Blackfish

After watching Blackfish I was not sure what to think. When I was a little kid I loved Sea World. Recently, my nieces and nephew went to Florida and all of them came back saying how much they loved Sea World. It made my stomach ache to see how these beautiful creatures were/are being treated and how the place that was said to be ‘caring’ for them was such a large part of my childhood. Although I found this film educational and it kept me interested, it was still upsetting in many ways. The worst part of the film for me was hearing the man say that they fill the unwanted whales with rocks and sink them to the bottom with an anchor. It was shocking for me to see how animals that should be free are being kept in an area smaller than a classroom and how no one ever knew about this or did anything about it.

In the class discussion we talked about the similarities between the way they treat the whales at Sea World and how we believe the animals are treated at a zoo. To me I have never seen behind the scene at a zoo but that does make me question if there is harm to the animals, if they are treated properly, if the space they are given as a habitat is truly big enough for them. The only part of a zoo that has made me question it is the parts where you can ride on an elephant or on a camel. You never hear of any accidents but that doesn’t mean there hasn’t been any. That is just like those that have to take care of the lions or gorillas, there has to have been a few accidents that are not spoken about but have happened. But as I continued to think about this I began to compare the movie and the zoo to a circus. I feel as though there are just as many comparisons to the animals in a circus. They are forced to preform just for the entertainment of people and are then sent to a small cage just like the whales at Sea World.

-Hayley