Captivity compromises orca welfare. This is now widely accepted, even by the world’s
biggest orca display franchise, SeaWorld Parks & Entertainment, Inc. in the U.S., which has pledged to end its orca breeding program and to phase out its display of captive orcas. Still, it shouldn’t be forgotten that the orcas in captivity today, at SeaWorld and elsewhere, are still suffering because of their confinement.
Only in April, an orca known as Morgan was filmed frantically smashing her head off the metal bars that locked her inside the tiny medical tank at Loro Parque in Tenerife. Then last month, witnesses saw her stranding herself on the side of her concrete tank for a disturbingly long period of time, like male tank-mate Tekoa, the most excessively raked orca in captivity, had done previously. Why? It may be the only way they can escape severe aggression from the other orcas in their tank.
Now, a damning report has been released by the Free Morgan Foundation, documenting evidence of how fractured the teeth – and minds – of Morgan and the other orcas at the Spanish entertainment park are. Photographic evidence within the report shows that this tooth damage is self-mutilation caused by abnormal repetitive (stereotypic) behaviors: Orcas chewing concrete and on the metal gates, jaw popping (snapping mouths shut) and hitting their skulls against concrete and metal. Stereotypies develop when an animal’s biological needs, which have evolved over hundreds and thousands of years, are not met. To see so many stereotypies in these captive orcas illustrates that they are bored, frustrated, and forced to share small spaces with individuals they are not getting along with. They are struggling to cope with life behind bars.
http://www.onegreenplanet.org/animalsandnature/fractured-teeth-and-broken-minds-assessing-captive-orca-welfare/?utm_source=Green+Monster+Mailing+List&utm_campaign=b77619bd6e-NEWSLETTER_EMAIL_CAMPAIGN&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_bbf62ddf34-b77619bd6e-106919241
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