by Judith Willson

Created on: August 06, 2010   Last Updated: August 26, 2010

If you want to find out where whales are being kept in captivity, perhaps in order to organise a letter writing campaign or to raise public awareness of the reality behind the shows, then your first step is the internet. You should be able to find out if cetaceans are being kept in your country or state, which aquaria have the lowest standards, and organisations that are organising campaigns.

Unfortunately the practice of keeping whales in captivity continues to this day, despite the effect it has on the whales and even the risk to human life.  Captivity places an enormous amount of stress on the unfortunate animals and this can effectively drive them mad, leading to traits emerging that are never seen in the wild.

The attacks on trainers by killer whales are one of the tragic results of keeping intelligent and sensitive animals in a completely unsuitable environment.  The anecdotal accounts of suspected suicide are another.  Life expectancy in captivity is also far less than it would be in the wild.

In the United States the best known aquaria that continue to display captive whales is the SeaWorld chain, which has operations in California, Texas and Florida.  There are a good number of other aquaria with captive orcas and belugas throughout North America, in both the States and Canada.   These include the Georgia Aquarium in Atlanta and the Vancouver Aquarium, both of which have belugas.  Approximately 71% of the world’s captive cetaceans are held in North America, and might be an obvious place to start campaigning.

South America also has captive cetaceans, mainly dolphins but also a few orcas.  The best known institute involved is the Mundo Marino Park in Argentina, which has an orca, Kshamenk.  Argentina has strict laws about the commercial capture of cetaceans, which is the reason the park claims their orca was a rescue and could not be released.  Eyewitness accounts dispute this and it is probable that Kshamenk was force stranded, not rescued. 

Keeping cetaceans in captivity is banned in the UK, but there are still about 42 places in Europe keeping whales and/or dolphins.  The Bornfree animal charity provides a list, and further information here.  Most of these keep only dolphins, who also suffer in captivity, but in France there are captive orcas and in Spain belugas.  Both these countries belong to the EU, which has yet to ban the keeping of cetaceans.

Captive cetaceans are also being kept in Africa, Australia, and Asia.  If you are concerned about the issues surrounding this practice there is a good chance that it is happening in your own country, or in a neighbouring one.  The trend is for countries to start banning the display of whales or dolphins, with the UK, Brazil and Chile having already done so. 

If you want your say, then finding out where whales are being kept captive is the first step.  Then you can get involved with campaigns that put pressure on the aquaria and the appropriate governments to discontinue what is in fact an exceedingly inhumane practice.

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