Have you seen Blackfish, the movie that’s making waves?
I hope this movie makes history. Right now, it’s looking like it’s on its way to doing just that.
I haven’t posted in a while, but I recently watched Blackfish and remembered why I started Four Leaf Clover in the first place. This documentary shows a little background history as to how killer whales got mixed up in the entertainment industry and focuses on one orca in particular: Tilikum.
Tilikum, at the time of writing this post, is 32 years old and has been captive for 30 of those years. In 2010, Tilikum killed one of his trainers at SeaWorld. There is no evidence that orcas are dangerous to humans or have ever harmed humans… in the wild.
Have you ever been to SeaWorld and watched the killer whales jump in the air? Or seen any orcas in captivity for that matter? If you’re anything like my former self, you probably have and you probably went because you love animals and love seeing them. If you’d still go because of that reason, please watch this film.
For years now, it’s pained me to see these magnificent, intelligent animals living in these small swimming pools and performing tricks with the reward of dead fish for food. Blackfish expands on this even more along with information I had no idea about killer whales. It’s hard to see this movie as biased since it presents facts. The filmmaker even went to SeaWorld before filming this and started this documentary more out of curiosity and research than to send out an animal welfare message.
If you’ve been following my blog, you’ll have picked up that I’m against keeping animals in captivity, but there’s just something about marine amusement parks in particular that feels cruel and completely wrong. I hope this film leads to the shut down of all marine animal performing parks. Have you watched/heard of Blackfish? What do you think? How do you feel about keeping killer whales, dolphins, etc. in captivity?
(Original images from the Blackfish Official Film Site)
9 January 2014 / Animals, Movies
Tags: blackfish, killer whales, orcas, review, seaworld, take action, tilikum, video
Comments
14 January 2014 - 7:21 pm
I haven’t seen it yet, but it is on top of my documentary list. I remember visiting a marine park when I was younger (I was invited by friends). And I was actually picked from the audience to sit in a little boat and be pulled through the water by a white beluga whale. Eventhough I was amazed to be so close to this beautiful creature, the whole experience rather depressed me. It just didn’t feel right and now I’m actually ashamed to have this as one of my lifetime memories. It’s terrible what they do to the animals and I hope that all of those animal entertainment parks, zoos and circuses will be history very soon.
19 January 2014 - 4:24 pm
I haven’t seen it yet, but I loved The Cove, which was a really compelling and fast-paced documentary released in…2009? The Cove actually accomplished what it set out to do, which was shut down the dolphin trapping industry in Japan 🙂
4 February 2014 - 4:17 pm
Truthfully, I am not completely on board with having any animal in captivity.
4 February 2014 - 7:54 pm
Thank you for your comments! Greenderella and Elisa, I couldn’t agree more.
Jill – unfortunately, the dolphin slaughter in Taiji is still going on with this year being the largest slaughter they’ve seen in years: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/01/21/japan-dolphin-roundup-taiji_n_4636388.html
12 January 2014 - 11:56 am
happy new year lady!!!
this sounds so sad, i have trouble watching things like this because i end up feeling so helpless!!
what are you doing in life now?!