Evanston: the show doesn’t have to go on
Evanston: the show doesn’t have to go on
Performances at Sea World in Orlando, Florida resumed yesterday. “The show must go on,” Sea World officials said. Hundreds of people stood in rain for up to two hours for tickets.
I am not an animal rights activist. In fact until the recent death of a woman animal ‘trainer’ at that Sea World I didn’t even think about it.
I lived near the original Sea World in San Diego forty years ago and went there twice. As far as I remember, I enjoyed the show. But when you think about this even briefly, there is absolutely no justification for us to keep another species of big, intelligent creatures in small pools solely for our entertainment.
In a television interview a spokesman for Sea World said that if Tilikum, the 22’ long, 12,000 pound orca who killed the woman a few days ago were set free he would die of starvation because he has never learned to hunt. Whose fault is that, and Is it any worse than dying of old age and boredom in a tank? And why am I skeptical about the opinion of a man whose living is dependent on the orca’s captivity?
One of the fundamental principles of my life has been avoiding cages. I’ve spent years on the open ocean. I’ve often seen dolphin there and, occasionally, orcas. Better a week, even a day, in the open ocean than a lifetime in a tank.
The show not only doesn’t have to go on, it shouldn’t
Saturday, February 27, 2010