I finally watched Blackfish.
If you haven't seen it already stop reading and download it on iTunes now.
It is tough to watch but completely necessary. Swimming with dolphins at SeaWorld has been on my bucket list ever since I can remember. Like pretty much anyone pre-Blackfish I had my barbie-tinted-happiness glasses on and just saw how awesome this experience was for me. Not realising that to dolphins human contact is basically just creepy.
The message is sad and it is not easy for anyone involved. The trainers most of all. I really felt like they truly loved the orcas. And it made me think of the orca at Ocean Park, Hong Kong, that I used to watch in captivated rapture when I was a child.
Her name was Miss Hoi Wai and she died in 1997. Before Blackfish came out and before the truth behind what it means to capture an orca and make them perform for audiences of screaming children with tinny and blasting 'it's a small world after all' music filling arenas was a source of the slightest concern. At least for me.
Hoi Wai was an orca caught in 1977 off the coast of Iceland. She was shifted around through three different centres and names. First 'Peanuts' then 'Susie' until finally moving to Ocean Park, Hong Kong on January 27, 1979.
The pictures here are ones taken by my family when we went to watch Hoi Wai perform at Ocean Park. It was really awesome. Probably my favourite part of the day in between getting soaked on the raging river ride and getting candy floss stuck in my hair. It's easy to forget the other details. Like the capture as a baby, the horrific experience of the transport tanks, the long haul flights all across the globe without understanding why, the tiny tanks (I mean us Hong Kongers/Londoners are used to living in shoe box apartments but this is more equivalent to a human living in a bath tub) and then the far-too-young and relatively grisly death.
Female orcas typically live to around 50 years old in the wild but can live up to 100 years of age. (Despite SeaWorld's quite blatant miscommunication on the subject). Hoi Wai died at 21. Definitely not of old age. She died April 18, 1997 after having severe appetite and digestive problems and eventually internal bleeding in her intestines. Maybe it's what would have happened to her in the wild anyway... maybe not.
It's beautiful and bizarre to me that it took Blackfish to open my eyes to this obvious cruelty.
If you haven't seen it already stop reading and download it on iTunes now.
It is tough to watch but completely necessary. Swimming with dolphins at SeaWorld has been on my bucket list ever since I can remember. Like pretty much anyone pre-Blackfish I had my barbie-tinted-happiness glasses on and just saw how awesome this experience was for me. Not realising that to dolphins human contact is basically just creepy.
The message is sad and it is not easy for anyone involved. The trainers most of all. I really felt like they truly loved the orcas. And it made me think of the orca at Ocean Park, Hong Kong, that I used to watch in captivated rapture when I was a child.
Hoi Wai was an orca caught in 1977 off the coast of Iceland. She was shifted around through three different centres and names. First 'Peanuts' then 'Susie' until finally moving to Ocean Park, Hong Kong on January 27, 1979.
Female orcas typically live to around 50 years old in the wild but can live up to 100 years of age. (Despite SeaWorld's quite blatant miscommunication on the subject). Hoi Wai died at 21. Definitely not of old age. She died April 18, 1997 after having severe appetite and digestive problems and eventually internal bleeding in her intestines. Maybe it's what would have happened to her in the wild anyway... maybe not.
It's beautiful and bizarre to me that it took Blackfish to open my eyes to this obvious cruelty.
Hi Abigail,
ReplyDeleteAs someone who grew up in The Netherlands with the Dolfinarium Harderwijk (Hoi Wai's first port of call), it is interesting to get this kind of insider's perspective from a Hong Kong resident, growing up around the presence of Hoi Wai at the Ocean Park.
I feel torn between the realization that on the one hand these animals were cruelly taken from the wild, but in the mean time have reproduced (though not in Hoi Wai's and many others' case) and built relationships with the people who care for them on a daily basis. I have seen various facilities being run on a daily basis through internships and work in this field. The experience has provided me with insight into the lives of these animals and the people who put in so much time and effort in providing the best possible care within the framework of a zoological facility.
I understand that we cannot offer what nature has to offer for these animals, but it's not like we have tried to recreate the ocean. The years of caring for these animals have provided most valuable insight into their biology and behavior, which would have been nearly impossible to gain from the research that's being done in the field. Though, with time, technology has also advanced leaps and bounds, providing more tools and platforms to obtain valuable data that would historically have been much more difficult to obtain.
The solution therefore doesn't seem as straightforward to me as closing all zoological facilities, which is the gist of Blackfish and other productions (The Cove, Lolita: Dying to Entertain You, A Fall from Freedom). However, I realize that things cannot continue to go on as they have.
Thanks for sharing your own experience and the photos. Would it be possible for you to upload higher quality scans of those, by any chance?