#Animal Welfare
Target:
Seaworld
Region:
GLOBAL

Tilikum's lonely life is coming to an end at the abusement park SeaWorld of Orlando. Tilikum has taught us that these innocent wild creatures belong in the wild... not isolated in tiny, chlorinated swimming pools.

Tilikum, the largest whale in captivity has claimed the lives of 3 people and been through nothing but pain and agony for the past 33 years.

Tilikum was captured off of Iceland in November of 1983 when he was 2 years old. After his capture, he was kept in a cement holding tank for close to a year at Hafnarfjörður Marine Zoo, near Reykjavík, Iceland, as he awaited transfer to a marine park.

He was then transferred to the rundown Sealand of the Pacific in British Columbia, Canada, and was forced to live in a barren 100-foot-by-50-foot pool that was just 35 feet deep. As a training technique food was withheld from him, and he regularly endured painful attacks by two dominant female orcas, Haida and Nootka. He was forced to perform every hour on the hour, eight times a day, seven days a week which gave him constant stress and exhaustion leading to stomach ulcers. At the end of the business day the park closed its doors and the three incompatible orcas were crammed into a tiny round metal-sided module for more than 14 hours until the park reopened the next morning.

In February of 1991, Keltie Byrne fell into the tank and was pulled to the bottom of the enclosure by Tilikum. She was tossed around among the three orcas, and ultimately drowned. It took Sealand employees two hours to recover her body from the orcas. After her death Sealand closed down and sold Tilikum to SeaWorld.

SeaWorld purchased him for its breeding program with no concern for his reputation for killing and aggression. Tilikum’s sperm was used to build up a collection of orcas, and now, 54 percent of SeaWorld’s orcas have his genes.
Tilikum has been confined to a tank containing 0.0001 percent of the quantity of water that he would traverse in a single day in nature for over 3 decades. Tilikum has exhibited abnormal repetitive behavior for years, including chewing on metal gates and the concrete sides of his tank—so much so that the most of his teeth are completely worn down. The stress of captivity also caused Tilikum to exhibit aggression toward humans, which has cost two more lives. Daniel P. Dukes in 1999 and Dawn Brancheau in 2010. Tilikum scalped and dismembered Dawn as well as breaking bones throughout her body before drowning her... He was not just playing with his prey, he was angry.

Tilikum has been kept in a tiny enclosure that has limited his ability to swim, communicate with other orcas, and interact with humans even further for the past 6 years.

Tilikum is not the only orca who has become aggressive as a result of all the stress that the whales endure in the small tanks at SeaWorld. The park’s own records contain 600 pages of incident reports documenting dangerous and unanticipated orca behavior with trainers, consisting of more than 100 incidents in which killer whales bit, rammed, lunged at, pulled, pinned, and swam aggressively with SeaWorld trainers, many of which led to human injuries.

Aggression toward humans and among orcas is nearly non-existent in nature, but the constant stress of living in incompatible social groupings inside minuscule tanks at SeaWorld causes them to lash out.

Don't let Tilikum's death pass without acknowledgment. He has endured a life of misery, slavery and torture. If he had a voice we all would cry at his words. Do the right thing by him and all of the innocent lives lost at the hands of captivity and greed.

Tilikum's lonely life is coming to an end at the abusement park SeaWorld of Orlando. Tilikum has taught us that these innocent wild creatures belong in the wild... not isolated in tiny, chlorinated swimming pools.

Tilikum, the largest whale in captivity has claimed the lives of 3 people and been through nothing but pain and agony for the past 33 years.

Tilikum was captured off of Iceland in November of 1983 when he was 2 years old. After his capture, he was kept in a cement holding tank for close to a year at Hafnarfjörður Marine Zoo, near Reykjavík, Iceland, as he awaited transfer to a marine park. He was then transferred to the rundown Sealand of the Pacific in British Columbia, Canada, and was forced to live in a barren 100-foot-by-50-foot pool that was just 35 feet deep. As a training technique food was withheld from him, and he regularly endured painful attacks by two dominant female orcas, Haida and Nootka. He was forced to perform every hour on the hour, eight times a day, seven days a week which gave him constant stress and exhaustion leading to stomach ulcers. At the end of the business day the park closed its doors and the three incompatible orcas were crammed into a tiny round metal-sided module for more than 14 hours until the park reopened the next morning. In February of 1991, Keltie Byrne fell into the tank and was pulled to the bottom of the enclosure by Tilikum. She was tossed around among the three orcas, and ultimately drowned. It took Sealand employees two hours to recover her body from the orcas. After her death Sealand closed down and sold Tilikum to SeaWorld.

SeaWorld purchased him for its breeding program with no concern for his reputation for killing and aggression. Tilikum’s sperm was used to build up a collection of orcas, and now, 54 percent of SeaWorld’s orcas have his genes.
Tilikum has been confined to a tank containing 0.0001 percent of the quantity of water that he would traverse in a single day in nature for over 3 decades. Tilikum has exhibited abnormal repetitive behavior for years, including chewing on metal gates and the concrete sides of his tank—so much so that the most of his teeth are completely worn down. The stress of captivity also caused Tilikum to exhibit aggression toward humans, which has cost two more lives. Daniel P. Dukes in 1999 and Dawn Brancheau in 2010. Tilikum scalped and dismembered Dawn as well as breaking bones throughout her body before drowning her... He was not just playing with his prey, he was angry.

Tilikum has been kept in a tiny enclosure that has limited his ability to swim, communicate with other orcas, and interact with humans even further for the past 6 years.

Tilikum is not the only orca who has become aggressive as a result of all the stress that the whales endure in the small tanks at SeaWorld. The park’s own records contain 600 pages of incident reports documenting dangerous and unanticipated orca behavior with trainers, consisting of more than 100 incidents in which killer whales bit, rammed, lunged at, pulled, pinned, and swam aggressively with SeaWorld trainers, many of which led to human injuries.

Aggression toward humans and among orcas is nearly non-existent in nature, but the constant stress of living in incompatible social groupings inside minuscule tanks at SeaWorld causes them to lash out.

Don't let Tilikum's death pass without acknowledgment. He has endured a life of misery, slavery and torture.

If he had a voice we all would cry at his words. Do the right thing by him and all of the innocent lives lost at the hands of captivity and greed.

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The Set Tilikum free. Empty the tanks. petition to Seaworld was written by Bethany Langford and is in the category Animal Welfare at GoPetition.