Even though there’s 300+ Alaska resident orcas, I am irritated when I can’t identify one in a picture right off the bat.
What’s even more frustrating is that some pods aren’t even in the catalog!! Or even known about!!
What catalogue?
Even though there’s 300+ Alaska resident orcas, I am irritated when I can’t identify one in a picture right off the bat.
What’s even more frustrating is that some pods aren’t even in the catalog!! Or even known about!!
What catalogue?
Several resident orca families join together to create a superpod!
The family that logs together, stays together…unless SeaWorld decides to tear them apart.
In this video, a very pregnant Kasatka logs and lists in a corner, probably exhausted from her demanding work schedule. Her then-youngest daughter Kalia (whom SeaWorld would callously impregnate later that year) bobs repeatedly in a corner and her son Nakai melon bumps a wall. Though SeaWorld has kept what’s left of this family intact so far, their detachment, both from each other and the outside world, could not be more obvious. Kasatka has not seen her oldest daughter Takara (who was also pregnant during this time with her fourth baby) in 10 years. About a week after this video was taken, Kasatka gave birth to Makani who has already developed his own harmful stereotypies [x].
For more information about SeaWorld’s Working Mothers [x].
For more information about the dangers of orca captivity [x].
#emptythetanks
I’m sorry but if you think this is okay please do not ever speak to me again.
Nakai bumping the wall is similar to what Trua does. But he is with his mother????
It could be from stress. From boredom. He could have learned it from somebody.
living in a fish bowl
So do you think that Rhapsody is pregnant?
Hi anon, great question!
I think Rhapsody is a prime candidate for being pregnant. She will be 18 this year, which puts her in prime reproductive age. She is active, seems healthy, and while she has lost her own mother at a very young age (she was only 2 years old when her mother passed away) she is very close to her aunt, Oreo (J22), and Oreo’s two sons, Doublestuf (J34) and Cookie (J38). There’s no doubt she’d have a good example to follow.
I know the biggest hype lately has been just how plump she’s been looking when she’s breaching. She certainly has one big belly. But one thing we need to remember is that researchers here have found no reliable outward signs of pregnancy. They’ve seen whales right before they’ve given birth that didn’t seem any larger than normal, and they’ve seen whales with huge bellies, like Rhapsody now, that have never shown up with a calf. It is possible some of those instances could be explained away by stillborn calves or calves that only survived a short time and were never seen by researchers (or anyone else). However, it has happened too often for that to be the case every time.
One thing to note about Rhapsody is that she does have a tendency to stick out her belly when she breaches. This has been observed by researchers, captains, and naturalists alike over her lifetime. She’s always been a spunky whale and breaching is one of her favorite pastimes it seems. She does like to puff out that belly, though whether that’s all of what we’re seeing here or not is unknown.
I am always one to air on the side of caution. I love to hope and speculate, but just like I don’t count my chickens before they hatch, neither do I count my orca calves before I see them. There are just too many variables we can’t predict and can’t judge. I really do hope that she’s pregnant though. I would love to see her with a calf of her own, and I would love to see any new calves here with the southern residents. We’re going on 2 years since we’ve had a calf born that has survived and we need more babies desperately.
^^^very good perspective! i hope there will be babies this year!!
has any orca wandered up to the gates of (not actually anything like the)SeaWorld and asked for a job? I don’t believe they have, don’t tell me these animals choose to take part.
PEOPLE made that choice
PEOPLE broke up families
PEOPLE took babies away from their mothers
What's wrong with sea world?
What isn’t wrong with SeaWorld? Here’s just a small portion of things:-Mother and calf separation as young as 1 years old. (In the wild, they’re together for life.)-Artificial insemination by physically jerking off the animals and using their hands to insert the sperm.-Though they haven’t caught wild orcas in a long time, they fund it on the sly. -Food deprivation when VIP guests visit or if there’s to be an inspection. -Lack of regard for the safety of trainers.-And orcas.-And guests.-Spending just 0.0001% of their profit on conservation but claiming they’re huge conservationists. -Misinforming the public and on occasion, actually lying to them. Particularly on the life expectancy of wild orcas. -Claiming they support educating people to care for the ocean during their orca shows but not putting any education into their shows what so ever.-Claiming they always do rescue and release when 1. they have NEVER released an orca (because they’re the money making machines) but 2. they never follow up on the releases they have done so for all we know, they could all be dead. Part of a good rescue and release program is a check up at least a year later, to ensure that the animal survived. SeaWorld does not do that, and instead dumps the animal back into the ocean and claims this as “success”. The following quote about SeaWorld is pretty revealing about their attitudes regarding release:
"I worked at SeaWorld in San Diego. Had my season pass. My husband was a bait fisherman in SD. He and other commercial fisherman complained constantly that when Sea world rescued injured sea lions they would try to train them and if they were untrainable they would release them and the sea lion is half trained and not fearful of humans. These sea lions become a problem and as a result are killed by fisherman. I worked in the employee lounge at sea world and I heard trainers talk about the release of animals that they tried to train. I heard the concern for certain ones.I do not believe that SeaWorld should be allowed to capture and train any more whales and they should not be allowed to breed anymore.” - comment from Tonya Belden, worked at SeaWorld San Diego.
And another quote from this link:
"As for the rescue program…Some were saved and released, but if it didn’t bring in money, it was not considered valuable by the management.
We rescued a Risso’s dolphin in TX and worked day and night to bring that little guy (Turbo) up to healthy status. They moved her to the whale and dolphin stadium, gave her several types of psychotropic drugs, and she died within hours of receiving the drugs. The use of psychotropic drugs was NOT uncommon. When the Vet (Les Dalton) got the call saying she had died, his response was “Well, we got rid of that problem, didn’t we”.”
-Encouraging fishing tournaments despite the over fishing issue.-Applying for permits to harvest sex organs from slaughtered dolphins
-They won’t hire ‘ugly’ trainers. -Claiming they don’t have enough money to retire their animals but the CEO threw himself a $3 million dollar birthday in his mansion that’s larger than all the SeaWorld orca tanks combined.-Calling the diets of their orcas ‘restaurant quality’ when in reality, it doesn’t even match what they’d have eaten in the wild.-They drug their animals.-Dumping litres and litres of toxic chemicals into the ocean then having the audacity to say that they are all about saving it.-Forcing orcas to get onto the ‘slide out’ (where they sit out of water and have their organs crushed under their vast weight). This includes heavily pregnant orcas. See ‘Gudrun' but if you want a more recent example, they’re still doing this to Kalia right now. -Inbreeding.-Forcing infants to become pregnant.-Overcrowded conditions. I could go on…