ORCA WHALE AWARENESS WITH MUNCHKIN…
I’ve teamed up with one of my favorite baby product brands, Munchkin, to bring awareness to the Orca whales that are in confinement and living in their unnatural habitats. I love using my blog to highlight things I am passionate about, and to bring awareness to causes I care about! Click”Read The Post” to full post…
I have teamed up with Munchkin to help bring awareness of the impact of keeping Orcas (killer whales) in confinement in tanks at amusement parks and Sea World. A few years ago, I told Alex on our first date what I wanted to be when I grew up. He laughed when I told him, but it really was what I wanted to be for so long. I wanted to work with animals and specifically dolphins and whales. Since I can remember, I have had an obsession with dolphins and whales- well all animals actually. I would always watch Free Willy and I made my parents play the Jack Hanna dolphin movies over and over again for me. I even watched Free Willy a few months ago when Alex was out of town, and I bawled my eyes out. I didn’t realize when I was little the impact of keeping those beautiful mammals in a small, confined space would have on the quality of their life. Those amusement parks where they keep the Orcas don’t show kids and families the reality of the life the whales really live. Over the years, there has been a lot of research done on the affects being confined to a cement tank has on these beautiful creatures. The more I have learned how they actually live and how unnatural it is for them, the passion I have to spread awareness about this. I’m so happy to have teamed up with one of my favorite baby products company, Munchkin. They are such an amazing baby company and provide the best products for babies. They also are so passionate and great about helping good causes and using their brand for good!
Orcas are highly intelligent, far-ranging, and socially complex and cultural long-lived mammals who evolved to spend their lives in the oceans. There is so much research and truth to having them be free and live in their natural habitat. That is how that is how they are supposed to live. They are beautifully made by God and serve a crucial purpose in the ocean. In my opinion, they were not put on earth to be “trained” and live their life trapped in a small tank. Imagine your entire life spent in a small tank and you were never able to see the outside world, interact with your family, or have meaningful relationships? To put it in perspective, that would be considered to us living in a small room our entire life. The lifespan of orcas (killer whales) in the wild: Males – average 30 yrs, max 50-60 years and Females – average 50 yrs, max 100 years. Most orcas in tanks do not survive past the age of 25 years.
Some Orca Facts:
When they are taken from the ocean and put in concrete tanks on display (or born into captivity) they experience a number of problems which include:
- Shorter lifespan
- Immune system dysfunction and increased infections
- Behavioral abnormalities, i.e., stereotypies, hyper-aggression, self-mutilation
- Difficulties raising their children to adulthood/high mortality rate (because they do not get to learn how to raise their children within a natural social group). All of these factors are a result of being forced into a situation to which they are not adapted.
- There are currently a total of 62 orcas held in captivity (28 wild-captured plus 34 captive-born) in at least 14 marine parks in 8 different countries.
- In North America there are 29 captive orcas. At least 46 orcas have died at SeaWorld alone. There have been numerous incidents of orcas harming and killing each other and trainers in marine parks and aquariums and not a single instance of either in the wild!
- Family bonds are critically important to orcas. Orcas are matrilineal – social life is dictated by older females.
- Orcas also experience menopause and grandmothers help raise their grandchildren. In some populations sons spend their entire lives with their mother. In marine parks and aquariums family groups are broken up and substituted for artificially-devised groupings of individual whales.
- Orcas populations in the wild have different cultures which are expressed as different social patterns, ways of hunting for food, dialects, and other behaviors. These cultural traditions keep groups intact and separate from each other. In marine parks very little opportunity exists to create and maintain cultural traditions and even communication (dialects, whistles, echolocation) is impacted negatively by living in glass/concrete tanks.
So what can you do to help spread awareness and help prevent further Orca’s from being in confinement? You can start by helping to spread the word to friends, family members, and using your social media to also bring awareness! Lots of people are not aware of what Orca’s lives are really like at places like Sea World and other animal amusement parks around the world. Simply stating some of the facts above, you are able to open their eyes and help them learn more about it. You can also help by being involved in an organization such as the Whale Sanctuary Project. Munchkin is doing a $300,000 challenge grant to the Whale Sanctuary Project. Munchkin will match every donation this year up to $300,000. You can read more about the non-profit organization’s mission and goals here! My husband Alex and I have loved bringing Kennedy to the ocean and seeing her in awe of everything she sees. She LOVES the beach and animals just like her mama! We plan on teaching her about loving animals and the proper way to treat them. I hope those animal amusement parks will no longer be featuring Orca and dolphin shows as a form of entertainment for families. The best way to see those animals is in their natural habitat in the ocean and at the beach! I hope this post helped educate you all about the reality of what the Orca’s deal with living at those places. Thanks for stopping by and reading! XOXO
