blame?

Director, writer, and producer, Gabriella Cowperthwaite, in her documentary, Blackfish, describes the shameless hunting and treatment of killer whales. Cowperthwaite’s purpose is to persuade us into opening our eyes to the reality of what we are doing to killer whales by confining them in captivity. She invents an emotionally wrenching tone in order to transmit to the adult viewers that living in captivity may not be acceptable life for the whales. The film effectively showed that the whales should not be kept in captivity by giving the audience examples of their signs of aggression and displays of emotion.

Whale talk, a book about a teen named tj, who struggled with family values and friends. With a little courage, and an oddball group of kids on a swim team, they learn that if you keep on going, you can and will succeed. Chris crutcher, the author of this book, is a special writer. The reason i say that is due to the fact that, he writes his books using examples of modern day themes and situations. Crutcher wrote whale talk around a few themes/messages that he wanted to pursue, and one of the messages was that if you have perseverance, you will keep on going no matter what situation you are in, and that is exactly what crutcher showed in his book, whale talk.

Famous Orca whales such as Tilikum and Shamu were not magically acquired out of thin air. In fact, SeaWorld bought Tilikum from Sealand even though he killed his trainer, but before that Tilikum was captured after being forcefully separated from his family. Shamu was also captured in the wild, separated from its family, and shipped thousands of miles away to SeaWorld. These Orca whales are not kindly taken from their families. Humans cannot speak their language, so the capturers could not ask the family for permission to take the calf. During the capture of both Tilikum and Shamu, they were almost inseparable from their families; the capturers had to use a net to forcibly separate them. Even when the net was lowered to release the family, they did not leave the calf, instead the whales exchanged long, high-pitched squeals, whistles, and screams, that the capturers recalled as sounds of grief. In the documentary “Blackfish”, Lori Marino, neuroscientist, states,”They’ve got a part of the brain humans don’t have. A part of their brain has extended out right adjacent to their limbic system, the system that processes emotions.” This supports the claim that Orca whales bond with each other with another level of emotion. Unlike a shark, a mother Orca whale will stay with her child until she dies, very similar to human behavior. For years,

Orcas are majestic, beautiful creatures who do not deserve to be confined to tanks that to humans are like bathtubs. The reason orcas are called killer whales is because they are not animals to be messed with. There should be no human interaction that will cause and orca to feel stressed or threatened. Just like humans, orcas have the ability to feel pain when they are separated from their families. Throughout the years aquatic centers have used orcas as entertainment, but in reality orca captivity has taken a toll on the mental and physical health of these animals as well as endangering their human trainers.

The main purpose of Blackfish is to answer why a captured whale would become so aggressive and turn on its trainers. To answer this Cowperthwaite frames the documentary around Tilikum by interviewing experts in the field such as Lori Marino (Director of Science with Non-human Rights Program), and former SeaWorld trainers, such as John Hardgrove who recall capturing young orca 's, like Tilikum, away from their families and placing them into solitary confinement. One of the most emotionally gripping parts of the film is a heartbreaking

Killer whales were initially captured in the 1960s, when a female orca was captured and put into a tank. Two days into the female orca's stay she repeatedly bashed her head against her tank wall and perished the following day. Unfortunately, people did not heed or take any precautions from this traumatic incident and since then killer whales all over the world have been captured for entertainment purposes and have been stored in facilities such as SeaWorld. From these types of facilities incidents continue to happen such as killer whales killing their trainers, killing themselves, dying due to medical conditions, and more. Continuous accidents such as these have caused suspicion among the public of whether killer whales live healthy and prosperous lives in captivity and brings up the concern of ethicality.

Tituba was slave of Reverend Samuel Parris, Reverend Parris called a doctor to examine his daughter and his niece and the doctor told him that the girls were “victims of witchcraft”. Tituba was later accused of being a witch, she was one of the first three women to be accused. Tituba was from an island in the caribbean called Barbados, Reverend Parris purchased Tituba on the Island. Many people thought that Tituba was a Native American because of her skin color. Her skin color can also be the reason why she was accused of being a witch, some may say that Tituba was used a scapegoat. Because she was a black slave, she couldn’t do anything to prove her innocence, she had no rights. In the passage the author states that, “She also said she was

Although, Killer Whales in captivity go under psychological stress which creates psychotic behaviour. “Most small cetaceans are naturally active, playful and have a complex social structures. When tasked with entertaining tourists all day, with nowhere to escape, cetaceans often become bored, frustrated and aggressive” (Wild vs. Captivity). These wild animals are not meant to entertain humans and be locked in a closure. They need free range and not small enclosures. Killer whales have no choice but to perform all day. “In his first home, Sealand in British Columbia, he was trained with other whales using punishment: if he mess up a trick, they’d all have their food withheld” (Lewis Helen). Other killer whales began a strong dislike at this and would scratch them with their teeth so hard he would bleed. They are forced to do tricks for people and they get frustrated because there enclosures are nothing compared to the wild. The unnatural conditions stresses the killer whales out. The attacks on the trainers are due to stress in animals forced into miserable, unnatural conditions. These enclosure are nothing like the wild and the different sounds in the enclosures can affect the whales.”There concrete enclosures also reflect sounds, so a poorly designed enclosure can make artificial noises. Echolocation is rarely used, as a tank offers no novelties or challenges to explore” (Wild vs. Captivity). Killer Whales should swim up to 100 miles a day in the wild. But in their tanks, they would need to swim 1, 208 laps (3,105 lengths back and forth) to get that

In October of 2014, Bill Nye, of “Science Guy” fame, spoke at Lewis & Clark College as part of the Speaker Series sponsored by Campus Activities Board (CAB), President Glassner, and Dean Gonzalez. The advertisement for the events announced that Nye would “talk about his early history, the importance of science education, and “[inspire] others to change the world through it.” Expectations were incredibly high; Nye did not live up to them. His talk lacked a clear purpose and was hard to follow at points. Still, many students left the event reasonably satisfied with the talk.

“A long time ago, my ancestor Paikea came to this place on the back of a whale. Since then, in every generation of my family, the first born son has carried his name and become the leader of our tribe... until now” (Caro & Sanders, 2003). Whale Rider is the story of a girl, Pai, whose twin brother and mother die in child birth. Koro, Pai’s grandfather and leader of the Maori tribe, is devastated that their future leader has died. Years later Koro is determined to find a leader and begins to teach and train the boys, in which Pai is not allowed to join because she is a girl. In a final test Koro throws a sacred whale tooth in the ocean but the boys cannot retrieve it. Later, Pai dives for the tooth and is successful, proving her right as leader.

The documentary film Blackfish, by Gabriela Cowperthwaite, is a daring venture, which claims that orcas in captivity become dangerous to human beings, as well as to other orcas. Cowperthwaite points to SeaWorld, in particular, since this world-renowned tourist attraction has had many examples that support her claim. In producing this film, Cowperthwaite hopes to bring about an end to SeaWorld’s practice of using killer whales as performance animals since the limited environment is ultimately doing more harm than good for both the whales and their trainers. The purpose of this rhetorical analysis will be to determine whether Blackfish offers a compelling argument.

Tilikum was a killer whale in every definition to the word. According to the documentary Tilikum was a very depressed killer whale. While at sealand of the pacific Tilikum grew very aggressive due to horrible living conditions. Tilikum grew very aggressive due to horrible living conditions. Tilikum was confined to a twenty by thirty foot tanked at night. In this tank Tilikum had two females’ roommates, in this extremely small tank Tilikum was abused by the two females killer whales. Which lead Tilikum to have a psychosis. Witnesses say that that he was the main instigator in the died of Keltie Byrne was Tilikum. These is the behavior that SeaWorld ignored and fail to tell the trainers.

Territories border a specific species’ personal space, the Orinus orca is no stranger to this as any other living thing. What makes the whale’s reputation “killer” is its compliance to territories. Killer whales are innocent, but immature. Their actions prove them to be “killer” as witnesses say, but do they really think on the Orinus orca’s perception of the situations of violence they are involved in? Killer whale’s do what any other wild animal does, and when captive it is no surprise they would do the same. Orinus orcas are playful, misunderstood creatures that do not deserve their reputation as killer for an ocean of reasons.

Tilikum is well known for killing his trainer at SeaWorld Orlando in 2010. When Tilikum died, SeaWorld said it was ‘deeply saddened’ by the killer whale’s death, saying Tilikum had suffered serious health issues but did not give any cause of death. Tilikum was estimated to be 36 years old, and assumed to be born in the waters off from Iceland. The famous orca was featured in the documentary Blackfish, which criticized animal parks that keep killer whales in captivity. Tilikum’s trainer Dawn Brancheau died after Tilikum dragged her underwater by her hair and repeatedly struck her, whilst she was performing with him in the water. When investigated, the reports showed that Brancheau died from drowning and traumatic injuries. The killer whale had

“In we go girls” Nani Flowers says, standing up gesturing over at the village women. I move to go with them, but she turns and holds me down.