ORLANDO, Fla.: After years of pressure, SeaWorld made a surprise announcement on Thursday: It no longer breeds killer whales in captivity and will soon stop making them leap from their pools or splash audiences on command.
Surrendering finally to a profound shift in how people feel about using animals for entertainment, the SeaWorld theme parks have joined a growing list of industries dropping live animal tricks. Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus is retiring all of its touring elephants in May. Once-popular animal shows in Las Vegas have virtually disappeared.
“Society’s attitude toward these very, very large, majestic animals under human care has shifted for a variety of reasons, whether it’s a film, legislation, people’s comments on the Internet,” said SeaWorld Entertainment CEO Joel Manby. “It wasn’t worth fighting that. We needed to move where society was moving.”
SeaWorld’s 29 killer whales will remain in captivity, but in “new, inspiring natural orca encounters,” according to the company. SeaWorld’s orcas range in age from 1 to 51 years old, so some could remain on display for decades.
Attendance at SeaWorld’s parks declined after the 2013 release of Blackfish, a highly critical documentary.
SeaWorld brought in a new leader with more experience in regional theme parks than zoos and aquariums. Manby was hired as SeaWorld CEO last March 19 after running Dollywood and other musically themed parks. He said Thursday that he brought a “fresh perspective” to the killer whale quandary, and soon realized that “society is shifting here.”
Orcas have been a centerpiece of the SeaWorld parks since shows at the Shamu stadium in San Diego became the main draw in the 1970s. But criticism has steadily increased in the decades since and then became sharper after an orca named Tilikum battered and drowned trainer Dawn Brancheau after a “Dine with Shamu” show in Orlando in 2010.
Her death was highlighted in Blackfish, and it wasn’t the first for Tilikum. The whale also killed an animal trainer and a trespasser in the 1990s.
Blackfish director Gabriela Cowperthwaite said she applauds SeaWorld’s decision, “but mostly I applaud the public for recalibrating how they feel ethically about orcas in captivity.”
The new orca shows will begin next year at the San Diego park, before expanding to its San Antonio park and then to Orlando in 2019, Manby said.
What about shows involving dolphins and other marine mammals?
“Stay tuned on that,” Manby said.
SeaWorld has not only discontinued breeding orcas through artificial insemination; it also feeds the whales birth control medication, Manby said.