Death of a Trainer

The SeaWorld incident has sparked up the old debate of whether or not marine animals should be in captivity. Sure the american organization owned by Anhauser-Busch is one of the more flamboyant, entertainment oriented aquaria but, they still base that entertainment on the education of the public about marine organisms (with emphasis upon marine mammals). But the question is does seeing an animal that most normally would never encounter in their lifetime make them more likely to care about their impact on the environment said animals live in? Is seeing a documentary about orcas in the wild enough for people to think about what they are throwing down the drain or the impact their consumption of seafood has on these whales? Or is there a bigger influence on someone when they witness an orca make a spinning leap out of the water in a stadium setting?

I grew up watching National Geographic documentaries, Jack Hanna and the Discovery Channel. From an early age I knew I wanted to someday work with animals. I still remember the trips to the Calgary Zoo and the Wildlife Park I took as a child. I knew that seeing an animal up close was better than seeing it in a book or on TV. They were real to me then, at that moment. I also remember taking up a huge interest in marine mammals. I did school projects on dolphins; the art I created in elementary school had almost always had an ocean theme. My dream was to be a marine biologist and to work with marine mammals. This passion and was born without seeing a whale in the wild or even the ocean for that matter. I hadn’t encountered the ocean until I was 12. I saw my first marine mammal, in captivity, at SeaWorld of Orlando two years later in the fall of 1998. I was entertained by the shows I admit but, there was one exhibit that really intrigued me. It was their manatee exhibit that really captivated my attention.

It was called ‘Manatee Rescue’ and SeaWorld of Orlando housed manatees that had come through their rescue program. These manatees had been victims of boat strikes in the Florida everglades and SeaWorld rescued and rehabilitated them. The manatees healthy enough were returned to the wild but, the ones that were deemed non-releasable for various reasons were on display in this exhibit. The whole basis of this exhibit was to educate people about manatees and how human encounters were causing a decline in the population. That really stuck with me, what we were doing had an effect on how animals lived.