1 00:00:00,200 --> 00:00:08,359 Bunge County, say rescue, uh sixty six hundred Harbor Drive okay, SeaWorld 2 00:00:08,400 --> 00:00:12,240 my fourteenth okay, and where's the patient located inside? They are at Shamboo 3 00:00:12,359 --> 00:00:16,640 Stadium. She actually have a trainer in the water with one of our whales, 4 00:00:17,399 --> 00:00:19,800 the whale that they're not supposed to be in the water with. Okay, 5 00:00:20,320 --> 00:00:23,280 So we don't know what's going on. We were just told to call 6 00:00:23,320 --> 00:00:26,320 and have people in here on standby when they get the person out. Okay. 7 00:00:26,359 --> 00:00:29,640 And do you know if so, you don't know if the person if 8 00:00:29,640 --> 00:00:33,240 they're having a medical problem, no idea, Okay, very well, I 9 00:00:33,240 --> 00:00:35,640 don't even think they're out of the water yet. They're still in there with 10 00:00:35,719 --> 00:00:40,399 the whale, so okay, but someone is un seen and they are getting 11 00:00:40,479 --> 00:00:42,960 them out of the water. Now. There are people working on it, 12 00:00:43,039 --> 00:00:47,479 yes, about two three people over there right now. All right, we'll 13 00:00:47,520 --> 00:00:50,880 get somebody in round. Okay. They're gate number three to Shamoo Stadium, 14 00:00:51,320 --> 00:00:55,600 Gate three, G three, right, got it? Okay, thank you, 15 00:00:55,719 --> 00:01:15,719 thank you. Bye. Welcome to episode fifty three of Get It Alive, 16 00:01:15,799 --> 00:01:19,719 a podcast where me your host, Ashley, every other week tells you 17 00:01:19,760 --> 00:01:23,040 a new animal tech story and I'm your other host, Nick, and I 18 00:01:23,040 --> 00:01:26,079 have a feeling we're gonna be very mad in this episode, more so than 19 00:01:26,159 --> 00:01:27,719 usual for sure. What's the same a lot because we get angry a lot 20 00:01:29,280 --> 00:01:32,560 we do, and hopefully, well not hopefully you all will get angry as 21 00:01:32,560 --> 00:01:34,319 well. If you're listening to this podcast, you're one of us, and 22 00:01:34,359 --> 00:01:37,680 you're gonna be mad about it. I think, no matter where you are 23 00:01:37,719 --> 00:01:42,280 on the animal love spectrum, it's upsetting this want to get the kind of 24 00:01:42,319 --> 00:01:45,319 hits some nerves like in certain areas, regardless of how you feel about it, 25 00:01:45,359 --> 00:01:48,799 you know. So before we even get into it, I'm going to 26 00:01:48,840 --> 00:01:53,480 give a warning right at the top for this is a content warning for animal 27 00:01:53,519 --> 00:01:57,840 abuse and suffering, miscarriage, eating disorders, and incest. Every time I 28 00:01:57,879 --> 00:02:01,280 think I know what's going to happen episode, you pull out some wild shit. 29 00:02:02,200 --> 00:02:06,359 Yeah we we We've had a lot of fucked up episodes. The concept 30 00:02:06,359 --> 00:02:07,840 warning really needed, Like we talked about people dying on a regular basis, 31 00:02:07,879 --> 00:02:12,360 Like I don't think we need to worry about an abortion or whatever. Miss 32 00:02:12,360 --> 00:02:16,159 First all, miscarriage is different from abortion, somewhat similar idea, but once 33 00:02:16,199 --> 00:02:21,680 intentional one's not so this is probably gonna be one of our more intense episodes 34 00:02:21,680 --> 00:02:25,599 in terms of depressing content. Once again, we talked about people dying, 35 00:02:25,599 --> 00:02:29,360 oh almost every episode. I don't think this is going to be that much 36 00:02:29,400 --> 00:02:31,199 worse. I want to make it super clear though, that we're going to 37 00:02:31,240 --> 00:02:35,360 talk about some fucked up stuff. So if you're not mentally in a space 38 00:02:35,360 --> 00:02:38,120 where that's the thing you want to listen to, maybe move along to a 39 00:02:38,120 --> 00:02:43,360 different episode or a different different podcasts, probably for an out, please come 40 00:02:43,400 --> 00:02:46,639 back. So I do want to say before we get started, Nick and 41 00:02:46,680 --> 00:02:51,280 I released a bonus episode last week on our exclusive Patreon feed, so you 42 00:02:51,319 --> 00:02:53,199 can become patron of ours at patreon dot com. Slash get At a live 43 00:02:53,240 --> 00:02:58,080 podcast, and we watched Blackfish together and it was my first time. That 44 00:02:58,159 --> 00:03:00,439 was fun. Yeah, so that was our prep for this episodisode. So 45 00:03:00,960 --> 00:03:02,199 maybe listen to that one first, or you can listen to it after. 46 00:03:02,199 --> 00:03:06,520 I guess it really doesn't matter, but also watch Blackfish if you want more 47 00:03:06,560 --> 00:03:08,919 information after this episode on what we're gonna be talking about, which is a 48 00:03:08,919 --> 00:03:14,159 lot about SeaWorld. Yeah, it was. It was a different bonus episode 49 00:03:14,159 --> 00:03:16,159 for sure. We kind of watched it and talked along as we as we 50 00:03:16,159 --> 00:03:19,159 were watching it. So if you like to watch along with us, go 51 00:03:19,199 --> 00:03:22,599 ahead. And it's on Amazon Prime, yeah, yep, and a bunch 52 00:03:22,599 --> 00:03:23,840 of other places you can find it. Just google it. I think I 53 00:03:23,879 --> 00:03:28,159 think we had a list that I named off when in the episode. Yep. 54 00:03:28,759 --> 00:03:30,800 Yeah, so check that out if you would like to become a patron, 55 00:03:30,879 --> 00:03:34,639 or if you want to just like more. There's more bonus episodes with 56 00:03:34,759 --> 00:03:38,039 Nick and I. We released at least one every month, but yeah, 57 00:03:38,159 --> 00:03:42,199 I want to get started as soon as possible because for normal episodes, just 58 00:03:42,240 --> 00:03:46,360 for context, maybe I'll have like six pages of notes, and for this 59 00:03:46,400 --> 00:03:49,400 episode, I have twelve. You were texting me like day by day with 60 00:03:49,479 --> 00:03:52,360 more and more pages, and we were supposed to record. Yeah, we're 61 00:03:52,360 --> 00:03:54,120 supposed to record yesterday. We ended up not and then you text me last 62 00:03:54,199 --> 00:03:57,599 night with saying you had more pages of notes. It was like I thought 63 00:03:57,599 --> 00:03:59,639 you were done, Like what the fuck are we doing here? I could 64 00:03:59,639 --> 00:04:02,000 go on for hours, guys. This is this is like almost like a 65 00:04:02,080 --> 00:04:06,400 cult, like captive Orcas. People who like them and people who do not 66 00:04:06,599 --> 00:04:10,639 like them. It feels like a cult. People are really into it. 67 00:04:10,719 --> 00:04:14,360 I feel like i've I'm now part of those people. I know the whales 68 00:04:14,400 --> 00:04:16,959 by name, I know their lineage like it is. It's been an experience, 69 00:04:17,519 --> 00:04:21,560 so I want to think right off the bat. Laura Knight who suggested 70 00:04:21,600 --> 00:04:26,000 I read the book Beneath the Surface by John Hargrove, who is a previous 71 00:04:26,000 --> 00:04:30,319 senior ORCHA trainer at SeaWorld. I listened to the audiobook and then bought the 72 00:04:30,319 --> 00:04:33,240 physical book. I have it with me right now. I it consumed me. 73 00:04:33,360 --> 00:04:36,199 I loved it so much. It's a great book. Highly recommend it 74 00:04:36,199 --> 00:04:41,000 in a lot of the information we're going to talk about today is from that, 75 00:04:41,120 --> 00:04:46,360 supplemented with some study like scientific studies online. But I just want to 76 00:04:46,399 --> 00:04:51,959 make clear at the offset I am using information from this book Beneath the Surface, 77 00:04:53,480 --> 00:05:00,000 or from articles online like other nonprofits nat GEO scientific articles. Everything else. 78 00:05:00,000 --> 00:05:02,319 This is Nick and I's opinion, So SeaWorld don't come for us, 79 00:05:02,639 --> 00:05:05,879 and everything I say is opinion and not fact. Let's just get that out 80 00:05:06,160 --> 00:05:12,399 right now. Do not take anything I says as gospel. Yes, there's 81 00:05:12,480 --> 00:05:15,600 nothing in this that I am making up. It's all from somewhere else. 82 00:05:15,639 --> 00:05:16,959 So I just want to throw that out there because SeaWorld is a really bitchy 83 00:05:17,120 --> 00:05:21,519 organization in my opinion, so don't come for us. Yeah, I imagine 84 00:05:23,000 --> 00:05:26,759 a lot of people would agree with you. Perfect. I also want to 85 00:05:26,800 --> 00:05:30,319 give a shout out to at Amelco A M. E. L. Ceo 86 00:05:30,720 --> 00:05:34,519 I believe on Instagram who suggested Orcus to us as well, and they specifically 87 00:05:34,519 --> 00:05:39,360 mentioned the whale Tillicom And they also suggested the book Orca by Jason Colby. 88 00:05:39,800 --> 00:05:45,519 And they also set me an article on Orcas about Orca infanticide, which I 89 00:05:45,560 --> 00:05:47,800 didn't have time to include in this episode. It's if you don't know what 90 00:05:47,920 --> 00:05:54,839 fantaside is, it's them killing other baby orcas interesting. So yeah, so 91 00:05:54,879 --> 00:05:56,920 we're not going to touch on that. But that's the thing that has now 92 00:05:56,959 --> 00:06:01,079 been recorded in Nature, which is horrifying post birth abortion, so murder, 93 00:06:01,920 --> 00:06:11,639 yeah, Nick, No, Nick, it's like male whales killing babies so 94 00:06:11,879 --> 00:06:14,319 typically so they could mate with the females. Does that happened to like a 95 00:06:14,360 --> 00:06:17,160 lot of animals though, don't bears do that? Yeah? Everything I know 96 00:06:17,319 --> 00:06:20,639 is refers back to bears, so yeah, classic. No, it's the 97 00:06:20,680 --> 00:06:25,360 first time it's been recorded in Orcas though. Oh no, shit, Yeah, 98 00:06:25,519 --> 00:06:29,439 so anyways, thank you both for suggesting that I haven't read the book 99 00:06:29,560 --> 00:06:30,879 Orca. But once again, I read the book Beneath the Surface. We'll 100 00:06:30,879 --> 00:06:33,639 add it to our book club on our website, and I'll also link to 101 00:06:33,680 --> 00:06:41,319 it in our episode description. Let's dive right in pun intended. I'm so 102 00:06:41,439 --> 00:06:46,720 ready. I'm going to start with quoting Sea World's website. So according to 103 00:06:46,759 --> 00:06:48,120 their website. Also, I'm not going to link to their website in our 104 00:06:48,480 --> 00:06:51,600 episode description. If you care to know more about them as an organization, 105 00:06:51,639 --> 00:06:54,920 look them up. You can probably learn about the whales, at least not 106 00:06:54,920 --> 00:06:56,839 as much as you would think. They do not have a lot on them 107 00:06:56,959 --> 00:07:00,759 really. Yeah, they have like little icons you can click that just say 108 00:07:00,800 --> 00:07:02,839 like one little fact about the whale. But they do not divulge a lot 109 00:07:02,879 --> 00:07:06,360 about their whales. Oh I wonder why? Yeah. Crazy. So, 110 00:07:06,480 --> 00:07:13,120 according to SeaWorld's website quote, SeaWorld's legacy of animal rescue spans more than fifty 111 00:07:13,199 --> 00:07:16,560 years. In that time, SeaWorld's animal rescue teams have helped rescue more than 112 00:07:16,879 --> 00:07:20,839 forty thousand, sick, injured, and orphaned animals in need. Our teams 113 00:07:20,839 --> 00:07:25,480 are on call twenty four to seven three sixty five, partnering with multiple government 114 00:07:25,519 --> 00:07:30,639 agencies, conservationists, stranding networks, zoological facilities, and others to rescue and 115 00:07:30,680 --> 00:07:33,920 help animals in need of care, always with the goal of rehabilitating them and 116 00:07:34,000 --> 00:07:38,920 returning them to the wild end. Quote, so a lot of that could 117 00:07:38,959 --> 00:07:42,720 be true, Like there's like an oil splur for stuff. I know SeaWorld 118 00:07:42,759 --> 00:07:45,600 is always like a big part of the cleanup and the rescue of the animals. 119 00:07:45,600 --> 00:07:46,879 So a lot of that could be true. Forty thousand animals a lot 120 00:07:47,000 --> 00:07:50,959 Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm not taking away from some good they 121 00:07:51,040 --> 00:07:54,639 have done, exactly. Yeah. I want to want to try and give 122 00:07:54,639 --> 00:07:57,680 them, give them the profits that they deserve when they deserve it. That 123 00:07:57,720 --> 00:07:59,959 way, can probably rip them when they when they deserve to be ripped. 124 00:08:00,040 --> 00:08:03,560 I have two more quotes from their website that will tie into everything we're going 125 00:08:03,600 --> 00:08:09,079 to talk about. So the next quote is quote, our company actively supports 126 00:08:09,120 --> 00:08:13,800 global conservation initiatives by providing financial and scientific support to organizations focused on animal rescue 127 00:08:13,800 --> 00:08:20,439 and rehabilitation, conservation education, habitat protection, and species research. Additionally, 128 00:08:20,480 --> 00:08:24,240 the SeaWorld in Bush Gardens Conservation Fund has donated more than sixteen point five million, 129 00:08:24,639 --> 00:08:30,319 supporting over one thy two hundred animal conservation projects on all seven continents across 130 00:08:30,319 --> 00:08:35,000 the globe, including coral refrustoration, preventing coastal erosion, habitat protection, and 131 00:08:35,039 --> 00:08:41,320 simply keeping our oceans clean. End quote nice a lead of business. And 132 00:08:41,399 --> 00:08:43,639 the next quote quote First of all, there's a type on this. I'm 133 00:08:43,639 --> 00:08:46,919 just going to read it as they wrote it, so if it sounds weird, 134 00:08:46,960 --> 00:08:50,919 it's because they wrote it that way. Quote. SeaWorld help found and 135 00:08:50,000 --> 00:08:56,639 continues to support the Killer Whale Research and Conservation Program KWRCP, led by the 136 00:08:56,720 --> 00:09:01,240 National Fish and Wildlife Foundation NFWF. Part of the KWRCP is part of c 137 00:09:01,399 --> 00:09:07,159 World's ten million dollar pledge to fund research and conservation for killer whales in the 138 00:09:07,200 --> 00:09:11,279 wild, the largest private commitment of its kind. Oh. The KWRCP focuses 139 00:09:11,320 --> 00:09:16,759 on three strategies, increasing prey availability, improving habitat quality, and strengthening management 140 00:09:16,759 --> 00:09:22,039 through crucial research. End quote. That's good. I'm sure there's not conflict 141 00:09:22,039 --> 00:09:24,519 of interest. There were. The biggest private donor towards Orca whales is the 142 00:09:24,600 --> 00:09:30,440 exact people stealing orca wheels from the wild. It's not a problem at all. 143 00:09:33,279 --> 00:09:37,320 So yeah, just keep all that in mind as we keep going. 144 00:09:37,639 --> 00:09:41,279 Yeah, that's what they state on their website. You know. You know 145 00:09:41,320 --> 00:09:45,600 what's funny about that about having a typo in there. I guarantee lawyers wrote 146 00:09:45,600 --> 00:09:48,120 that, Like you'd think that lawyers will be able to go through that and 147 00:09:48,960 --> 00:09:52,519 realize they fucked up. Yeah, just missing one letter and helps stupid or 148 00:09:52,559 --> 00:09:56,320 helped. Yeah. So I'm gonna start with a big announcement, one that 149 00:09:56,399 --> 00:10:01,600 really surprised me as as doing research on this, and that I don't think 150 00:10:01,639 --> 00:10:03,039 many people talk about it at least. I mean, also, this is 151 00:10:03,039 --> 00:10:09,000 like the first I've really delved into the whole captive orca world and you're now 152 00:10:09,000 --> 00:10:13,000 an expert. It feels that way you have done so much research on this 153 00:10:13,039 --> 00:10:16,679 shit, like you are well beyond the normal scale of knowledge on this oh 154 00:10:16,720 --> 00:10:20,159 easily. Yeah, yeah, yeah for sure. So in twenty sixteen, 155 00:10:20,440 --> 00:10:24,759 SeaWorld announced that they were ending their orca breeding program, which means that the 156 00:10:24,919 --> 00:10:30,840 orcas in SeaWorld today are the last generation of killer whales that SeaWorld will ever 157 00:10:30,960 --> 00:10:35,120 own. Oh that's good, So it sounds really cool, right. Yeah. 158 00:10:35,360 --> 00:10:37,559 However, they're quick to point out that quote the public can still see 159 00:10:37,559 --> 00:10:41,360 their whales for decades to come because they are such a long lived species. 160 00:10:41,679 --> 00:10:46,919 That is true. Well, they're supposed to be. In the right circumstances, 161 00:10:46,919 --> 00:10:50,240 they should live a while, like in the wild. Yeah, okay. 162 00:10:50,840 --> 00:10:54,159 So as of March twenty twenty three, there are at least fifty four 163 00:10:54,360 --> 00:10:58,639 orcas in captivity or like around the world, not just in SeaWorld facilities, 164 00:10:58,480 --> 00:11:03,279 and twenty five of those were captured from the wild and twenty nine were born 165 00:11:03,279 --> 00:11:09,679 in captivity. Since nineteen sixty one, one hundred and sixty six orcas have 166 00:11:09,759 --> 00:11:11,879 been taken from the wild, and one hundred and thirty one of those are 167 00:11:11,919 --> 00:11:16,559 now dead. Jesus one hundred Yeah, one hundred and seventy four orcas have 168 00:11:16,600 --> 00:11:22,039 died in captivity, not including numerous miscarried or stillborn cabs. Wow. Wow, 169 00:11:22,159 --> 00:11:26,559 So you said they live for a while, So I'm sure they're capturing 170 00:11:26,600 --> 00:11:31,679 adults when they capture them. So then they're obviously dying like at their normal 171 00:11:31,720 --> 00:11:35,120 age, right, because they should still be alive after sixty years. So 172 00:11:35,720 --> 00:11:39,240 we'll get we'll get into it. There's so much to unpack here. So 173 00:11:41,039 --> 00:11:45,960 the way in which they got their wild orcas is also very sinister, as 174 00:11:46,000 --> 00:11:50,360 you could probably fucking imagine watch Blackfish. Yeah, it's it's really, there's 175 00:11:50,360 --> 00:11:54,159 footage. It's a bit fucked. There's an incredible amount of footage out there 176 00:11:54,159 --> 00:12:00,360 of everything that's the world does, including capturing wild orcas, slash killing wild 177 00:12:00,480 --> 00:12:03,720 orcas for profit accidentally. Okay, let's not just like make them up the 178 00:12:03,759 --> 00:12:07,720 evil they're accidentally murdering the baby's mothers. Not always now, now we'll get 179 00:12:07,759 --> 00:12:11,440 into it. Yeah, and it's also not just SeaWorld doing this. I 180 00:12:11,480 --> 00:12:16,320 will add, like, there are plenty of other people out there part of 181 00:12:16,320 --> 00:12:20,200 that tragedy. So yeah, but we'll touch on that a minute. They 182 00:12:20,559 --> 00:12:24,759 chase the wild orcas with boats and helicopters and then use typically like back in 183 00:12:24,759 --> 00:12:28,879 the day when they were doing it, using nets to separate the whales, 184 00:12:28,480 --> 00:12:33,720 and some orcas would drown in those nets, and the men trying to catch 185 00:12:33,759 --> 00:12:37,159 them would tie rocks to their fins so the bodies would sync essentially hiding the 186 00:12:37,159 --> 00:12:41,519 evidence of their crimes. Because it was not super legal at the time of 187 00:12:41,559 --> 00:12:43,399 them doing this. I don't think it's super legal now, is it. 188 00:12:43,480 --> 00:12:48,519 Oh, it's especially not legal now because the marine Mammal Protection Act was passed 189 00:12:48,519 --> 00:12:52,279 in nineteen seventy two, but for years after that, like at least four 190 00:12:52,360 --> 00:12:56,159 years, SeaWorld was still taking orcs from the wild until they were caught in 191 00:12:56,200 --> 00:13:01,799 a public scandal basically when people realized that they were explosives to scare the orcas 192 00:13:01,919 --> 00:13:07,000 into nets for captured, and they've since been banned from taking orcas in the 193 00:13:07,120 --> 00:13:11,360 Pacific Northwest. I wonder like what people think where, like where the whales 194 00:13:11,399 --> 00:13:15,840 came from? You know, like I don't I don't know what my thoughts 195 00:13:15,879 --> 00:13:20,000 were before watching Black Blackfish, right before all the scannals came out about SeaWorld, 196 00:13:20,000 --> 00:13:22,799 because it's kind of happened through our childhood that we kind of learned SeaWorld 197 00:13:22,799 --> 00:13:26,399 as shit. So I wonder like what the public thought, like where these 198 00:13:26,440 --> 00:13:30,720 whales are coming from? I think there were rescue animals that were like genuinely 199 00:13:30,720 --> 00:13:35,039 injured in nets and stuff like accidentally was that the thought? And that's that's 200 00:13:35,080 --> 00:13:37,279 probably how it's well, that's not probably how it started. We're going to 201 00:13:37,320 --> 00:13:39,120 touch on that in a second. It is, but to be fully transparent, 202 00:13:39,200 --> 00:13:43,159 Nick and I both visited SeaWorld once in our lifetimes. We were both 203 00:13:43,279 --> 00:13:46,960 children. But I, even as a child who loved animals, I did 204 00:13:46,960 --> 00:13:50,039 not think of that. No, I mean like I also didn't enjoy SeaWorld. 205 00:13:50,080 --> 00:13:52,080 I got attacked by mosquitoes and had to go infirm or it was a 206 00:13:52,120 --> 00:13:56,759 bad dath really broke out like it was bad. It was bad fucking SeaWorld 207 00:13:56,879 --> 00:13:58,519 so wild. Also broke my nose on that trip. It was a wild 208 00:13:58,639 --> 00:14:01,840 fak To be fair, it's not SeaWorld's fault that the mosquitoes tried to kill 209 00:14:01,840 --> 00:14:05,080 you. No, I'm gonna blame them anyway. Sure, it's also not 210 00:14:05,080 --> 00:14:07,399 their fault that broke my nose on a toilet seat that night. But like, 211 00:14:07,399 --> 00:14:13,080 I'm still gonna blame them. Oh, that's so funny, because't look 212 00:14:13,120 --> 00:14:20,240 at it happens all right anyways. SeaWorld now has eighteen orcas in the company's 213 00:14:20,279 --> 00:14:26,120 possession. Currently, the youngest orc at SeaWorld that I could find is Camea, 214 00:14:26,559 --> 00:14:30,399 an eight year old female that lives in San Antonio, Texas. Previously, 215 00:14:30,440 --> 00:14:33,639 the youngest whale was Amaya in San Diego, but she died quote from 216 00:14:33,679 --> 00:14:37,759 an illness in twenty twenty one. And how old was she Amayah when she 217 00:14:37,840 --> 00:14:41,320 died, was God, I think like six, Oh god, that's that 218 00:14:41,360 --> 00:14:46,600 even fully grown for an orca. No, no, Jesus, No, 219 00:14:46,720 --> 00:14:50,480 that's immature. Yep. Oh God. They don't imagture or they don't sexually 220 00:14:50,519 --> 00:14:52,919 mature until they're like in their teens. Yeah. No, I mean they, 221 00:14:54,000 --> 00:14:56,240 like you said, they live forever, so like, yeah, it 222 00:14:56,279 --> 00:14:58,919 takes time for this shit to happen. Yeah, think of it like a 223 00:14:58,000 --> 00:15:03,240 human lifespan. That's basically we're going to get into it. That's a whole 224 00:15:03,360 --> 00:15:07,120 other topic. There's so much to cover here. Okay, that's going so 225 00:15:07,279 --> 00:15:09,120 in the book Beneath the Surface with John Hargrove, the one that I'm using 226 00:15:09,159 --> 00:15:13,879 for a lot of this, he pointed out that SeaWorld in past years had 227 00:15:13,919 --> 00:15:18,600 plans to sell their orc calves to other countries, including Russia and China, 228 00:15:18,000 --> 00:15:24,360 who still capture orcas from the wild to put into marine parks. And this 229 00:15:24,679 --> 00:15:28,360 is something I'm not going to talk about for a long time because it's incredibly 230 00:15:28,399 --> 00:15:33,679 depressing and for the sake of time. But there are these people, I 231 00:15:33,720 --> 00:15:37,600 guess that we can call them a group of people called the Taji dolphin hunters. 232 00:15:37,639 --> 00:15:43,960 I'm probably mispronouncing that because it's a Japanese word. But every six months 233 00:15:43,639 --> 00:15:50,720 they capture and or kill a few hundred cetaceans, So like dolphins, whales 234 00:15:50,799 --> 00:15:54,960 porpoises each year for either their meat or for captivity, but many of them 235 00:15:56,000 --> 00:16:02,679 die from like the stress of attempting to be captured. And I also want 236 00:16:02,720 --> 00:16:06,559 to point out that a lot of these dolphins captured, or whales or whatever, 237 00:16:06,960 --> 00:16:11,519 but specifically the dolphins are the ones who are captured for captivity are sold 238 00:16:11,559 --> 00:16:15,360 into tourists swim with dolphin attractions. So I just want people to think of 239 00:16:15,399 --> 00:16:19,440 that before you go on vacation swim with a dolphin, think of how they 240 00:16:19,480 --> 00:16:26,279 got there, because it's probably incredibly dramatic and that's true awful. Yeah, 241 00:16:26,360 --> 00:16:27,440 and let's not go back in the archives and call me out. I have 242 00:16:27,519 --> 00:16:30,320 said that I would love to do a swim swim with the dolphins thing in 243 00:16:30,320 --> 00:16:33,679 the past on this podcast before, so call me out for you'd like I 244 00:16:34,080 --> 00:16:37,120 can, except that was wrong. I think I thought I was wrong at 245 00:16:37,120 --> 00:16:40,120 the time, and so I still want to do Yeah, yeah, I 246 00:16:40,159 --> 00:16:42,399 mean Nick and I will be fully transparent. After watching Blackfish, I was 247 00:16:42,399 --> 00:16:45,759 like, yo, swimming with an orca looks so cool. It's dope. 248 00:16:45,879 --> 00:16:48,440 It's so dope, no cool with a job that is like no wonder. 249 00:16:48,480 --> 00:16:51,919 These people go along with it, like I fuck, I get it. 250 00:16:52,000 --> 00:16:53,679 They look so cool doing it, But now that I know more about it, 251 00:16:53,720 --> 00:16:56,519 I'm like, you couldn't be me. They're all fit, like they're 252 00:16:56,600 --> 00:16:59,840 they're all hot, and they're all putting on a performance like dude, good 253 00:16:59,840 --> 00:17:02,320 for you guys. It's fucking dope. Yeah. The reason I mean, 254 00:17:02,360 --> 00:17:03,919 first of all, I don't want to be killed by an orca, but 255 00:17:03,960 --> 00:17:07,720 second, like the physicality pass, I couldn't be me. No, I 256 00:17:07,759 --> 00:17:10,599 mean, they were like full blown gennas like they are. They're legit. 257 00:17:10,920 --> 00:17:15,720 You gotta be if you're if you are like surfing on a killer whale and 258 00:17:15,759 --> 00:17:18,519 being shot into the air by one, Yeah, you gotta be pretty fucking 259 00:17:18,519 --> 00:17:21,559 fit. Yeah, oh yeah, I could do it, Okay, stooped 260 00:17:21,559 --> 00:17:26,039 cannonballs off the nose of a fucking whale the splashmal whalers from me, You 261 00:17:26,119 --> 00:17:37,480 have no idea. And I'm not even going to get into the infamous killer 262 00:17:37,519 --> 00:17:41,559 whale who was captured recently, well in recent times, Morgan. Have you 263 00:17:41,599 --> 00:17:45,279 heard of her? Morgan the killer Whale? No, not at all. 264 00:17:45,759 --> 00:17:51,559 God, So she was rescued from the wild by Dutch people because she was 265 00:17:51,640 --> 00:17:53,920 seen to be like either she was beached ors like, there was some indication 266 00:17:55,039 --> 00:17:59,200 that she wasn't doing well like legitimately in the wild. So she was supposed 267 00:17:59,240 --> 00:18:03,359 to be rehab and then released back to her pod according to the laws there, 268 00:18:03,079 --> 00:18:10,279 but instead they conveniently claimed that they had trouble identifying her pod. So 269 00:18:10,359 --> 00:18:17,079 she was given to SeaWorld and sent to their park in Spain and has since 270 00:18:17,319 --> 00:18:21,720 been bred with a whale that we're going to talk about later. And they 271 00:18:22,200 --> 00:18:26,400 it's a huge controversy because they were like, obviously SeaWorld just wanted new blood 272 00:18:26,480 --> 00:18:32,960 basically from the wild, and she was super valuable. So they are keeping 273 00:18:33,000 --> 00:18:37,920 her. And there is this entire organization called Free Morgan dot org which I 274 00:18:37,960 --> 00:18:41,359 will link in the episode description that is fighting for her to be released. 275 00:18:41,359 --> 00:18:44,920 But she is still in captivity to this day and it's been like ten years. 276 00:18:45,240 --> 00:18:48,160 I don't see how that's legal. I don't know how the fuck they 277 00:18:48,160 --> 00:18:51,759 got that through the courts. That's insane. Yeah, and there's some records 278 00:18:51,759 --> 00:18:55,039 online saying like yep, nope, the way that SeaWorld got her was completely 279 00:18:55,119 --> 00:18:59,720 legal, but it seems so sketchy. Oh wait, what would the require 280 00:18:59,759 --> 00:19:03,799 them to positively identify her pod? Be like with something out that like literally 281 00:19:03,880 --> 00:19:07,160 have eyes on them at all times until from the moment they get hurt until 282 00:19:07,160 --> 00:19:10,279 the moment they put them back, like you lose sight of them for twenty 283 00:19:10,279 --> 00:19:12,400 minutes, Like they can go anywhere. And there's multiple pods of whales, 284 00:19:12,440 --> 00:19:15,960 like obviously you can't identify the exact one, but like, let the bitch 285 00:19:15,960 --> 00:19:22,400 out, let her go find them herself. What jesus? Yeah, I 286 00:19:22,400 --> 00:19:25,200 know they're acting as if she like wouldn't be able to, like even if 287 00:19:25,200 --> 00:19:27,279 she was in the vicinity of them, contact them somehow, like they have 288 00:19:27,400 --> 00:19:33,200 long range communication. It's so dumb. Yeah, I know, it's a 289 00:19:33,240 --> 00:19:38,440 really terrible excuse. So, speaking of that, how did SeaWorld obtain their 290 00:19:38,519 --> 00:19:41,799 orcas in the first place. So we talked a little bit about how they 291 00:19:41,960 --> 00:19:45,319 used to capture them in the wild, But now let's go back to the 292 00:19:45,359 --> 00:19:51,039 beginning. SeaWorld was first founded in nineteen sixty five, and their first star 293 00:19:52,200 --> 00:19:57,000 was and still is, the infamous Shamoo. Homie. Shamoo was the first 294 00:19:57,039 --> 00:20:03,720 killer whale we know to be inten captured for captivity. And there's three others 295 00:20:03,720 --> 00:20:07,319 that had been on displaying captivity, but they had been caught in nets accidentally 296 00:20:07,440 --> 00:20:08,519 or had been injured or ill in some way like kind of like we were 297 00:20:08,519 --> 00:20:12,720 talking about like they were legitimately rehab cases because humans fucked with them somehow and 298 00:20:12,759 --> 00:20:15,640 they were gonna die. Some people fix them but couldn't release them for whatever 299 00:20:15,640 --> 00:20:18,839 reason. And then Shamou, they were like, be cool, if we 300 00:20:18,880 --> 00:20:21,880 had that, we we'll keep this one. Now, this one's smart, 301 00:20:21,880 --> 00:20:23,519 We'll keep this one. Make money off that one. So she had actually 302 00:20:23,559 --> 00:20:29,119 been caught to be a companion for a male captive orcan named Namu. So 303 00:20:29,240 --> 00:20:33,160 Shamu's name literally just meant friend of Namu, Shamou Namo. This is how 304 00:20:33,160 --> 00:20:37,000 they do all their their show whales that like, all the females are Shamo 305 00:20:37,000 --> 00:20:41,480 and all the males are Namu, like whenever whenever they're performing, like that's 306 00:20:41,519 --> 00:20:44,039 the name of that they go by. I don't think, well, usually 307 00:20:44,039 --> 00:20:48,640 the public doesn't really know the names of the orcs when they're performing from what 308 00:20:48,680 --> 00:20:51,559 I could ascertain from the book, But basically they were like, yeah, 309 00:20:51,559 --> 00:20:55,079 every whales related to Shamo in some way, which isn't They'll probably say their 310 00:20:55,119 --> 00:20:56,960 name the beginning of the show, like, oh, this is so and 311 00:20:56,039 --> 00:21:00,960 so, and they just kind of keep moving. Shamu's great great Graham maybe 312 00:21:00,160 --> 00:21:03,759 yeah, sure, yeah, yeah. Anyways, some asshole named Ted Griffin 313 00:21:03,799 --> 00:21:07,799 owned an aquarium way back in the day and had a dream of swimming with 314 00:21:07,960 --> 00:21:12,880 orcas, and he is the one that owned Namu, and he was responsible 315 00:21:12,880 --> 00:21:17,920 for Namu's capture from the wild while Namu's family tried to free him from the 316 00:21:17,960 --> 00:21:22,000 net that he was stuck in. So basically, Namu got stuck in a 317 00:21:22,000 --> 00:21:26,400 fishing net and they shipped him off to captivity even though his family was actively 318 00:21:26,400 --> 00:21:29,759 trying to like get him out of the net. He didn't get stuck. 319 00:21:29,799 --> 00:21:33,519 They hunted him down and captured him in a net. Right, Yeah, 320 00:21:33,559 --> 00:21:36,599 that's your opinion. But was it a wrong opinion? Who's to say? 321 00:21:36,680 --> 00:21:38,720 Well, you just said that he was he was responsible for cap capturing him, 322 00:21:38,759 --> 00:21:41,480 right, I think he was responsible for putting him in captivity. It's 323 00:21:41,480 --> 00:21:47,599 like a little unclear because Shamu was quote the first one intentionally caught. Okay, 324 00:21:47,880 --> 00:21:49,160 you know what I mean. It's like one of those Yeah, yep. 325 00:21:51,119 --> 00:21:53,799 So Shamu herself was caught off the waters of the Puget Sound in Washington 326 00:21:53,839 --> 00:21:59,519 in October of nineteen sixty five when she was just three years old, fourteen 327 00:21:59,559 --> 00:22:06,319 feet long and two thousand pounds. Damn. Her mother had been harpooned to 328 00:22:06,440 --> 00:22:12,400 make it easier to catch her because the smaller whales aka the like children whales, 329 00:22:12,680 --> 00:22:15,839 were cheaper to transport, so they were the ones that were targeted. 330 00:22:17,160 --> 00:22:21,880 Makes sense, And Shamou stayed with her mother's body for as long as she 331 00:22:21,920 --> 00:22:26,480 could before she was ripped away by the humans. That's so sad. That's 332 00:22:26,519 --> 00:22:30,960 so fucking sad. She was sold to Ted Griffin for eighty k eighty thousand 333 00:22:30,000 --> 00:22:33,640 dollars for a whale? Is that a lot or not a lot? I 334 00:22:33,640 --> 00:22:36,680 can't understand by a reaction. Really, it's nothing like I I mean, 335 00:22:36,759 --> 00:22:40,160 obviously all the cost is in the care of it, but still like that 336 00:22:40,279 --> 00:22:41,599 is insane? Can we buy one? First of all, that was in 337 00:22:41,640 --> 00:22:45,200 the sixties, so I don't know what the relation movie. Also, you 338 00:22:45,279 --> 00:22:48,400 have learned nothing already. We're like twenty minutes and no, you can't have 339 00:22:48,440 --> 00:22:49,799 a fucking way. I mean no, no, no, no, no, 340 00:22:49,799 --> 00:22:52,519 no, no, you're not seeing my point. We could save the 341 00:22:52,559 --> 00:22:57,799 whale after we spoke it, Nick, I think there's this organization that you 342 00:22:57,839 --> 00:23:02,680 should work for. Is a Peter talk about it after? No? Opposite. 343 00:23:03,519 --> 00:23:07,279 So, despite Ted's plan to make Namu and Shamou besties, they did 344 00:23:07,279 --> 00:23:14,000 not get along and that's why she was sold to SeaWorld in California. But 345 00:23:14,279 --> 00:23:18,039 Namu himself did not live long in captivity anyways. He was in captivity for 346 00:23:18,200 --> 00:23:23,039 less than a year before he contracted a bacterial infection and continually rammed his head 347 00:23:23,319 --> 00:23:27,359 against the side of his tank until he drowned. Oh no, we commit 348 00:23:27,400 --> 00:23:32,200 suicide kind of. Some people are like, I think his bacterial infection made 349 00:23:32,279 --> 00:23:34,880 him go crazy basically, but also who's to say what happened there. So 350 00:23:36,039 --> 00:23:38,359 Shamu was used in shows in parks, and it was the main thing that 351 00:23:38,400 --> 00:23:44,519 attracted people to SeaWorld because everyone wanted to see this performing orca of course, 352 00:23:44,680 --> 00:23:49,119 yes makes sense until April of nineteen seventy one, when Shamu was being used 353 00:23:49,119 --> 00:23:53,880 in a promotional photo shoot with one of SeaWorld's secretaries who was also a model 354 00:23:53,920 --> 00:23:56,680 on the side. I guess who was supposed to ride around on her back 355 00:23:56,759 --> 00:24:03,079 in a bikini. After the third on Shamou, the whale stopped following commands 356 00:24:03,240 --> 00:24:07,160 and the woman fell into the water. Shamu bit the woman on her lower 357 00:24:07,200 --> 00:24:11,319 torso and limbs, refusing to let her go for minutes. And the difference 358 00:24:11,359 --> 00:24:15,839 here is that, like most of the SeaWorld trainers are like we said, 359 00:24:15,880 --> 00:24:19,799 incredibly fit and really good at diving, this model we don't know if she 360 00:24:19,839 --> 00:24:22,039 was a good swimmer or not, so who's to say how long she can 361 00:24:22,079 --> 00:24:25,920 hold her breath. So the model spent a few days in the hospital but 362 00:24:25,960 --> 00:24:30,359 got over one hundred stitches, and she sued SeaWorld for the incident. The 363 00:24:30,440 --> 00:24:33,680 lawsuit revealed that Shamu had bitten two people before, but the model had not 364 00:24:33,759 --> 00:24:38,640 been informed of the risk. Very good, And four months after this, 365 00:24:40,119 --> 00:24:45,440 Shamou got a hormone imbalance that led to blood poisoning that allowed bacteria into her 366 00:24:45,559 --> 00:24:49,680 uterine lining, which ended up killing her. Oh no, and this rarely 367 00:24:49,720 --> 00:24:53,799 ever happens to wild orcas, and she was just nine years old. Shamou, 368 00:24:53,880 --> 00:24:56,759 the most famous way in the world, died of a freaking uterine infection. 369 00:24:57,000 --> 00:25:00,599 I bet people have no idea. No, it's so old young, 370 00:25:00,759 --> 00:25:02,720 because when I think of Shambu, I think like, oh, man, 371 00:25:02,720 --> 00:25:06,160 they must have had her for like sixty years. But no, that's what 372 00:25:06,200 --> 00:25:07,759 they want. That's why, that's why they keep reusing the name. That's 373 00:25:07,759 --> 00:25:11,119 why they use it as a stage name. Yeah, probably make her live 374 00:25:11,160 --> 00:25:14,519 on because you think that it's just the same whale for years and years and 375 00:25:14,599 --> 00:25:15,519 years and years. Which is that better is a worse? I have no 376 00:25:15,559 --> 00:25:23,119 idea. Yeah, Now, let's take a step back and talk about wild 377 00:25:23,240 --> 00:25:27,920 versus captive orcas before we get more into the attacks that we're going to talk 378 00:25:27,920 --> 00:25:30,720 about today, because it's really important to go into the context of how these 379 00:25:30,759 --> 00:25:36,880 whales live versus how they're supposed to be living in the wild to make you 380 00:25:36,960 --> 00:25:41,440 understand why bad things happen. I'd like to first start by acknowledging the incredibly 381 00:25:41,480 --> 00:25:45,839 hot debate in the academic ORCA community on how old they live to be in 382 00:25:45,880 --> 00:25:49,200 the wild. How hot is the debate some people releasing scientific articles basically just 383 00:25:51,119 --> 00:25:56,039 saying another scientific article is completely wrong interesting, which is yeah, in like 384 00:25:56,039 --> 00:25:59,400 a really obvious way, being like this specific article sucks. Yeah, you 385 00:25:59,400 --> 00:26:04,079 think we'd have a more like concrete idea yeah, you understand why in a 386 00:26:04,079 --> 00:26:07,680 second. But I am going to go off of what the Whale and Dolphin 387 00:26:07,720 --> 00:26:14,519 Conservation aka WDC says. They're the leading global charity for protecting dolphins in Wales, 388 00:26:14,599 --> 00:26:17,440 and they say, quote, in the wild, male orcas live to 389 00:26:17,480 --> 00:26:21,480 an average of thirty years, but a maximum of fifty to sixty and an 390 00:26:21,559 --> 00:26:23,920 average of forty six years for females, but females can live to be eighty 391 00:26:25,000 --> 00:26:30,000 or ninety years old. Jeez. Yeah. At SeaWorld, the whales typically 392 00:26:30,039 --> 00:26:36,319 don't even reach their average wild lifespan, and the oldest current whale at SeaWorld 393 00:26:36,359 --> 00:26:40,440 is Quirky, who is captured from the wild in nineteen sixty nine around Vancouver. 394 00:26:41,599 --> 00:26:45,880 None of her offspring are alive today, but her original pod is still 395 00:26:45,880 --> 00:26:49,039 out there. Oh oh, that fucking blows. So she knows more whales 396 00:26:49,640 --> 00:26:55,079 out in the wild still alive than whales in her own fucking park. Yep 397 00:26:55,160 --> 00:26:59,640 that she's given birth to. Ooh ooh, yeah that's flocked. Yell that 398 00:26:59,680 --> 00:27:06,440 that's an yep. It is also very rare for wild orches to have a 399 00:27:06,559 --> 00:27:10,799 bent or collapsed dorsal fin. If you know anything about SeaWorld, you probably 400 00:27:11,480 --> 00:27:14,799 know about the whole bent dorsal fin thing, and there's like a rumor out 401 00:27:14,839 --> 00:27:17,799 there or a myth. I guess that that happens to them because they get 402 00:27:17,799 --> 00:27:21,960 depressed, and that's not necessarily the case, but they are probably depressed. 403 00:27:22,279 --> 00:27:25,079 Yeah, so very rare for it to happen in the wild. And I 404 00:27:25,119 --> 00:27:29,240 will link to a scientific article in the episode description that goes into like the 405 00:27:29,359 --> 00:27:33,079 rate of collapse dorsal fins in orchest in the wild. So it's rare in 406 00:27:33,119 --> 00:27:38,160 the wild. But in contrast, almost all male whales in captivity have collapsed 407 00:27:38,200 --> 00:27:41,480 or floppy dorsal fins. Do we know why have they ever released? Why? 408 00:27:41,599 --> 00:27:45,319 Yes? So males also have larger dorsal fins than females, so that's 409 00:27:45,359 --> 00:27:49,119 probably why they have more collapsed fins than females do, because there's are physically 410 00:27:49,160 --> 00:27:56,319 longer yep. And what happens is in captivity they sit motionless at the surface 411 00:27:56,359 --> 00:28:00,480 a lot, mostly because like they don't have space or just can't fully submerge 412 00:28:00,519 --> 00:28:06,119 for long periods of time. So the lack of support for the dorsal fin's 413 00:28:06,160 --> 00:28:10,079 height and weight causes them to collapse. Oh, it's interesting, that's cool, 414 00:28:11,119 --> 00:28:12,279 said well, I mean, I may just mean like the physics behind, 415 00:28:12,319 --> 00:28:15,400 like holding the fin up is pretty cool. Oh true, Yeah, 416 00:28:15,440 --> 00:28:19,599 I'm a big physics fan. Specifically in SeaWorld, this tends to happen when 417 00:28:19,599 --> 00:28:23,519 the orchest spend their time sleeping at the surface, or when they're forced to 418 00:28:23,599 --> 00:28:30,400 wait in an eight foot deep transition pool before or after shows, which we'll 419 00:28:30,440 --> 00:28:33,519 get into more later too. Orc is in the wild also Tennis specialize in 420 00:28:33,720 --> 00:28:38,559 different prey sources depending on where they are geographically. And for example, the 421 00:28:38,599 --> 00:28:45,000 population of resident killer whales in the Pacific Northwest mainly eats salmon, and they're 422 00:28:45,000 --> 00:28:48,279 called residents because they stick around the area and they hunt in large groups and 423 00:28:48,319 --> 00:28:52,039 do a ton of vocalizing underwater because salmon aren't really sensitive to orches. Sounds 424 00:28:52,039 --> 00:28:56,599 like it's not like a Sam's gonna hear an orcu Oh fuck it just it's 425 00:28:56,599 --> 00:29:03,440 a fish. Yeah. And these Northwest resident whales are further split into like 426 00:29:03,559 --> 00:29:10,160 northern versus southern groups, and they have really interesting cultures basically because they don't 427 00:29:10,200 --> 00:29:14,480 breed with each other, like the southern and the northern groups typically don't interbreed. 428 00:29:14,680 --> 00:29:18,079 Sometimes there'll be like random cases like Romeo and Juliet of like, ooh, 429 00:29:18,119 --> 00:29:22,160 it's forbidden, but normally, like it's taboo in Orco society for them 430 00:29:22,200 --> 00:29:30,119 to interbreed and intermingle. Is this where the the incest comes in? Ah? 431 00:29:30,440 --> 00:29:34,039 No, So they don't incest breed in their own pods. How do 432 00:29:34,039 --> 00:29:38,400 they reproduce? So what happens is and I'm gonna get into the structure more 433 00:29:38,400 --> 00:29:42,160 in a minute, but families tend to stick together, and that's what creates 434 00:29:42,160 --> 00:29:45,599 a pod, similar to a wolf pack. Where everyone thinks wolf pacts are 435 00:29:45,640 --> 00:29:48,720 just random amalgamations of different wolves, but that's not true. It's just different 436 00:29:48,720 --> 00:29:52,440 members of a family, the same family. And when the males are ready 437 00:29:52,480 --> 00:29:55,160 to mate, they'll leave their pod for a little bit, go find a 438 00:29:55,200 --> 00:29:59,559 different unrelated pod mate with a female, and come back. Oh that's cool. 439 00:29:59,720 --> 00:30:02,720 Yeah, So it's just like leaving home for a little bit and come 440 00:30:02,759 --> 00:30:07,440 back to your thing. So also, these whales in the Pacific Northwest are 441 00:30:07,519 --> 00:30:11,319 the most studied orcas, and that's how we know a lot of what we 442 00:30:11,319 --> 00:30:14,640 know about orcas is because of these whales. So if you live, for 443 00:30:14,680 --> 00:30:18,039 example, in New Zealand, the orcas there probably have a very different culture 444 00:30:18,079 --> 00:30:21,839 from the whales in the Pacific Northwest, so just keep that in mind. 445 00:30:22,000 --> 00:30:25,680 So what I'm going to talk about is probably like Pacific Northwest orca centric. 446 00:30:25,920 --> 00:30:30,200 But but there's also so aside from the resident orcas who hang around the same 447 00:30:30,240 --> 00:30:34,079 area, there's also transient orcas that come and go from the area, and 448 00:30:34,119 --> 00:30:40,759 they mainly focus on eating marine mammals other than orcas, so dolphins, whales, 449 00:30:41,039 --> 00:30:45,640 seals, and these workers hunt in smaller groups and they're very silent because 450 00:30:45,799 --> 00:30:49,799 they're hunting marine mammals which are more intelligent than fish, so they try to 451 00:30:49,880 --> 00:30:53,279 keep quiet and sneak up on their prey essentially. But these whales are harder 452 00:30:53,279 --> 00:30:56,240 to study because they're constantly on the move all over the place, whereas the 453 00:30:56,279 --> 00:31:00,359 residents, it's predictable that they're going to be there at what times they so 454 00:31:00,400 --> 00:31:04,039 they're easier to study basically. Yep. And then you have orcos that live 455 00:31:04,119 --> 00:31:10,079 super far from the coast and sharks make up a good portion of their diet. 456 00:31:10,200 --> 00:31:12,079 It's pretty bad ass to hunt sharks. That's pretty bad ass. And 457 00:31:12,160 --> 00:31:18,359 let's get into how they do it, so or specifically a few orcas that 458 00:31:18,400 --> 00:31:21,640 are doing it in a insane way. That's something you probably already know about 459 00:31:21,640 --> 00:31:26,400 because this story's bonkers. But in November of twenty fifteen, some seven gill 460 00:31:26,559 --> 00:31:30,759 shark carcasses were found on the seabed in False Bay in South Africa, and 461 00:31:30,799 --> 00:31:37,319 they had like tears on them. And the following April, more carcasses appeared 462 00:31:37,359 --> 00:31:41,000 on shore with tears in their pectoral areas and their livers were gone, just 463 00:31:41,039 --> 00:31:45,799 the livers. Knee cropsies were performed and orca teeth marks were found, and 464 00:31:47,079 --> 00:31:48,559 just the liver was gone. How would they do that? Actually, it 465 00:31:48,599 --> 00:31:52,640 seems like you have to really put something into a trance that just gets liver 466 00:31:52,720 --> 00:31:56,759 out, I mean, or be like fast and efficient. But oh, 467 00:31:56,839 --> 00:31:59,799 is this not a story about them flipping sharks onto their back. I didn't 468 00:31:59,799 --> 00:32:02,319 find that in my research, but I have heard that. Yeah, I've 469 00:32:02,319 --> 00:32:05,960 heard that too. I thought for sure that that's where this was going. 470 00:32:06,279 --> 00:32:07,759 I mean, maybe they do. I just personally didn't find that. Okay, 471 00:32:07,920 --> 00:32:10,160 I'd have to look into that more, but thank you for reminding me 472 00:32:10,160 --> 00:32:15,759 of that. Totally forgot. So this trend happened again in twenty seventeen, 473 00:32:15,839 --> 00:32:20,000 where a bunch of sharks washed up with just their livers gone, and scientists 474 00:32:20,000 --> 00:32:23,119 were like, what the fuck is happening. So they realized there was two 475 00:32:23,279 --> 00:32:28,680 orcas hanging around the area nicknamed Port and Starboard due to the way that their 476 00:32:28,680 --> 00:32:32,599 dorsal fins were shifted, basically like one leaned one way and one leaned the 477 00:32:32,640 --> 00:32:35,920 other, and that's how they differentiated them. Yeah, the angle of the 478 00:32:35,960 --> 00:32:40,480 dangle. Oh, I was like a bad one. Come on, you're 479 00:32:40,599 --> 00:32:45,799 bad. So finally, in twenty twenty two, these orcas were caught on 480 00:32:45,920 --> 00:32:52,960 drone footage off the southwestern coast of South Africa hunting the sharks, and what 481 00:32:52,000 --> 00:32:59,759 they did was they would somehow precisely tear open the pectoral girdle of the sharks 482 00:33:00,160 --> 00:33:02,880 and then literally suck the liver out, no shit, and leave the rest 483 00:33:02,920 --> 00:33:07,319 of the shark intact like a noodle. Yeah, like a really gross noodle. 484 00:33:07,880 --> 00:33:10,960 That's sick. That's so cool. Yeah, And shark livers are really 485 00:33:12,039 --> 00:33:15,799 high and fat and can probably sustain a single orca for an entire day, 486 00:33:15,960 --> 00:33:21,079 some researchers say, but shark livers are also really highly sought after by humans 487 00:33:21,319 --> 00:33:24,799 who tend to overfish these animals, so sharks are really going through it. 488 00:33:24,960 --> 00:33:30,000 Over there. Yeah, but orcas are known for this type of precision, 489 00:33:30,839 --> 00:33:34,960 especially one case. In the book I read Beneath the Surface by John Hargrove, 490 00:33:35,440 --> 00:33:42,000 he mentions one whale that he worked with who wouldn't like regularly go after 491 00:33:42,039 --> 00:33:45,279 seagulls that landed to, you know, like swim in her enclosure, and 492 00:33:45,400 --> 00:33:52,480 she would nibble away at the seagull carcasses until they were just wings attached to 493 00:33:52,519 --> 00:33:59,079 a heart. Oh wow, isn't that incredible? Yeah, and also terrified 494 00:33:59,319 --> 00:34:02,839 And I never thought like that kind of dexterity they do. Wow. Yeah. 495 00:34:02,960 --> 00:34:06,839 Anyways, we could go down that rabbit hole for hours. So let's 496 00:34:06,839 --> 00:34:08,679 get back to Captive Orgust Nick. Unless there was something you want to say 497 00:34:08,679 --> 00:34:13,679 about sharks now, summary, Whales are smart, sharks are dumb. Oh 498 00:34:13,760 --> 00:34:16,159 that's not nice. That's true. I mean, depending on how you quantify 499 00:34:16,239 --> 00:34:20,559 intelligence. Sure, I feel when you look in like if you see the 500 00:34:20,599 --> 00:34:22,760 eyes are shark like, there's just nothing going on there, Like they're just 501 00:34:22,880 --> 00:34:28,440 like on autopilot, like doing what sharks do at least like whales they think, 502 00:34:28,480 --> 00:34:32,239 which is terrifying, like way more terrifying than just like a fucking brainless 503 00:34:32,280 --> 00:34:36,639 killer. In my opinion, Hey, sharks are still really good with Also, 504 00:34:36,679 --> 00:34:38,480 we've talked about how sharks like do investigatory bites, so they're not just 505 00:34:38,480 --> 00:34:42,480 like mindless out there. They're thinking about stuff in their own shark way. 506 00:34:42,559 --> 00:34:45,639 They got like they got two brain cells arguing with each other as to whether 507 00:34:45,679 --> 00:34:46,559 it eat it or not to eat it, and they meet in the middle 508 00:34:46,559 --> 00:34:49,199 and say, Okay, let's just bite it. Nick, Is that how 509 00:34:49,239 --> 00:34:51,360 you operate with your two brain cells? No? No, no, my 510 00:34:51,360 --> 00:34:53,639 two brain cells are way different. I don't bite stuff usually, okay, 511 00:34:53,719 --> 00:35:00,239 anyway, usually, So the five organs at Sea World San Antonio could go 512 00:35:00,360 --> 00:35:04,320 through one thousand pounds of fish a day, like between all the whales, 513 00:35:04,320 --> 00:35:07,199 not like one whale eating a thousan pounds of fish. I'd be a fed. 514 00:35:07,360 --> 00:35:10,599 That'd be ridiculous. The ones of the while they're eating livers, that's 515 00:35:10,639 --> 00:35:13,639 it. And then this one did he have a thousand pounds of fish? 516 00:35:14,519 --> 00:35:17,840 Yeah? So obviously the orc is in the wild, they get to choose 517 00:35:17,840 --> 00:35:22,119 different types of prey that they prefer, right, and how they want to 518 00:35:22,119 --> 00:35:24,719 eat it. Apparently, But according to John Hargrove in his book, the 519 00:35:24,840 --> 00:35:30,719 orcs at SeaWorld had to be taught eating etiquette because often they were fed things 520 00:35:30,760 --> 00:35:34,119 that they didn't like, like squid, or they'd be given food when they 521 00:35:34,119 --> 00:35:37,039 weren't hungry just to keep their weight up. And it was important for them 522 00:35:37,039 --> 00:35:40,199 to eat regularly because orcs get their hydration from their food. So if they 523 00:35:40,199 --> 00:35:44,599 weren't eating for whatever reason, like if they're depressed or sick or whatever, 524 00:35:44,719 --> 00:35:46,960 they weren't getting hydrated because it's not like they're drinking the water that they're swimming 525 00:35:46,960 --> 00:35:50,000 in. No, that's such a good point. I ever thought about that. 526 00:35:50,519 --> 00:35:53,800 Yeah, And in the book Beneath the Surface, John also points out 527 00:35:53,880 --> 00:35:59,280 that SeaWorld insists that they've never restricted a whale's food for not performing, and 528 00:35:59,360 --> 00:36:02,960 he claims that is false. It's obviously false. Like if the whale doesn't 529 00:36:02,960 --> 00:36:07,159 perform the action you want, you don't give it food. That's withholding food. 530 00:36:07,480 --> 00:36:08,719 Yeah, if it does perform the action, you give it food. 531 00:36:08,960 --> 00:36:12,360 Like, yeah, that's training that you do that with your dogs. Like 532 00:36:12,960 --> 00:36:15,519 that's it's such a bare bones, like basic thing that I don't think that's 533 00:36:15,559 --> 00:36:21,000 even like that bad. But I think the difference here is like if my 534 00:36:21,119 --> 00:36:22,679 dog doesn't perform a trick, I still feed at dinner. Yeah, but 535 00:36:22,840 --> 00:36:27,760 like again, like these whales are I don't think anyone's ever accused a whale 536 00:36:27,760 --> 00:36:30,119 at SeaWorld of being underfed? Is my thing? Like that's I don't think 537 00:36:30,159 --> 00:36:34,559 that's really a concern for anything. Oh yeah No. In his book, 538 00:36:34,599 --> 00:36:37,639 he claims that some whales were like not fed nearly as much as they should 539 00:36:37,679 --> 00:36:42,559 have been in like a given day. Also, besides the whole like feeding 540 00:36:42,559 --> 00:36:46,639 aspect of it, SeaWorld usually restricted orches to smaller pools to sleep at night. 541 00:36:47,320 --> 00:36:52,480 And they were also really strict about enforcing like eight hours at night of 542 00:36:52,920 --> 00:36:57,679 no sort of sound or disruption for the orcs to sleep. Nick, how 543 00:36:57,719 --> 00:37:00,559 often did you sleep, like at a given time? How many hours? 544 00:37:00,599 --> 00:37:05,960 I mean not eight? Not enough? Okay, I don't know if I'm 545 00:37:05,960 --> 00:37:07,400 the best example to ask that. Yeah, you're probably the worst person as 546 00:37:07,480 --> 00:37:10,199 probably four to five hours a night. But like you go to bed and 547 00:37:10,239 --> 00:37:13,440 then you sleep, Yeah, yeah, yeah, definitely. You know you 548 00:37:13,440 --> 00:37:15,119 don't get up in the middle of that I and do stuff and then go 549 00:37:15,159 --> 00:37:21,000 back to sleep. No, not really, well, orcas do because unlike 550 00:37:21,119 --> 00:37:23,920 us humans who may sleep for eight hours and that's like what our bodies require 551 00:37:24,559 --> 00:37:29,960 orcas and other cetaceans like dolphins, do not sleep like us. They are 552 00:37:30,079 --> 00:37:34,440 conscious breathers, so only half of their brain is asleep at a time because 553 00:37:34,480 --> 00:37:37,920 they need to stay awake to keep actively breathing or else they will drown. 554 00:37:38,440 --> 00:37:42,840 So even when they're like, even when one half of their brain is asleep, 555 00:37:42,960 --> 00:37:45,840 the other half is still alert and can notice you if you're walking by, 556 00:37:45,119 --> 00:37:49,320 no shit, So that's why they do the complete isolation thing. I 557 00:37:49,360 --> 00:37:52,519 think so because they think, like, oh my, like I don't want 558 00:37:52,519 --> 00:37:54,880 to disturb the whales as they're sleeping, but this is how orcas sleep in 559 00:37:54,880 --> 00:37:58,800 the wild, so like they have to be alert, yeah, and that's 560 00:37:58,920 --> 00:38:01,199 not abnormal, Like it's okay for them to be alert as they're sleeping. 561 00:38:01,320 --> 00:38:05,840 Yeah. But the three Sea World parks had different ways of pairing up their 562 00:38:05,880 --> 00:38:09,039 whales for sleeping arrangements, but sometimes the whales to be forced to sleep alone. 563 00:38:09,159 --> 00:38:14,559 And you and I when we watch Blackfish, became aware that one of 564 00:38:14,559 --> 00:38:17,599 the parks before SeaWorld, Sea Land, used to make their whales sleep and 565 00:38:17,760 --> 00:38:22,719 basically stalls alone in the dark for like eight hours, whereas in the wild, 566 00:38:23,360 --> 00:38:28,920 orcas in a pod will actively be touching the entire time one whale stays 567 00:38:28,960 --> 00:38:31,679 fully awake, and they will like do cycles of either like twenty minutes and 568 00:38:31,679 --> 00:38:35,119 then go up for breathing and do some other stuff and then maybe do like 569 00:38:35,159 --> 00:38:39,840 another quick sleep cycle. But it's not like uninterrupted sleep, Like they basically 570 00:38:39,920 --> 00:38:44,199 take little bouts of sleeping. Yeah, as someone watches out. Yeah that's 571 00:38:44,199 --> 00:38:47,800 really cool. Yeah, so another way that their life in captivity is just 572 00:38:47,880 --> 00:38:53,639 abnormal and human centric. Another example of like how socially bonded they are out 573 00:38:53,679 --> 00:38:57,559 in the wild. Yeah, I know, when to make them sleep alone 574 00:38:57,599 --> 00:39:06,639 seem so fucking sad. This part really gets me. So now let's talk 575 00:39:06,679 --> 00:39:13,719 about some medical issues that orcas in captivity have that they likely would never have 576 00:39:13,800 --> 00:39:21,840 in the wild. So first, eh, God, this the whole thing 577 00:39:21,960 --> 00:39:24,800 just fucking sucks. Some whales just straight up bang their heads against the pool 578 00:39:24,800 --> 00:39:29,519 because they're so bored. They're so bored, they're banging their head against the 579 00:39:29,559 --> 00:39:34,639 wall. Yeah, And many whales, strictly out of boredom, peel the 580 00:39:34,719 --> 00:39:37,559 paint from their pools with their teeth. And John and his book remarked that 581 00:39:37,639 --> 00:39:42,320 one whale seemed like she was trying to peel paint in the same shape as 582 00:39:42,360 --> 00:39:45,880 the drain in her pool, who like making art out of Yeah that's interesting, 583 00:39:46,000 --> 00:39:50,199 which is interesting and also so freaking excity because it's the only thing she 584 00:39:50,239 --> 00:39:52,039 fucking looks at, so she has nothing else the paint. Yeah, that's 585 00:39:52,079 --> 00:39:55,159 really cool, though, Like I kind of wish there was more in ful 586 00:39:55,239 --> 00:39:59,519 on that. I mean, I like, I wish there was a way 587 00:39:59,519 --> 00:40:02,039 for them to like make art, like legitimately, I really hate, I 588 00:40:02,079 --> 00:40:06,400 really hate like discussing all these things, like are really cool by the whales 589 00:40:06,400 --> 00:40:07,280 that sea world, because you never get to see them in the wild, 590 00:40:07,280 --> 00:40:09,920 Like you would never see a whale trying to make art out in the wild. 591 00:40:09,960 --> 00:40:13,800 Well you might, but like it'd be so impossibly hard to actually observe. 592 00:40:13,960 --> 00:40:15,840 Yeah, but like the only time we can actually see these things are 593 00:40:15,840 --> 00:40:20,800 when they're fucking trapped in a fucking pool. Yeah, but obviously appeeling paint 594 00:40:20,840 --> 00:40:24,880 from concrete was really bad for their teeth and whales and other cetaceans, well, 595 00:40:24,920 --> 00:40:29,159 whales and dolphins have one set of teeth in their lifetime, so if 596 00:40:29,159 --> 00:40:31,039 you fuck up a tooth, that's it for that tooth. You're never growing 597 00:40:31,039 --> 00:40:36,719 a back or anything. And this is where the bolimia comes in. So 598 00:40:37,079 --> 00:40:43,360 some whales develop bulimia literally just because they were bored, so they regurgitate their 599 00:40:43,400 --> 00:40:47,880 food to keep themselves busy. And there were records of younger whales learning this 600 00:40:47,960 --> 00:40:54,000 behavior from elders, so it's like a passed down activity basically. Yeah. 601 00:40:54,039 --> 00:40:59,800 And of course this behavior, similar to humans, would lead to a burning 602 00:40:59,800 --> 00:41:02,480 of their esophagus from their stomach acid, which would eat away at the enamel 603 00:41:02,599 --> 00:41:07,679 in their teeth, and thanks to obsessive rubbing on the sides of the pool 604 00:41:07,920 --> 00:41:12,000 or from paint peeling or from the bolimia, they would develop teeth problems. 605 00:41:12,199 --> 00:41:15,239 So the orcas would develop pinholes in their teeth that would have to be drilled 606 00:41:15,440 --> 00:41:20,960 out to avoid abscesses, which could kill the whales by like allowing bacteria into 607 00:41:21,000 --> 00:41:23,599 their bodies. So that like a like a root canal for people pretty much, 608 00:41:23,679 --> 00:41:29,599 yeah, except because they're so dangerous, a random person can't just walk 609 00:41:29,679 --> 00:41:31,519 up and perform a procedure on a whale, so the whales would have to 610 00:41:31,559 --> 00:41:36,239 be artificially breached using pools that could like you know, raise the bottom of 611 00:41:36,239 --> 00:41:39,199 the pool to breach them. A wooden block would be stuck in their mouth 612 00:41:39,320 --> 00:41:43,960 so they wouldn't bite down on people, and their tooth would be drilled by 613 00:41:44,440 --> 00:41:47,920 the orca trainers, not the vets. Fuck. That's so, that's so 614 00:41:49,159 --> 00:41:52,960 nuts. Oh well, it gets worse because once a tooth is drilled every 615 00:41:53,079 --> 00:41:57,639 day for the rest of that whale's life, that tooth has to be pump 616 00:41:57,679 --> 00:42:00,400 full of hydrogen peroxides. Oh my god, can you imagine how painful that 617 00:42:00,480 --> 00:42:04,880 is? Fuck? How do you even do that every day? What is 618 00:42:04,920 --> 00:42:08,000 the process to do that every day? I don't know. But some whales 619 00:42:08,000 --> 00:42:13,400 would still die from the infections from the holes in their teeth, which obviously 620 00:42:13,440 --> 00:42:17,760 that's not happening in the wild. Another thing that has literally never happened or 621 00:42:17,800 --> 00:42:24,039 been captured in a wild work up. A few orcas in captivity have died 622 00:42:24,159 --> 00:42:30,360 from mosquito bites. What because they contracted like triple E from the mosquito bites, 623 00:42:30,400 --> 00:42:31,719 which obviously has never happened the wild, because they're out in the fuck 624 00:42:31,800 --> 00:42:37,199 notion they got triple E from fucking mosquitoes because they are in such small pools 625 00:42:37,239 --> 00:42:39,840 and they have to be near the surface and they can't really escape being stung 626 00:42:39,840 --> 00:42:45,880 by mosquitoes. That's so fucked up and being sunburned, which is not really 627 00:42:45,920 --> 00:42:47,119 a thing they might have to deal with in the wild because they can escape 628 00:42:47,119 --> 00:42:50,519 the radiation from the sun pretty easily. But yeah, they didnt get deep 629 00:42:50,559 --> 00:42:53,880 enough. They can't get can't go deep enough. Yeah. Also, one 630 00:42:53,920 --> 00:42:59,719 whale in captivity had epilepsy, which was never exhibited in the wild that we 631 00:42:59,760 --> 00:43:02,039 have today. And I just want to throw this in here because I know 632 00:43:02,159 --> 00:43:07,079 some people listening might be like terrified of orcas at my mom, but and 633 00:43:07,119 --> 00:43:09,880 I know that we're talking about them being kind of scary in a lot of 634 00:43:09,920 --> 00:43:12,760 ways. So I just want to throw this in here because I thought it 635 00:43:12,800 --> 00:43:15,880 was so sweet and really goes to show how caring they can be. So, 636 00:43:15,920 --> 00:43:20,960 the one whale that had epilepsy was Splash, and his best friend was 637 00:43:21,000 --> 00:43:24,639 a whale named Orchid, and when he was seizing, she would carry him 638 00:43:24,639 --> 00:43:29,559 to the top of the pool to breathe, and she would also put her 639 00:43:29,639 --> 00:43:34,199 body between him and the walls of the pool to protect him from smashing against 640 00:43:34,239 --> 00:43:37,960 the walls as he was seizing. They're so smart, I know, they're 641 00:43:37,000 --> 00:43:42,400 so fucking smart. Again, terrifying but really cool. Also, a lot 642 00:43:42,440 --> 00:43:45,559 of the whales developed stress related ulcers, which could lead to a ton of 643 00:43:45,599 --> 00:43:51,360 other problems. And that's just like to name a few things. Like I'm 644 00:43:51,360 --> 00:43:52,639 not even getting like super in depth into things, but those are things they 645 00:43:52,639 --> 00:43:55,800 wouldn't even have to really worry about as much in the wild. So it's 646 00:43:55,880 --> 00:44:05,360 just an incredible amount of extra stress from captivity to their health. Now let's 647 00:44:05,360 --> 00:44:10,239 get into how they're structured in the wild versus captivity. So I touched on 648 00:44:10,280 --> 00:44:15,440 it before, but orcas live in a matriarchal society and that still actually holds 649 00:44:15,480 --> 00:44:20,119 true in captivity, just in a like it manifests in a different way. 650 00:44:20,719 --> 00:44:23,880 So pods in the wild are generally family units led by the mother whale, 651 00:44:23,920 --> 00:44:28,599 and she will stay close with her offspring throughout their lives, even close to 652 00:44:28,679 --> 00:44:30,559 her daughters who may go off to start their own families. They'll never be 653 00:44:30,760 --> 00:44:35,480 like miles and miles apart. They're still like it's basically as if you were 654 00:44:35,480 --> 00:44:37,639 to move down the road from your parents when you go to have your own 655 00:44:37,679 --> 00:44:38,519 kids, but you stay together. Yeah, I mean, if you learn 656 00:44:38,639 --> 00:44:40,920 to hunt a very specific thing, like you're talking about the salmon, Like 657 00:44:40,960 --> 00:44:46,280 you can't just go somewhere as not salmon. Yeah, and males because it's 658 00:44:46,280 --> 00:44:53,159 a matriarchal society, their status in their societies entirely dependent on the females in 659 00:44:53,199 --> 00:44:58,760 their lives. So depending on who your mom is depends on basically how cool 660 00:44:58,800 --> 00:45:04,559 you are. Yeah. And this closeness between family units is actually evident in 661 00:45:04,559 --> 00:45:08,280 captivity too, because, as mentioned in Blackfish, the dominant female orca at 662 00:45:08,280 --> 00:45:13,960 SeaWorld San Diego for a long period of time was Kasaka, and she was 663 00:45:13,960 --> 00:45:17,519 eventually separated from her firstborn calf to Kara, who she was so close with, 664 00:45:19,199 --> 00:45:22,320 and when Takara was taken away from her to be literally shipped to a 665 00:45:22,320 --> 00:45:28,760 different park, Kasaka emitted sounds never heard by humans before because there were long 666 00:45:28,880 --> 00:45:32,280 range of vocals as she tried to contact her calf, but Takara had been 667 00:45:32,320 --> 00:45:39,920 flown away, so she kept emitting these vocals for way longer after Takara was 668 00:45:39,960 --> 00:45:44,719 gone, more than just like a few days, like, continually kept calling 669 00:45:44,719 --> 00:45:49,199 out for her daughter, and just two years after her daughter was taken from 670 00:45:49,239 --> 00:45:52,199 her, she was deemed too dangerous to work with. Wonder why, yeah, 671 00:45:52,239 --> 00:45:54,480 seriously want to go? We're kind of fucking stress you put on the 672 00:45:54,519 --> 00:46:00,320 animal there. Yeah, and speaking of that, different whales in the like 673 00:46:00,320 --> 00:46:04,079 different orcas in the wild, have different ways communicating, as we talked about, 674 00:46:04,440 --> 00:46:07,880 so like the transient whales don't make money vocalizations, but resident whales do, 675 00:46:08,239 --> 00:46:13,639 and the noises are unique to each group. This is a huge problem 676 00:46:13,679 --> 00:46:16,880 in sea world because the whales that they have are from around the world, 677 00:46:17,559 --> 00:46:22,639 so it's not like they speak the same language, and they're being bred together 678 00:46:22,039 --> 00:46:29,639 to make captive orcas that don't fully know either language. Yeah, and further, 679 00:46:30,360 --> 00:46:32,920 a wild male orca's status, like I said, completely determined by female 680 00:46:34,000 --> 00:46:37,039 orcas in his life, especially his mom, and if his mom dies, 681 00:46:37,199 --> 00:46:38,840 he'll try to join a group led by like a sister, an aunt, 682 00:46:39,000 --> 00:46:44,639 or a niece. But male orcas that don't have good familial ties will sometimes 683 00:46:44,679 --> 00:46:47,119 try to join other loan males, but that usually doesn't last for like a 684 00:46:47,159 --> 00:46:52,960 super long period of time, and males without social family groups tend to die 685 00:46:52,159 --> 00:46:57,079 quickly. Oh really, so that's probably why they have a shorter lifespan in 686 00:46:57,079 --> 00:47:00,559 the wild on average than females. Megas kick out then there's kind of kind 687 00:47:00,559 --> 00:47:05,280 of fucked. Yeah, well, especially if it's a resident whale that hunts 688 00:47:05,280 --> 00:47:07,480 in groups, Normally it would either have to learn to hunt entirely different way 689 00:47:07,559 --> 00:47:10,119 or just like all the bulk of the hunting is on that whale, you 690 00:47:10,159 --> 00:47:14,480 know, yeah, oh yeah. And I do want to point out that 691 00:47:14,960 --> 00:47:19,280 this is more characteristic of resident males, so like a resident male is more 692 00:47:19,360 --> 00:47:22,280 likely to like, like I just said, die off because they hunt in 693 00:47:22,320 --> 00:47:25,360 groups and stuff, but transience. So the ones that like kind of come 694 00:47:25,400 --> 00:47:30,000 and go, but like sometimes hunt alone rather than big groups like the resident 695 00:47:30,039 --> 00:47:34,920 whales. Sometimes they will team up to hunt something large, like a whale. 696 00:47:35,280 --> 00:47:37,320 And I know some of you have recently seen this video, but just 697 00:47:37,400 --> 00:47:42,280 last year in twenty twenty two, it was confirmed that orcust sometimes hunt blue 698 00:47:42,280 --> 00:47:45,239 whales, and last month, in April of twenty three, a group of 699 00:47:45,360 --> 00:47:50,280 orcas was spotted hunting two adult gray whales. Nick, did you see this 700 00:47:50,360 --> 00:47:52,519 video? I don't think I did, know, Okay, I'll post on 701 00:47:52,519 --> 00:47:55,480 our Instagram it is. I have watched the whole thing because I am not 702 00:47:55,599 --> 00:48:00,119 someone who enjoys watching animals hunt other animals because it makes me sad. But 703 00:48:00,239 --> 00:48:06,679 there were thirty orcas whoa, and the footage looks like they were trying to 704 00:48:06,760 --> 00:48:09,480 eat the adult whales alive. I'm sure they were. Yes, this is 705 00:48:09,480 --> 00:48:13,760 not unusual because they tend to go for the tongue or the blubber, and 706 00:48:13,840 --> 00:48:15,760 they like rip out the tongue and just let the whale bleed out. Wow. 707 00:48:15,960 --> 00:48:20,760 But usually it's not adults. They'll go after like a baby whale, 708 00:48:20,880 --> 00:48:22,400 So this is really early in the season for them, and the calf like 709 00:48:22,480 --> 00:48:24,280 wasn't born yet, so they're like, fuck, might as well just go 710 00:48:24,280 --> 00:48:29,840 after the big ones. But allegedly the adult gray whales eventually split up and 711 00:48:30,039 --> 00:48:32,519 escaped the orcas. That's cool. Yeah, so I'll post out on our 712 00:48:32,559 --> 00:48:37,519 Instagram thirty orcas. Yeah, I'm shocked any of those whales got out, 713 00:48:38,079 --> 00:48:40,559 thirty of them. I know. That's horrified. It's pack of wolves. 714 00:48:40,599 --> 00:48:45,280 They're like the most efficient fucking killers on the planet, sucking out livers. 715 00:48:45,320 --> 00:48:47,280 Holy crap. Yeah. It really goes to show you, like, whales 716 00:48:47,280 --> 00:48:52,639 are pretty fucking badass. Yeah, absolutely, just huge, just fucking massive. 717 00:48:52,920 --> 00:49:00,679 So trying to eat a building yeah, such a good yeah. Oh 718 00:49:00,679 --> 00:49:08,800 boy. So, anyways, as you could probably guess by now because of 719 00:49:08,800 --> 00:49:13,159 the ways that we talked about, SeaWorld captures their whales in the ways that 720 00:49:13,239 --> 00:49:19,159 males exist in society. SeaWorld forced a lot of male orcas to be orphans. 721 00:49:19,480 --> 00:49:22,639 They then threw these males into tanks with females who would beat the crap 722 00:49:22,679 --> 00:49:28,599 out of them, especially if they couldn't communicate and speak the same language. 723 00:49:29,639 --> 00:49:35,440 And even more, aggression like that isn't really observed in the wild in orcas, 724 00:49:36,000 --> 00:49:39,400 like sometimes young calves will rake their teeth across another whale, but aggression 725 00:49:39,440 --> 00:49:44,760 like that is usually discouraged by the matriarch, So the orcas essentially learned to 726 00:49:44,880 --> 00:49:47,280 not have a violent outbursts, similar to humans. How you teach your kids 727 00:49:47,320 --> 00:49:52,000 not to like punch and kick people when they're upset. Orcas also do that 728 00:49:52,039 --> 00:49:55,280 with their young ye And although there can be conflicts within pods in the wild 729 00:49:55,280 --> 00:50:00,800 and across different pods, they have an entire ocean to away from each other, 730 00:50:00,079 --> 00:50:06,159 but not at SeaWorld because teeth raking between whales is common, and like 731 00:50:06,239 --> 00:50:09,360 we saw in Blackfish, whales would even be raked during a show and appear 732 00:50:09,480 --> 00:50:13,679 bloody in front of a crowd. Also, we touched on earlier the whole 733 00:50:13,719 --> 00:50:19,079 like wild whales don't really do the whole incest thing on purpose. Most animals 734 00:50:19,119 --> 00:50:22,800 try to avoid incest because genetically it's a nightmare and it's like a taboo and 735 00:50:22,920 --> 00:50:27,880 orchest society like they don't like that's fucked up, similar to human society. 736 00:50:28,000 --> 00:50:30,840 It's like, please don't do that. Yeah, because they're intelligent enough to 737 00:50:30,920 --> 00:50:32,519 realize it's not good. Kno gonna work. Yeah, it doesn't happen in 738 00:50:32,559 --> 00:50:37,000 SeaWorld. That seems weirder to me, like that they don't have a fucking 739 00:50:37,000 --> 00:50:40,159 handle on that shit at SeaWorld. Sometimes it is forced. Oh and sometimes 740 00:50:40,199 --> 00:50:44,400 it just happens. Oh see, just happening, Like I get it, 741 00:50:44,440 --> 00:50:49,320 Like fucking whales and a pen forced that. That's that just seems stupid. 742 00:50:49,440 --> 00:50:52,480 Yeah, like through artificial insemination. And we're supposed to be more intelligent. 743 00:50:52,559 --> 00:50:53,639 Yeah, like I just said, like we are more intelligent than that, 744 00:50:53,679 --> 00:50:58,079 are we? We know what happens? Yeah, you'd think so. But 745 00:50:58,119 --> 00:51:01,239 when you have limited pool I guess, you know, like pool of whales 746 00:51:01,239 --> 00:51:04,760 to pull from, not like yeah, yeah, I mean the pool itself 747 00:51:04,840 --> 00:51:07,519 is also limited. I guess it's just so just so dumb, just so 748 00:51:07,639 --> 00:51:12,920 dumb. Yeah. And I think the worst part is that a lot of 749 00:51:12,920 --> 00:51:16,639 the incest that like if a male orca tried to mate with a female that 750 00:51:16,719 --> 00:51:22,079 he was related to, it was often a immature female who was not even 751 00:51:22,159 --> 00:51:27,039 able to breed yet, which is worse. Yeah, oh oh oh interesting, 752 00:51:27,119 --> 00:51:30,880 it's extra extra gros. Also, I have nowhere else to say this, 753 00:51:30,920 --> 00:51:35,159 but I just want to say it. Female orcas live long enough that 754 00:51:35,199 --> 00:51:39,159 they can go through menopause. And also, there has been homosexuality observed in 755 00:51:39,280 --> 00:51:46,280 orcas. Nature is gay. Moving on nature is gay. I just gotta 756 00:51:46,280 --> 00:51:50,199 throw that in whenever I can. I think nature would be by because they 757 00:51:50,199 --> 00:51:52,320 still need to reproduce to make more animals. Hey, gays, I mean 758 00:51:52,400 --> 00:51:57,199 buye is the type of gay? Right? I have no idea and seah, 759 00:51:57,239 --> 00:52:01,760 sorry you're not the expert. Anyways. The biggest difference in my eyes 760 00:52:01,800 --> 00:52:07,880 between orcas in captivity and orcas in the wild is that orcas in the wild 761 00:52:07,199 --> 00:52:14,239 have never killed a human, which is insane because they could at any given 762 00:52:14,280 --> 00:52:20,119 time. They could whenever they want, and they choose to not do violence. 763 00:52:20,559 --> 00:52:23,239 Consider yourselves lucky. Especially in his book, John Hargrove points out that 764 00:52:23,280 --> 00:52:27,880 each interaction with a whale at sea world all the way down to how slowly 765 00:52:27,960 --> 00:52:31,079 or quickly they would eat is documented. An aggression in any way has to 766 00:52:31,119 --> 00:52:36,599 be reported, but there's no record of wild orcas attacking humans. That of 767 00:52:36,639 --> 00:52:39,599 course is not acknowledging the series of boats sinkings by orcas that have been happening, 768 00:52:39,599 --> 00:52:44,519 which we talked about one of our episodes previously. Yeah, so orcas 769 00:52:44,559 --> 00:52:49,400 have been attacking boats recently in the Strait of Gibraltar, and it's still happening 770 00:52:49,440 --> 00:52:53,400 as recently as May tewid Wow. Yeah, And you can join the Facebook 771 00:52:53,400 --> 00:52:58,679 group Orca Attack Reports to follow along with it. There's thirty k people in 772 00:52:58,719 --> 00:53:00,440 that group. I'm a member of it. I will link to it in 773 00:53:00,480 --> 00:53:04,679 our show notes. But basically people report like, hey, I went through 774 00:53:04,679 --> 00:53:06,800 this area on my boat, didn't see a whale. Or people will be 775 00:53:06,840 --> 00:53:12,559 like, hey, whales absolutely tore apart my boat. I am now missing 776 00:53:12,559 --> 00:53:15,719 a problem. But there's a lot of hot debate in that group where some 777 00:53:15,760 --> 00:53:17,519 people are like, these whales deserve to be killed, so like that's just 778 00:53:19,719 --> 00:53:23,000 that is a disaster waiting to happen. So oh yeah, gotta follow along. 779 00:53:23,079 --> 00:53:25,559 Yeah. Whenever you have wild animals interacting with humans, it's usually not 780 00:53:25,639 --> 00:53:29,960 a good thing. Yeah, And anyways, so keep it, keep an 781 00:53:30,000 --> 00:53:32,360 eye on that. Yeah, elites to bad shit at least, like if 782 00:53:32,360 --> 00:53:36,599 they haven't attacked somebody. Like this is like how it starts. They start 783 00:53:36,639 --> 00:53:39,119 fucking with your boats and then eventually they get bored and start going for people. 784 00:53:39,960 --> 00:53:43,679 We'll see how it plays out. I mean, it's gotta happen eventually, 785 00:53:43,880 --> 00:53:49,280 like it just by pure numbers, by chance, it's gonna happen eventually. 786 00:53:49,960 --> 00:53:58,400 Yeah. Maybe any of you who know anything about captive orcos will know 787 00:53:58,519 --> 00:54:04,320 the main whale will be talking about now, which is Tillicombo. When SeaWorld 788 00:54:04,360 --> 00:54:07,320 was no longer allowed to trap orcas for profit in the Pacific Northwest, they 789 00:54:07,400 --> 00:54:13,599 moved to capturing whales around Iceland, and that is where Tillicomb was captured. 790 00:54:14,639 --> 00:54:17,039 It was November of nineteen eighty three and Tillicomb was two years old when he 791 00:54:17,119 --> 00:54:21,840 was taken from his mother, and he was initially sold to an aquarium I 792 00:54:21,840 --> 00:54:25,559 mentioned earlier, Sealand, where he was regularly beaten up by two female orcas 793 00:54:25,559 --> 00:54:30,519 there. And like I said before, with that place, Sealand, he 794 00:54:30,599 --> 00:54:35,480 was one of the whales kept in basically a stall for up to fourteen hours, 795 00:54:36,280 --> 00:54:39,800 and he was a massive whale. At his biggest, he ended up 796 00:54:39,800 --> 00:54:45,199 being twenty two feet long and twelve thousand, five hundred pounds or five thousand, 797 00:54:45,239 --> 00:54:49,599 seven hundred kilograms. He was the biggest in captivity right at least at 798 00:54:49,599 --> 00:54:53,800 a time. Yes, I also found today that the largest ever recorded orca 799 00:54:53,920 --> 00:54:59,719 was twice his size, No fucking way. Yeah, not in captivity, 800 00:54:59,760 --> 00:55:02,280 but like in general, the largest orca yeah, is twice tillicomb size. 801 00:55:02,440 --> 00:55:07,519 Are there photos of that? I found like a diagram showing like size comparisons, 802 00:55:07,559 --> 00:55:08,679 but I haven't seen a picture. I mean, ay, look that 803 00:55:08,760 --> 00:55:14,119 up. Yeah, I know me too. Oh oo. So on February 804 00:55:14,159 --> 00:55:16,880 twentieth, nineteen ninety one, Tillicomb was in a tank with two other whales 805 00:55:16,880 --> 00:55:22,079 at sealand when one of their trainers, Kelty Burne, slipped and fell into 806 00:55:22,239 --> 00:55:28,119 the tank the orcas were in. Although all three orcas reacted to her falling 807 00:55:28,159 --> 00:55:31,719 in, it was Tillicomb that grabbed her by the foot and repeatedly submerged her. 808 00:55:32,079 --> 00:55:36,000 Kelty was heard screaming for help and saying she didn't want to die, 809 00:55:36,480 --> 00:55:39,480 but no one could go in to help her even after she went unconscious, 810 00:55:39,719 --> 00:55:44,840 because obviously she was the orca trainer, not like other people are trained with 811 00:55:45,039 --> 00:55:47,960 orcas, let alone to jump in and save someone from an orca. As 812 00:55:49,000 --> 00:55:53,480 far as I know, Kelty's death was ruled a drowning and a quote accident, 813 00:55:53,639 --> 00:55:59,599 but she was a competitive swimmer. This was Tillicomb's first incident. First 814 00:56:00,119 --> 00:56:05,239 year after that, Sealand went bankrupt. Wonder why. And Tillicomb was sold 815 00:56:05,320 --> 00:56:07,760 to SeaWorld, who was all too excited to have him as part of their 816 00:56:07,840 --> 00:56:13,719 artificial insemination breeding program, which frankly, we don't have time to get into 817 00:56:13,920 --> 00:56:16,400 and I don't have the mental capacity to talk about, like the horrible trauma 818 00:56:16,760 --> 00:56:22,320 that comes with artificially inseminating orcas. But it's fucked up. If you want 819 00:56:22,320 --> 00:56:23,360 to hear more about it, read the book Beneath the Service. It's really 820 00:56:23,360 --> 00:56:28,119 bad and now you're breeding a while as a history of aggression towards humans into 821 00:56:28,559 --> 00:56:34,199 more whales. His sperm was sent to other SeaWorld parks and around the world, 822 00:56:34,519 --> 00:56:37,760 to other parks like the SeaWorld associated park in Spain, Lauro Park. 823 00:56:37,960 --> 00:56:40,480 Do you know what the stud fee was? I don't think they had one, 824 00:56:40,519 --> 00:56:44,320 because it was just there's something to other parks. I bet they was 825 00:56:44,360 --> 00:56:46,800 selling the DNA, you know, believe it or not. I didn't look 826 00:56:46,800 --> 00:56:51,480 into how much whales sperm goes for, but I'm sure you could find that 827 00:56:51,559 --> 00:56:53,880 information somewhere. I mean, it's got to be ridiculous. I mean, 828 00:56:53,920 --> 00:56:58,119 you hear of stud fees from horses being like hundreds of thousand dollars, like 829 00:56:58,199 --> 00:57:02,599 millions of dollars, so I feel way would be astronomical. Maybe Anyways, 830 00:57:04,480 --> 00:57:07,480 So when Tillicomb got to SeaWorld, his trainers were told that a trainer had 831 00:57:07,519 --> 00:57:10,719 accidentally drowned at the last part he was at, but it was not revealed 832 00:57:10,719 --> 00:57:15,320 to them that he played a part in it. And then there was July 833 00:57:15,599 --> 00:57:21,440 sixth, nineteen ninety nine, twenty seven year old Daniel Dukes hid in SeaWorld, 834 00:57:21,519 --> 00:57:25,559 Orlando's park until after closing, and at some point during the night he 835 00:57:25,719 --> 00:57:31,360 snuck into Tillicombe's enclosure, although allegedly there is no footage even though the whales 836 00:57:31,400 --> 00:57:35,960 are monitored twenty four to seven. The next morning, when keepers went to 837 00:57:36,039 --> 00:57:40,920 Tillicom's tank, a naked Daniel Dukes was on Tillicomb's back as Tillicomb was swimming 838 00:57:42,079 --> 00:57:45,719 around. What a way to present your trophy. The man was also castrated 839 00:57:45,760 --> 00:57:50,960 by the whale and had multiple lacerations and puncture marks from the whale's teeth all 840 00:57:50,960 --> 00:57:54,760 over his body. This was a really odd case for you know, multiple 841 00:57:54,840 --> 00:58:00,480 reasons, especially because the whales are allegedly checked on throughout the night, like 842 00:58:00,519 --> 00:58:05,360 every few hours. But no other people noticed the dead man and no security 843 00:58:05,400 --> 00:58:07,519 cameras caught it. According to SeaWorld, Yeah, I mean that's just a 844 00:58:07,559 --> 00:58:13,480 lie. Like there's camera footage of this happening, probably multiple angles of this 845 00:58:13,599 --> 00:58:15,599 happening, And I'll tell you all right now, everything we're about to talk 846 00:58:15,599 --> 00:58:19,639 about, there is camera footage of oh yeah, like the girl being ruled 847 00:58:19,639 --> 00:58:22,760 at drowning, Like there's video of it that you see in Blackfish yep, 848 00:58:22,840 --> 00:58:25,119 And there are eyewitnesses who talk about it in Blackfish. Yeah. Like, 849 00:58:25,159 --> 00:58:29,079 that's just insane that they get away with doing that kind of shit. So 850 00:58:29,199 --> 00:58:32,880 SeaWorld was quick to label Daniel as a mentally unstable man and claim that it 851 00:58:34,000 --> 00:58:37,559 was in accidental drownding sound familiar, Yeah, I'm you know what, like 852 00:58:37,119 --> 00:58:40,239 if we're gonna be jumping into cages with fucking wild animals like oh, I 853 00:58:40,239 --> 00:58:44,599 mean absolutely he was in the wrong, but also SeaWorld like you could acknowledge 854 00:58:44,639 --> 00:58:47,199 that he was killed by a whale. Yeah, they're definitely covering it up. 855 00:58:47,199 --> 00:58:50,039 But it's just like, what are you doing? I mean, no 856 00:58:50,039 --> 00:58:53,320 one's gonna like if Nick walked into a tiger enclosure and a tiger ripped him 857 00:58:53,320 --> 00:59:00,000 apart, No one would be like Nick accidentally got torn apart a tiger killed. 858 00:59:00,280 --> 00:59:01,559 No, I wouldn't expect that it would be on my side, like, 859 00:59:01,639 --> 00:59:06,079 yeah, of course he's fucking dead. Yeah, yeah, obviously. 860 00:59:06,159 --> 00:59:08,400 Yeah. So basically, if you haven't caught on, SeaWorld is just not 861 00:59:08,519 --> 00:59:13,679 acknowledging that the orcs are capable of doing anything bad because it would look bad 862 00:59:14,000 --> 00:59:17,119 if they acknowledged that the whales could kill people and were aggressive. Yeah, 863 00:59:17,119 --> 00:59:21,400 and they're getting away with it. So at this point, Tillicombs killed two 864 00:59:21,400 --> 00:59:24,559 people. He is still being used in shows, he is still doing water 865 00:59:24,639 --> 00:59:30,559 work with trainers, which includes trainers swimming and doing tricks with him, and 866 00:59:30,599 --> 00:59:38,679 his sperm was still being used around the world for breeding programs. Now, 867 00:59:38,760 --> 00:59:44,960 let's make pit stop to Loo Park in Spain, the SeaWorld associated park, 868 00:59:45,159 --> 00:59:49,599 even though they claim that's not what it is that they're it's a sister park 869 00:59:49,639 --> 00:59:52,000 to SeaWorld. Ooh, this sounds fun. So trainers were there in two 870 00:59:52,039 --> 00:59:55,840 thousand and nine, and that's like the year that we're gonna talking about here, 871 00:59:55,840 --> 00:59:59,519 But there were the trainers there at the time were much less experienced than 872 00:59:59,559 --> 01:00:05,519 SeaWorld trainers because this park was pretty new, and many of the whales that 873 01:00:05,559 --> 01:00:09,039 they had in Laura Park had never been in the water with people before, 874 01:00:09,199 --> 01:00:14,440 like they'd never done water work before, So they flew in trainers from SeaWorld 875 01:00:14,440 --> 01:00:19,760 in America to help the trainers in Spain learn how to do stuff. Alexis 876 01:00:19,760 --> 01:00:22,800 Martinez was twenty nine and he had been working in the park since two thousand 877 01:00:22,800 --> 01:00:27,679 and four, and he was considered one of, if not the most experienced 878 01:00:27,760 --> 01:00:30,920 orchit trainer the park had. Also, I've heard his name pronounced a few 879 01:00:30,960 --> 01:00:32,639 different ways, but the most common way I've heard it pronounce is Alexis, 880 01:00:34,000 --> 01:00:37,800 So that's how I'm going to be saying it. On December twenty fourth, 881 01:00:37,880 --> 01:00:40,559 two thousand and nine, Alexis was working with a whale named Keto. So 882 01:00:40,599 --> 01:00:43,880 do you remember that whale I mentioned at the beginning of the episode. Morgan. 883 01:00:44,039 --> 01:00:46,039 Yeah, since this incident, she's been bred with Keto. Just keep 884 01:00:46,039 --> 01:00:50,920 that in mind. Anyways, Alexis was doing a rehearsal with Keto and Keto 885 01:00:51,000 --> 01:00:54,320 didn't perform a few behaviors correctly, so instead, like if the whales didn't 886 01:00:54,320 --> 01:00:58,920 perform a trick perfectly, the trainer wouldn't give them a fish, and instead 887 01:00:58,960 --> 01:01:01,039 they would stare at the whale for a few seconds before moving on to either 888 01:01:01,159 --> 01:01:05,679 try again or try something different, essentially letting it sink into the whale that 889 01:01:05,719 --> 01:01:07,519 they didn't do something correctly. They give a stink eye, not even a 890 01:01:07,559 --> 01:01:10,159 stink guy, just like staring at them like I needed you to do this 891 01:01:10,199 --> 01:01:14,519 thing and you didn't. Get shit. Yeah, like just acknowledging that they 892 01:01:14,519 --> 01:01:19,239 weren't being rewarded because they didn't do something right. Yep. So Alexis was 893 01:01:19,280 --> 01:01:22,360 in the pool with Keto and he asked a trainer on the edge of the 894 01:01:22,360 --> 01:01:24,880 pool to call Keto over. So Keto went over, you know, did 895 01:01:24,880 --> 01:01:28,360 the thing correctly, so he was given a ball of ice as a treat 896 01:01:28,559 --> 01:01:30,679 and he seemed calm, so he was sent back to Alexis in the middle 897 01:01:30,679 --> 01:01:35,519 of the pool for more training. Alexis tried to do something called a stage 898 01:01:35,559 --> 01:01:37,840 haul out with Keto, where he grabbed the whales rostrum and was led underwater 899 01:01:37,960 --> 01:01:44,079 in a way, but Keto took him deeper than normal, and the trainer 900 01:01:44,079 --> 01:01:46,280 at the side of the pool, Brian used an emergency tone to call Keto 901 01:01:46,320 --> 01:01:50,800 over, and it worked because he realized that something was going on that could 902 01:01:50,920 --> 01:01:53,760 turn out to be bad, so Brian told Alexis to swim towards a landing 903 01:01:53,800 --> 01:01:58,760 area to get out of the pool, and noticed that Keto was watching Alexis. 904 01:01:59,440 --> 01:02:01,599 Also, because orca is fun fact, even if they're like facing one 905 01:02:01,599 --> 01:02:05,480 direction, they can move their eye entirely back to look behind them. No 906 01:02:05,559 --> 01:02:10,800 shit, yeah damn. It's also noted that Keto was not rewarded with fish 907 01:02:10,840 --> 01:02:15,079 for responding to the emergency call, so he did the right thing and didn't 908 01:02:15,079 --> 01:02:16,880 get rewarded. I'm not sure if this was on purpose, or the trainer 909 01:02:16,960 --> 01:02:21,360 was just like so focused on helping Alexis that he forgot yeah, or maybe 910 01:02:21,360 --> 01:02:23,800 he like realized that Keto wasn't fully paying attention to him didn't want to reward 911 01:02:23,880 --> 01:02:27,960 him for like half asked coming over kind of, I guess, yeah, 912 01:02:28,079 --> 01:02:30,079 or he went too deep so he doesn't get the reward. Like there's I'm 913 01:02:30,119 --> 01:02:37,280 sure they could spin that in a thousand different ways. Yeah, so Brian 914 01:02:37,440 --> 01:02:42,599 asked Keto for a hand target again, but as Keto saw Alexis swimming away, 915 01:02:42,840 --> 01:02:47,920 he broke away from the trainer and rushed after Alexis. Keto grabbed Alexis's 916 01:02:49,000 --> 01:02:53,480 leg and brought him to the bottom of the pool. The other trainer started 917 01:02:53,480 --> 01:02:57,719 slapping the water and banging his fish bucket, which were usually signals for the 918 01:02:57,719 --> 01:03:01,159 whale to return to the trainer. Keto came up for a breath, but 919 01:03:01,199 --> 01:03:07,480 then quickly returned to Alexis at the bottom of the pool. As I mentioned 920 01:03:07,480 --> 01:03:12,119 before, this entire incident was caught on video, and at one point, 921 01:03:12,280 --> 01:03:16,800 as Keto is dragging a Lexus along underwater, Alexis comes into frame and stares 922 01:03:16,880 --> 01:03:22,119 directly at the camera, but his body is limp and his eyes are wide 923 01:03:22,679 --> 01:03:28,400 and he was dead. Oh. Also, before I even continue, like, 924 01:03:28,519 --> 01:03:30,800 this was an incident that was talked about at the other SeaWorld parks, 925 01:03:31,079 --> 01:03:36,000 so the other Orcha trainers had to watch this video. I don't think they 926 01:03:36,039 --> 01:03:38,760 showed the video in Blackfish. They talked about the gentleman through. Don't think 927 01:03:38,760 --> 01:03:43,360 they showed the video, no, because they probably don't want to show you 928 01:03:43,400 --> 01:03:45,000 like a dead person in the whale's mouth, Like I'm sure there's yeah, 929 01:03:45,079 --> 01:03:51,000 I'm sure SeaWorld wasn't quick to release that. So no. Yeah, so 930 01:03:51,159 --> 01:03:53,920 ned had to be used to get Keto away from Alexis, and a trainer 931 01:03:54,119 --> 01:03:59,440 jumped in the pool once Keto was removed to get Alexis's body, but it 932 01:03:59,480 --> 01:04:02,199 was so logged with water that it took like thirty seconds to get him up 933 01:04:02,199 --> 01:04:06,159 from the bottom of the pool, and there was also reportedly massive amounts of 934 01:04:06,159 --> 01:04:10,320 blood at the scene. In thirty seconds is a long fucking time when you 935 01:04:10,360 --> 01:04:13,960 have a whale in the same pool, separated by a net that it can 936 01:04:14,119 --> 01:04:16,440 jump over. No. I think it was like he was taken out of 937 01:04:16,440 --> 01:04:20,280 that pool and like directed to another pool and probably barricaded out. Okay, 938 01:04:20,360 --> 01:04:25,159 okay, actually yeah, because it was reported too that when they tried to 939 01:04:25,199 --> 01:04:28,559 like close the gate to get him into another pool, he shoved his head 940 01:04:28,599 --> 01:04:34,320 between the gate. Oh he was pissed. Yeah, So classically, SeaWorld 941 01:04:34,320 --> 01:04:41,239 claimed that Alexis had panicked when Keto grabbed his legs and drowned. But uh, 942 01:04:41,880 --> 01:04:45,960 usually there's not a shit ton of blood when you drown usually not usually 943 01:04:45,000 --> 01:04:48,840 not no, because usually water goes in. It's not like you're heavylo. 944 01:04:49,480 --> 01:04:55,679 Yeah. Yeah, So an autopsy revealed that Alexis did drown. However, 945 01:04:55,840 --> 01:05:00,159 it was caused by quote mechanical asphyxiation due to compression and brushing of these thoracic 946 01:05:00,159 --> 01:05:05,960 abdomen with injuries to the vital organs meaning crushed. His chest was crushed. 947 01:05:06,199 --> 01:05:11,679 Yes, both of his lungs collapsed, some ribs in his sternam were fractured, 948 01:05:12,119 --> 01:05:15,719 multiple organs were damaged, and his liver was lacerated. Oh god, 949 01:05:16,159 --> 01:05:21,039 it's important for me to note here that this wasn't play. Orcas can echo 950 01:05:21,159 --> 01:05:26,599 locate and essentially like assess the placement of your organs like your heartbeat. They 951 01:05:26,639 --> 01:05:30,199 can echo locate and know that you're pregnant. So it's not like they don't 952 01:05:30,239 --> 01:05:33,400 know what they're doing. Yeah, I can't very inceeled in animals, they're 953 01:05:33,440 --> 01:05:38,480 making an active choice, Like there is scientific research on their brains that show 954 01:05:38,559 --> 01:05:43,440 that they can make conscious choices. And that's what this was, and that's 955 01:05:43,480 --> 01:05:45,239 what any active aggression is, a conscious choice by the organ It's not like 956 01:05:45,239 --> 01:05:49,199 an instinct, it's a choice. Yep. So water work with Orcas was 957 01:05:49,239 --> 01:05:54,159 temporarily banned across all Sea World sites after that, but quickly resumed except in 958 01:05:54,199 --> 01:05:57,519 Laura Park, where it's been prohibited ever since because the Spanish government was like, 959 01:05:57,639 --> 01:06:05,440 nah, never again. One is enough bad idea. Yeah, now 960 01:06:05,480 --> 01:06:11,880 let's get back to tillicombe just a few months after Alexis's death. So February 961 01:06:11,880 --> 01:06:15,880 twenty fourth, twenty ten, exactly two months after Alexis's death, forty year 962 01:06:15,880 --> 01:06:21,159 old Don Branshaw, one of SeaWorld's most experienced trainers, had just performed Dining 963 01:06:21,199 --> 01:06:26,400 with Shambou show at SeaWorld Orlando. No one was allowed to do water work 964 01:06:26,400 --> 01:06:29,440 with Tillicomb at this point because of the previous human deaths he was involved in, 965 01:06:29,920 --> 01:06:32,360 and that protocol was still being followed to that day. Tillicum had been 966 01:06:32,360 --> 01:06:36,119 asked to perform a few behaviors and did so incorrectly, but overall was still 967 01:06:36,159 --> 01:06:40,320 exhibiting what was considered like good behavior, Like he wasn't showing any signs of 968 01:06:40,360 --> 01:06:45,320 aggression or frustration, so they were still like doing stuff with him, and 969 01:06:45,440 --> 01:06:47,840 Don had a really good relationship with Tillicomb and knew how to get the best 970 01:06:47,840 --> 01:06:51,719 behaviors out of him and how to keep him happy. So after the show, 971 01:06:51,880 --> 01:06:55,719 Don walked over to the pool edge and laid down to pet Tillicum as 972 01:06:55,760 --> 01:06:59,239 part of like a reward for him. And the pool ledge that she was 973 01:06:59,440 --> 01:07:01,440 on was shin high water, so it's not like she was swimming around with 974 01:07:01,519 --> 01:07:05,920 him. She was on a ledge that was in the water. After this, 975 01:07:06,159 --> 01:07:10,480 Don was supposed to send Tillicum down to a glass viewing area in the 976 01:07:10,480 --> 01:07:13,719 pool below to entertaining visitors where like people could go and look through the glass 977 01:07:13,719 --> 01:07:17,079 at the whale, and the other senior trainer was down there waiting to receive 978 01:07:17,159 --> 01:07:23,519 Tillicom behind the glass. Because normally there's at least two trainers and someone spotting 979 01:07:23,519 --> 01:07:26,119 the whale to help communicate between the two trainers as to what the whale is 980 01:07:26,159 --> 01:07:30,800 doing at any given times, they're constantly watched. The other trainer down by 981 01:07:30,800 --> 01:07:35,199 the glass knew something was wrong when she saw an unexpected splash. According to 982 01:07:35,280 --> 01:07:41,159 videos and eyewitness accounts, Don was petting Tillicum when he grabbed her arm and 983 01:07:41,239 --> 01:07:45,239 pulled her into the pool. The only other trainer up at the pool at 984 01:07:45,280 --> 01:07:48,079 the time was not qualified to work with Tillicum in the water or just in 985 01:07:48,159 --> 01:07:51,760 general, and all they could do was sound in an underwater emergency alarm in 986 01:07:51,800 --> 01:07:56,719 an attempt to get Tillicum away from down, and the sound of the emergency 987 01:07:56,760 --> 01:08:00,719 alarm called over other senior trainers who also tried to call Tillicum away, but 988 01:08:00,760 --> 01:08:03,679 it didn't work. He struck down multiple times with his head and dragged her 989 01:08:03,719 --> 01:08:09,559 around underwater by her arm, her neck, shoulder, hair, and her 990 01:08:09,639 --> 01:08:14,079 leg at various times. An emergency net was deployed, as is typical with 991 01:08:14,119 --> 01:08:16,479 emergency protocol because the whales tend to be afraid of the nets, but the 992 01:08:16,520 --> 01:08:19,680 net got caught on some decorative rocks so it didn't have the full effect. 993 01:08:20,880 --> 01:08:26,159 And there were two back pools. I know, of course, it's like 994 01:08:26,239 --> 01:08:29,560 every time we talk about guns misfiring when people go to shoot something that's trying 995 01:08:29,600 --> 01:08:33,600 to kill them. There was also two backpools attached to the show pool, 996 01:08:33,680 --> 01:08:38,880 but they were being occupied by other whales who were very upset at what Tilicum 997 01:08:39,000 --> 01:08:43,199 was doing, so they were refusing to move out of their pools. The 998 01:08:43,239 --> 01:08:45,800 rescue team used another net to shepherd him towards their medical pool that I mentioned 999 01:08:45,800 --> 01:08:48,720 earlier, the one that's only eight feet deep and as the floor that raises, 1000 01:08:48,800 --> 01:08:55,239 essentially artificially breaching the whales. But with each pool that he was shepherded 1001 01:08:55,279 --> 01:09:00,520 into, Tilicum got more and more agitated and more possessive of Dawn, shaking 1002 01:09:00,560 --> 01:09:03,760 her in his mouth, emitting vocalizations the entire time that indicated he was very 1003 01:09:03,840 --> 01:09:12,920 upset. Oh Man. So forty five minutes after Don was pulling into the 1004 01:09:12,960 --> 01:09:17,680 water, rescuers were able to artificially breach Tillicumb in the medpool with Don still 1005 01:09:17,720 --> 01:09:23,680 in his mouth. Laura Serovic was one of the other very experienced trainers that 1006 01:09:23,680 --> 01:09:27,319 worked with Tillicumb and had a good relationship with him. But she also happ 1007 01:09:27,640 --> 01:09:32,119 one of Don's very best friends and they shared like matching friendship rings together and 1008 01:09:32,199 --> 01:09:35,159 she was on the other side of the park when this incident began, and 1009 01:09:35,199 --> 01:09:40,119 when she heard what happened, she ran over. As Laura arrived, Tillicum 1010 01:09:40,199 --> 01:09:42,680 was being shepherd in between pools, and she noted that the presence of all 1011 01:09:42,720 --> 01:09:45,479 the people was making him more upset, so she told people to back off, 1012 01:09:45,560 --> 01:09:49,159 essentially, and when he was breached and he calmed down slightly, or 1013 01:09:49,239 --> 01:09:54,239 sorry when he was beached and he calmed down slightly. Laura walked over to 1014 01:09:54,319 --> 01:09:57,600 him and in a strong voice told him to settle down and he had a 1015 01:09:57,640 --> 01:10:02,760 net draped over his body or a knelt down at Tillicum's mouth and cradled Don's 1016 01:10:02,800 --> 01:10:06,920 torso in her arms as she tried to coax Tilicum into releasing her friend. 1017 01:10:08,800 --> 01:10:13,399 The other rescuers tucked another net around his rostrum, and he finally fully released 1018 01:10:13,439 --> 01:10:16,600 Don to Laura. Laura carried her friend away from onlookers and tried using a 1019 01:10:16,600 --> 01:10:21,359 defibrillator, but it was no use. Don had been scalped. She was 1020 01:10:21,479 --> 01:10:25,800 missing an arm, and it was found in the back of Tillicum's mouth. 1021 01:10:26,359 --> 01:10:30,560 It was the same arm that had the ring on that she shared with Laura. 1022 01:10:31,239 --> 01:10:35,560 Don's spinal cord had also been severed and her ribs were broken. After 1023 01:10:35,600 --> 01:10:42,039 this incident, SeaWorld did not release an incident report, which they did after 1024 01:10:42,079 --> 01:10:46,640 Alexis died, but not after Don died. Instead, they insisted that Don's 1025 01:10:46,680 --> 01:10:51,479 death was her fault because they suggested that her ponytail had touched the water, 1026 01:10:51,760 --> 01:10:58,520 which enticed the whale. In his book, John Hargrove says it's extremely unlikely 1027 01:10:58,560 --> 01:11:01,960 that's what happened because the whale are specifically trained to be desensitized to ponytails to 1028 01:11:02,000 --> 01:11:06,479 avoid that situation entirely, and he believes it was simply an active aggression on 1029 01:11:06,600 --> 01:11:14,119 till it comes apart. Yeah yeah, like, yep, you listened off 1030 01:11:14,159 --> 01:11:17,359 the injuries, like yeah, yeah, yeah, you don't rip off an 1031 01:11:17,479 --> 01:11:24,600 arm or scalp someone unintentionally. The scalping I can almost get if he was 1032 01:11:24,800 --> 01:11:28,319 literally grabbed the pointsail and ripped it off, So that's not it's not even 1033 01:11:28,319 --> 01:11:30,600 what happened. No, like he grabbed her by the arm at first, 1034 01:11:30,680 --> 01:11:34,159 right, Yeah, But I mean it's just it's it's insane that they get 1035 01:11:34,159 --> 01:11:38,560 away with just making up bullshit and people are like, oh yeah, oh 1036 01:11:38,680 --> 01:11:41,239 sure, trust me. No one believed this. I mean, this is 1037 01:11:41,239 --> 01:11:44,479 what Blackfish is all about, and this is what Sue World. Uh, 1038 01:11:45,000 --> 01:11:48,520 Sue world, this is what Sea World it is. Truly, that's what 1039 01:11:48,560 --> 01:11:53,439 they got pissy at Blackfish about because they were like, Tillicomb didn't attack don 1040 01:11:53,479 --> 01:11:57,079 It's like, uh yeah, we'll get into that. I don't know how 1041 01:11:57,079 --> 01:12:01,439 you can say that he didn't attack her like he ripped her apart. Yeah, 1042 01:12:01,560 --> 01:12:05,520 regardless of everything, regardless of all the drownings and everything that they're talking 1043 01:12:05,520 --> 01:12:08,720 about, like what happens to the people. You can't just be like, 1044 01:12:08,760 --> 01:12:12,439 oh yeah, like it's whatever, it's their fault. Yeah, no, 1045 01:12:12,439 --> 01:12:15,720 No, they have a wild fucking animal on a pool. Yeah what are 1046 01:12:15,720 --> 01:12:19,079 we doing here? Yeah? And nothing like no way to help the people, 1047 01:12:19,199 --> 01:12:23,680 like nets get a fucking hardpoon gun or some shit. You gotta put 1048 01:12:23,680 --> 01:12:28,279 a hardpooned that thing's brain, like it's killing somebody, it's killing somebody, 1049 01:12:28,600 --> 01:12:30,359 you know. I thought that was really interesting too. You and I talk 1050 01:12:30,399 --> 01:12:33,000 a lot about other animals at zoos and stuff that have to be put down 1051 01:12:33,039 --> 01:12:36,399 because they're attacking a person. That has never happened with the orchid. I 1052 01:12:36,439 --> 01:12:41,960 think it's literally just because they which is why they make so much money, 1053 01:12:42,079 --> 01:12:44,640 that they're not going to kill one of the whales for killing somebody. The 1054 01:12:44,680 --> 01:12:45,520 moment you kill one of them, you have to release solve them, like 1055 01:12:45,520 --> 01:12:49,079 people would absolutely lose their shit, as they should. Yeah, like yep, 1056 01:12:49,119 --> 01:12:53,560 because people care more about the orches lives than human lives. So I 1057 01:12:53,600 --> 01:12:57,800 mean the company certainly does exactly yeah, and the public does like no one's 1058 01:12:58,199 --> 01:13:00,479 they still have whales. Yeah, I mean there's plenty of members of the 1059 01:13:00,520 --> 01:13:04,159 public who care about the people that they have died. Actually, the public 1060 01:13:04,199 --> 01:13:08,840 people are smart. The public is stupid. An individual is smart. A 1061 01:13:08,880 --> 01:13:13,159 group of people is stupid, like they just accept it. I mean people 1062 01:13:13,199 --> 01:13:15,720 that still go to SeaWorld, Yeah for sure, I mean exactly. It's 1063 01:13:15,760 --> 01:13:18,439 also entirely possible that people that go to sea World don't know about this, 1064 01:13:18,680 --> 01:13:24,840 but the ones who do they probably don't. Yeah. Anyways, after this 1065 01:13:24,960 --> 01:13:28,880 incident with Don, first of all, Tillicum was really upset because he loved 1066 01:13:28,880 --> 01:13:31,880 Don, but also he killed her well yeah, which is very complicated. 1067 01:13:32,279 --> 01:13:35,720 His opinion on her doesn't really matter anymore. No, But what I'm trying 1068 01:13:35,720 --> 01:13:40,920 to say is like after she died, he was depressed because the person and 1069 01:13:40,960 --> 01:13:44,520 also he knew that her body was there, Like he didn't want to leave 1070 01:13:44,520 --> 01:13:48,239 that medpool because he could still see her and was upset and after her death 1071 01:13:48,319 --> 01:13:53,359 like got depressed. Basically, we can't be sad for the whale that killed 1072 01:13:53,359 --> 01:13:57,520 the lady. We can't. Oh yeah, absolutely can yes, Okay, 1073 01:13:57,600 --> 01:14:00,119 I think the will should be dead, so I don't I understand what you're 1074 01:14:00,119 --> 01:14:02,560 saying. I know it's probably gonna be a super unpopular opinion with people, 1075 01:14:02,880 --> 01:14:09,039 but I it is confusing to me. How like Harambe, for example, 1076 01:14:09,600 --> 01:14:12,800 he wasn't actively attacking that child that got in his enclosure the gorilla. If 1077 01:14:12,840 --> 01:14:15,800 you don't, if you listening, don't know who Harambe was. If you, 1078 01:14:15,880 --> 01:14:16,720 if you're one of the five people in a plan, doesn't know who 1079 01:14:16,760 --> 01:14:21,039 Rame is. Yeah, but Harabe was killed because there was a person in 1080 01:14:21,079 --> 01:14:26,079 his enclosure and he could have killed them. But these orcas maybe it's because 1081 01:14:26,159 --> 01:14:30,560 this, like they have people actively in their enclosure interacting with them, but 1082 01:14:30,720 --> 01:14:34,079 they've never killed a whale for like being actively attacking a person, which is 1083 01:14:34,399 --> 01:14:38,960 really interesting. Crazy, it's so crazy. So anyways, after this, 1084 01:14:39,079 --> 01:14:43,479 Tillicum was mostly kept in isolation, and in the following months he became very 1085 01:14:43,479 --> 01:14:46,359 sick, leading to him being heavily medicated and at one point he was so 1086 01:14:46,399 --> 01:14:50,960 sick that he's lost a thousand pounds. Oh yeah, oh my god. 1087 01:14:53,000 --> 01:14:56,319 But he still appeared in shows, though not for long, and he didn't 1088 01:14:56,359 --> 01:15:00,960 do many things. And this really breaks my heart because that means his life 1089 01:15:00,960 --> 01:15:04,720 in captivity got even more boring. Oh yeah, yeah, And you know, 1090 01:15:05,159 --> 01:15:10,359 Nick and I talked about this in the Blackfish Bonus episode. But the 1091 01:15:10,479 --> 01:15:15,079 hardest part for these trainers, like many of them try to ignore what is 1092 01:15:15,119 --> 01:15:20,479 happening because they think that they're helping the whales. And if a trainer leaves 1093 01:15:20,479 --> 01:15:24,680 SeaWorld, because they know that it's fucked up, it's just hurting the whale 1094 01:15:24,720 --> 01:15:28,960 because the whales form relationships with them and like love their trainers. Yeah, 1095 01:15:29,119 --> 01:15:31,119 so you're no, the whale's not going anywhere, like no, and you 1096 01:15:31,279 --> 01:15:34,439 leaving SeaWorld and like speak nut against them, although great, you don't want 1097 01:15:34,439 --> 01:15:36,800 to be a part of it anymore. Like the whales still gets punished in 1098 01:15:36,840 --> 01:15:40,039 the end, which fucking sucks. Yeah, and that's what happened. You're 1099 01:15:40,039 --> 01:15:43,920 basically a part of these whales family group, Like you're a part of their 1100 01:15:44,039 --> 01:15:46,399 artificial pot as it is, so yep. Yeah, Like you leave them 1101 01:15:46,399 --> 01:15:48,920 like it's gonna be the same as if they lost a family member. Yeah. 1102 01:15:48,960 --> 01:15:51,039 Yeah, So these trainers are kind of like what the fuck are they 1103 01:15:51,079 --> 01:15:57,159 supposed to do? Yeah. So in January sixth, twenty seventeen, Tillicum 1104 01:15:57,199 --> 01:16:02,119 died, reportedly of a bacterial infection. And he sired twenty one offspring in 1105 01:16:02,119 --> 01:16:08,520 captivity. He was their most prolific reader. Yeah, hell yeah. So 1106 01:16:08,640 --> 01:16:13,800 SeaWorld voluntarily suspended all water work with orcas following Don's death. But thanks to 1107 01:16:13,920 --> 01:16:16,720 a lawsuit with Osha, where SeaWorld was found guilty of putting their workers that 1108 01:16:16,840 --> 01:16:24,479 unnecessarily risk, they really couldn't do this anymore, Like legally they cannot let 1109 01:16:24,680 --> 01:16:29,920 trainers swim with orcas the ways that they used to. Specifically, the judge 1110 01:16:29,920 --> 01:16:33,720 and the case said quote SeaWorld insists it did not recognize the hazard post by 1111 01:16:33,760 --> 01:16:39,560 working in close contact with killer whales. The court finds this implausible and no 1112 01:16:39,600 --> 01:16:44,479 reasonable person would conclude that whether the trainers were fully immersed in swimming with the 1113 01:16:44,560 --> 01:16:48,079 killer whales for a waterwork show performance or standing poolside or on a slide out 1114 01:16:48,199 --> 01:16:53,520 for a dry work show performance, SeaWorld knew its trainers were at risk for 1115 01:16:53,600 --> 01:16:58,800 being struck or drowned by a killer whale, and then like Osha or sorry. 1116 01:16:59,279 --> 01:17:02,640 SeaWorld tried to appeal this basically, and the Court of Appeals judge was 1117 01:17:02,720 --> 01:17:08,920 more brief, saying statements by SeaWorld managers do not indicate that SeaWorld's safety protocols 1118 01:17:08,920 --> 01:17:13,720 and training made the killer whale safe. Rather they demonstrate SeaWorld recognizes that the 1119 01:17:13,800 --> 01:17:17,239 killer whales interacting with trainers are dangerous. And she also wrote that SeaWorld acted 1120 01:17:17,279 --> 01:17:21,439 you responsibly and quote violated its duties as an employer. That is a funny 1121 01:17:21,520 --> 01:17:24,880 take for them to have to try and like say like, oh, we 1122 01:17:24,920 --> 01:17:28,319 didn't know that this was a dangerous thing while you have all these safety procedures 1123 01:17:28,399 --> 01:17:31,039 in place. Yeah. Also you're logging aggressive incidents. There is a log 1124 01:17:31,199 --> 01:17:35,840 of all of the times orcas have basically attacked trainers, but the trainers didn't 1125 01:17:35,840 --> 01:17:40,359 die. And if you watch Blackfish you can see them being attacked. We 1126 01:17:40,560 --> 01:17:44,000 watched one of the whales breach and land on its trainer. Yeah, they 1127 01:17:44,039 --> 01:17:45,760 do kind of like a like a background shot of the list, like kind 1128 01:17:45,800 --> 01:17:48,720 of like have it scrolling through a background and a shot a long list. 1129 01:17:49,000 --> 01:17:51,640 That's a long fucking list. But they got back to it a couple of 1130 01:17:51,640 --> 01:17:55,159 times. Yeah, if you guys are interested, read the book Beneath the 1131 01:17:55,159 --> 01:17:57,720 Surface. He goes into it a lot, and he's also very heavily involved 1132 01:17:57,760 --> 01:18:00,199 in Blackfish. Yeah. I'm not sure if we said that. Yeah. 1133 01:18:00,239 --> 01:18:02,760 John Hargrove, the author of the book, is in blackfish yep. So. 1134 01:18:03,800 --> 01:18:11,079 Also because water work was suspended, that meant that the trainers who did 1135 01:18:11,119 --> 01:18:15,560 waterwork with orcas got a five dollars hazard pay essentially, and when water work 1136 01:18:15,680 --> 01:18:18,520 was suspended, SeaWorld fucking took that away from them. They already made pennies. 1137 01:18:18,520 --> 01:18:23,479 When John Hargrove started, he made six fucking dollars an hour as an 1138 01:18:23,600 --> 01:18:28,640 Orcha trainer. That's nuts. They make like no money, and SeaWorld basically 1139 01:18:28,680 --> 01:18:31,880 punish them for SeaWorld getting in trouble for making their work more dangerous. The 1140 01:18:31,960 --> 01:18:36,439 dude handing out popcorn in the stadium is making just as much as the person 1141 01:18:36,520 --> 01:18:41,560 working with the whales. Probably insane, not far from it, yep. 1142 01:18:44,279 --> 01:18:48,399 So I could not I did a quick goog couldn't find any real updates on 1143 01:18:48,439 --> 01:18:51,279 whether or not SeaWorld has updated their facilities in the wake of all this, 1144 01:18:51,439 --> 01:18:55,399 and they've made some claims that they were going to. I think they've done 1145 01:18:55,439 --> 01:18:59,119 some work to the pools that like you could raise the bottoms, but I 1146 01:18:59,159 --> 01:19:04,119 haven't seen any big changes made. And the big push that people who are 1147 01:19:04,159 --> 01:19:08,199 activists for this kind of stuff, like to get the killer whales out of 1148 01:19:08,239 --> 01:19:14,680 captivity. They basically they everyone acknowledges SeaWorld orcas cannot be released back into the 1149 01:19:14,680 --> 01:19:17,760 wild. And SeaWorld may say that they're doing conservation work by breeding orcas, 1150 01:19:17,920 --> 01:19:21,359 but they're breeding orcas that could never be released into the wild because they don't 1151 01:19:21,359 --> 01:19:25,439 belong to a pod and don't speak the language of any pod out there. 1152 01:19:25,520 --> 01:19:27,399 Yeah, no, it would never, It would never happen. You just 1153 01:19:27,479 --> 01:19:29,760 have to put them. They can so a free range pen pretty much like 1154 01:19:30,119 --> 01:19:31,680 in the ocean somewhere, but they can never leave like they always have to 1155 01:19:31,720 --> 01:19:36,079 be fenced in. That's exactly what people want, is like open ocean pens 1156 01:19:36,119 --> 01:19:40,359 for them until they die basically. Yeah, and who the fuck knows how 1157 01:19:40,359 --> 01:19:42,840 long that's going to be, Like, it'd be an unbelievably expensive thing to 1158 01:19:42,880 --> 01:19:45,119 do, so they won't do it. The youngest orca SeaWorld has there is 1159 01:19:45,119 --> 01:19:48,560 only eight. Yeah, and they can live to be in their sixties, 1160 01:19:48,560 --> 01:19:54,359 seventies, eighties. Yeah, it would be more financially stable for them to 1161 01:19:54,479 --> 01:19:58,119 keep them in Sea World because they're die quicker. Yeah, they just never 1162 01:19:58,119 --> 01:20:00,600 re replied to the population. Yeah, I mean it's it's so fucked up. 1163 01:20:00,640 --> 01:20:03,359 It's so fucked up. But that's like what zoos are, Like, 1164 01:20:03,479 --> 01:20:06,720 we can't release the lines that are in zoos unto the wild, so it's 1165 01:20:06,720 --> 01:20:10,399 similar. Yeah, you're not wrong, just that these are like some of 1166 01:20:10,439 --> 01:20:13,319 the most intelligent animals on the planet that we're doing it. So yeah, 1167 01:20:13,399 --> 01:20:21,279 which is so fucked up. Yeah, I'm going to make a Q and 1168 01:20:21,319 --> 01:20:27,359 a basically section. So normally for Spotify listeners, you know, I sometimes 1169 01:20:27,399 --> 01:20:30,920 throw a poll for an episode. Yeah, I'm now going to for this 1170 01:20:30,960 --> 01:20:35,039 episode make an open comment one. And I want to know if this episode 1171 01:20:35,239 --> 01:20:41,399 changed your perception of Sea World or if it made you more interested in learning 1172 01:20:41,479 --> 01:20:45,800 about captive orcas, because for me, like this has been so interesting. 1173 01:20:45,920 --> 01:20:49,039 I'm so into it, and I like want to help in any way I 1174 01:20:49,039 --> 01:20:54,199 can to get these orches out of captivity and to stop people from capturing wild 1175 01:20:54,319 --> 01:20:58,720 cetaceans for captivity, which definitely still happens today. Oh yeah, oh absolutely 1176 01:20:58,760 --> 01:21:00,239 happens. Like you said, I feel like dolphins shows are kind of like 1177 01:21:00,640 --> 01:21:03,960 not really talked about, but they happen a lot of places, more places 1178 01:21:03,960 --> 01:21:08,159 than the orchest straws. Yeah, we're not a, I didn't touch on 1179 01:21:08,199 --> 01:21:12,319 dolphins at all. Dolphin captivity not good. And if you would like to 1180 01:21:12,399 --> 01:21:16,359 learn more about cetaceans specifically like dolphins, there is a in our episode description 1181 01:21:16,399 --> 01:21:20,640 A'll link to a recent episode of Ologies with Ali Ward and it's all about 1182 01:21:20,720 --> 01:21:27,359 dolphins and cetaceans and it's so so good. So if you're into citations now, 1183 01:21:27,760 --> 01:21:29,880 there's plenty of stuff out there for you. This is like a whole 1184 01:21:29,920 --> 01:21:31,880 cult like thing. And Aali does good work. Ali's the fucking man. 1185 01:21:32,079 --> 01:21:38,000 Yeah, good show, good show. Yep. But that is our very 1186 01:21:38,039 --> 01:21:42,199 long episode on captive killer whales, and there's so much we didn't even touch 1187 01:21:42,199 --> 01:21:45,640 on. This is a whole beast. So I know for a fact you've 1188 01:21:45,640 --> 01:21:48,920 probably got to like two thirds of your notes. This is probably an entire 1189 01:21:48,960 --> 01:21:53,079 section you didn't even touch. I mean I left things out of my notes 1190 01:21:53,079 --> 01:21:56,199 too, and those twelve pages, so yeah, yeah, yeah. So 1191 01:21:56,319 --> 01:22:00,239 check out the episode description for more information. Definitely reach out on Spotify say 1192 01:22:00,279 --> 01:22:02,840 what you think. I'll be posting on social media. You can give your 1193 01:22:02,840 --> 01:22:08,840 comments on what you think of captive orcas and if you've visit a SeaWorld and 1194 01:22:08,880 --> 01:22:12,600 if your view has changed, since learning all the things you just learned. 1195 01:22:12,720 --> 01:22:15,079 I think a lot of people, a lot of views have changed about the 1196 01:22:15,079 --> 01:22:19,560 SeaWorld in the past fifteen to twenty years, which sucks because us being like, 1197 01:22:19,840 --> 01:22:24,359 we'll never go to sea World if they don't make money, the orct 1198 01:22:24,359 --> 01:22:27,560 still suffer, you know, exactly. Yeah, it's it's a zero win 1199 01:22:27,680 --> 01:22:30,000 situation the orcas. Yeah, the orchest in captivity will not win. The 1200 01:22:30,000 --> 01:22:33,840 best case scenario is that the government takes over orcas. Like, do we 1201 01:22:33,880 --> 01:22:36,520 have that much conference in the government to take care of these animals? I 1202 01:22:36,560 --> 01:22:43,680 don't exactly. Yeah, Like there's there's a No, I don't see a 1203 01:22:43,720 --> 01:22:46,600 happy ending for these animals that are in captivity. No don't. I don't 1204 01:22:46,600 --> 01:22:53,479 see when that exists realistically. Nope. No. Yeah. So that's why 1205 01:22:53,520 --> 01:22:56,640 I want to mention all like the quotes from the Sea World website, because 1206 01:22:56,680 --> 01:22:58,760 they were talking about the conservation work that you do, and I'm like, 1207 01:22:59,039 --> 01:23:02,119 that may be great, and you may be funneling money into conservation efforts, 1208 01:23:02,119 --> 01:23:11,079 but you also like actively destroyed these orchipods forever and you actively cover up people's 1209 01:23:11,119 --> 01:23:15,680 deaths. Yep, Like obviously, like it's not even a good cover up. 1210 01:23:15,960 --> 01:23:20,359 Like video exists. This isn't like nineteen forty anymore. Like everyone has 1211 01:23:20,359 --> 01:23:27,000 a fucking cell phone now. Yeah, it's insane. Yeah. Well that's 1212 01:23:27,039 --> 01:23:30,319 it, folks. If you want to learn more, check out the episode 1213 01:23:30,359 --> 01:23:33,760 description, comment on Spotify, or on any of our posts on social media. 1214 01:23:33,960 --> 01:23:36,960 You can follow us on Instagram at get out a Live Pod. On 1215 01:23:38,000 --> 01:23:42,159 Facebook get out a Live Podcast, TikTok, get out Alive, follow me 1216 01:23:42,199 --> 01:23:45,119 on Twitter at the Angreologist. You can check out our website get at a 1217 01:23:45,119 --> 01:23:50,000 Live Podcast dot com. I have no social social media none, Sarah great. 1218 01:23:50,680 --> 01:23:55,199 Thank you to my good friends second grade husband Josh Walsh for making this 1219 01:23:55,239 --> 01:23:58,960 intro music and Jesse for doing all of the other audio stuff, making the 1220 01:23:59,279 --> 01:24:02,439 incredible train social music, and editing everything to the best of visibility. You 1221 01:24:02,560 --> 01:24:04,600 rock. You guys are the best. We love you all. Thank you 1222 01:24:04,640 --> 01:24:08,560 all for your suggestions. We'll see you in two weeks with a new animal 1223 01:24:08,720 --> 01:24:16,319 Tack story.