Seaworld might not seem very adventurous. It might not seem to mean very much of anything at all except for a relatively pleasant - if rather expensive - way to spend an afternoon.
However, part of both the appeal and the marketability of going to a place like Seaworld is that it speaks to something inside of us that longs for adventure. Very few of us will ever get to swim with dolphins in the ocean or to see puffins in their native nesting grounds. hat a place like Seaworld does is to often us the sense that we have gotten to travel to distant places.
e feel like explorers, like ethnographers, as we set off through the gates of Seaworld. e feel that we are going where, if not perhaps where no one has gone before than at least where we ourselves have never gone before. e are not engaged…...
mlaWorks Cited
Hrinko, Alexis. Interview, April 15, 2001. http://www.seaworld.org/infobook.html
Kincaid, Jamaica. My Garden (Book). New York: Farrar Strauss, 2001.
Stanley, Nick. Being Ourselves for You: The Global Display of Cultures, London: Middlesex UP, 1998.
Roberts, Anji. Interview. April 15, 2001.
Blackfish: The Documentary That Exposes SeaWorld
Abstract
When the documentary, Blackfish was released in 2013, SeaWorld officials initially responded by blaming falling attendance on negative media attention, but the falloff in attendance on the part of the general public confirmed that there was widespread outrage over the conditions in which orca whales were maintained. The documentary focused on Tilikim, a wild-caught orca whale that was subjected to medieval conditions that caused him to turn on his human trainers and kill several. This essayprovides an analysis concerning the decline in attendance at SeaWorld following the Blackfish documentary release and a discussion concerning SeaWorlds announced plans to discontinue their orca whale captive breeding program, followed by a personal reaction to this important but disturbing documentary.
Captive marine mammals frolicking and doing tricks for crowds of humans--it's a make-believe vision of what the ocean might look if it were designed by Walt Disney. Mark J.…...
Measurements were obtained both in the presence of and the absence of whale watching boats. It was observed that a period of intense boating activity caused the killer whales to adjust their call duration levels to compensate for the background noise. This clearly indicates that anthropogenic noise levels directly interfere with the routine life of the killer whales, which are dependent on vocal communication for successful hunting and survival. [Andrew et.al. 2004]
It is well-known that anthropogenic sounds can even have fatal consequences as evidenced by the recent mass strandings of beaked whales that coincided with the mid frequency sonar exercises by the navy. A recent research by (Holt et.al, 2009) focused on the effects of anthropogenic sounds on the vocal behavior of killer whales. The resident killer whales of the waters of the Puget Sound, Seattle, were the subjects of this study. The southern resident killer whales in three…...
mlaBibliography
Whale Songs, 'Killer Whale', Accessed 15th March 2009, available at http://www.whalesongs.org/cetacean/killer_whale/home.html
SeaWorld, ' Killer Whales: Communication and Echo Location," Accessed 15th March 2009, available at http://www.seaworld.org/animal-info/info-books/killer-whale/communication.htm
Wilfredo Santiago Benitez, 'Echolocation and strategy used by Southern resident Killer Whales (Orcinus orca) during foraging', 2005, Accessed 15th March 2009, available at http://beamreach.org/051/papers/wilfredo.pdf
Volcker B. Deecke, John KB Ford & Peter JB Slater, 'The Vocal Behavior of Mammal eating killer Whales: Communicating with Costly Calls ' Animal Behavior, 2005, 69, 395-405, http://www.behaecol.amu.edu.pl/files/the_vocal_behav_of_mammal-eating_killer_whales.pdf
Sharks are another vertebrate that are similar to dolphins in many ways and very different from dolphins in other ways. There are more that 250 species of sharks, ranging from the harmless whale shark to the ferocious great white.
The great white shark, known as Carchardon Carcharias, feeds regularly on marine mammals, such as seals, sea lions, otters, dolphins, and whales. They enjoy eating bottle-nosed dolphins whenever they get an opportunity. Samuel Gruber in Discovering Sharks writes that the great white consumes marine mammals when they come across a deceased one. The Great White shark, also known as the white death, is considered the most dangerous shark in the waters. The Great White has a conical instead of a flattened snout, black eyes, and large, serrated, arrowhead-shaped teeth. The upper and lower lobes of the tail are almost equal in size, and the body is blue or brown-gray, not white, except…...
mlaReferences
The Great White Shark. Retrieved December 8, 2006 at http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/vertebrates/Doug/shark.html
Bottlenose Dolphins. Retrieved December 8, 2006 at http://www.seaworld.org/infobooks/Bottlenose/home.html .
Blackfish: A Harrowing Challenge to Ethical Principles in Animal Entertainment
Gabriela Cowperthwaite's riveting documentary, Blackfish (2013), has ignited a global outcry against the exploitation of animals in the entertainment industry, particularly the plight of captive orcas at SeaWorld. Through a compelling blend of firsthand accounts, historical footage, and expert testimony, Blackfish confronts the ethical principles surrounding animal rights and exposes the moral bankruptcy of keeping sentient beings in captivity for profit and entertainment.
1. The Autonomy and Well-being of Animals
At the heart of Blackfish's ethical argument is the concept of animal autonomy. Orcas, like humans, are highly intelligent and social creatures with....
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