Captive orcas
Dozens of orcas are held in captivity for breeding or performance purposes. The practice of capturing and displaying orcas in exhibitions began in the 1960s, and they soon became popular attractions at public aquariums and aquatic theme parks due to their intelligence, trainability, striking appearance, playfulness, and sheer size. As of 24 March 2024, around 55 orcas are in captivity worldwide, 33 of which were captive-born. At that time, there were 18 orcas in the SeaWorld parks.
The practice of keeping orcas in captivity is controversial, due to their separation from their familial pod during capture, and their living conditions and health in captivity. Additionally, concerns have been raised regarding the safety of animal trainers entering the water to work with captive orcas, which have been responsible for numerous attacks on humans—some fatal. In contrast, wild orcas are not known to have ever killed a human, and physical interactions with humans in the wild are extremely rare and typically non-aggressive.
Orcas
Orcas are large, active and intelligent. Males range from and can weigh over, while females range from and weigh. The orca is the largest species of the dolphin family. The species is found in all the world's oceans, from the frigid Arctic and Antarctic regions to warm, tropical seas. Orcas are intelligent, versatile and opportunistic predators. Some populations feed entirely on fish, while others hunt marine mammals, including sea lions, elephant seals, seals, walruses, porpoises, dolphins, large whales and some species of shark, including great whites. The species is an apex predator, as no other animal predates on orcas. There are up to five distinct orca types, some of which may be separate races, subspecies or species. Orcas are highly social, and some populations are composed of matrilineal family groups that are the most stable of any animal species. The sophisticated social behaviour, hunting techniques, and vocal behaviour of orcas have been described as manifestations of animal culture.Although the orca is not an endangered species, some populations are threatened or endangered due to bioaccumulation of persistent organic pollutants, depletion of prey populations, captures for marine mammal parks, conflicts with fishing activities, acoustic pollution, shipping vessels, stress from whale-watching boats, and habitat loss.
Capture and breeding
North Eastern Pacific captures
The first capture in the North Eastern Pacific occurred in November 1961. An orca of the Pacific offshore ecotype, suspected to be ailing by Marineland of the Pacific officials, was netted by its collecting crew when swimming alone near Newport Beach, California. They took the orca to a tank at the aquarium. She became known as Wanda, but convulsed and died two days later after "swimming at high speed around the tank, striking her body repeatedly", recalled Marineland's Frank Brocato. The next orca captured, Moby Doll, was harpooned in 1964 but survived for nearly three months in captivity when taken to Vancouver, British Columbia, by the Vancouver Aquarium. He was a member of J Pod of the Southern Resident Killer Whales, the population of killer whales most damaged by subsequent captures.The third capture for display occurred in June 1965 when a fisherman found a 22-foot male orca in his floating salmon net that had drifted close to shore near Namu, British Columbia. The orca was sold for $8,000 to Ted Griffin, a Seattle public aquarium owner. Named after his place of capture, Namu was the subject of a film that changed some people's attitudes toward orcas.
A few months later, Griffin procured a companion for Namu: a very young, 14 foot, 2000 lb orca captured off Whidbey Island, Puget Sound, Washington. Shamu means 'Friend of Namu'. However, Shamu did not get along with Namu and so was sold to SeaWorld in San Diego in December 1965.
The Yukon Harbor operation was the first planned, deliberate capture of multiple orcas. After a long and dramatic 17-day operation in February and March 1967, five southern resident orcas were taken into captivity, while three others died entangled in nets.
During the 1960s and early 1970s, nearly 50 orcas were taken from Pacific waters for exhibition. The Southern Resident community of orcas in the Northeast Pacific lost 48 of its members to captivity. By 1976, only 80 orcas were left in the community, which remains endangered. With subsequent captures, the theme parks learned more about avoiding injury during capture and subsequent care of orcas. In addition, animal trainers developed techniques to work with orcas, whose performances and tricks made them a great attraction to visitors. As commercial demand increased, growing numbers of Pacific orcas were captured, peaking in 1970.
A turning point came with a mass capture of orcas from the L-25 pod on August 8, 1970, at Penn Cove in Puget Sound off the coast of Washington. The Penn Cove capture became controversial due to the large number of wild orcas that were taken and the number of deaths that resulted: four juveniles died, as well as one adult female who drowned when she became tangled in a net while attempting to reach her calf. In his interview for the CNN documentary Blackfish, former diver John Crowe told how all five of the orcas had their abdomens slit open and filled with rocks, their tails weighted down with anchors and chains, in an attempt to conceal the deaths. The facts surrounding their deaths were discovered three months later after three carcasses washed ashore on Whidbey Island. Public concern about the welfare of the animals and the effect of captures on the wild pods led to the Marine Mammal Protection Act being passed in 1972 by the US Congress, protecting orcas from being harassed or killed, and requiring special permits for capture. Since then, few wild orcas have been captured in Northeastern Pacific waters.
Lolita, originally known as Tokitae, was a survivor of the Penn Cove captures. She was about four years old at time of capture and was the second oldest captive orca at the time of her death in August 2023. Lolita is the subject of the documentary Lolita: Slave to Entertainment, released in 2008. Various groups argued that Lolita should be released into the wild. Lolita's mother, L-25, is still alive at approximately 90 years old and is the oldest living southern resident orca in the wild.
Icelandic captures
When the US Marine Mammal Protection Act of 1972 effectively stopped the capture of Pacific orcas, exhibitors found an area more tolerant of orca captures in Iceland. Icelandic herring fishermen had traditionally seen orcas as competitors for their catch, and sale of live orcas promised a large new source of income. 48 orcas captured in Icelandic waters were exported to marine parks between 1976 and 1988. The capture process was based on luring the orcas by dumping leftovers from herring fishing in front of the pod, capturing the orcas in a purse seine net, selecting desirable animals and hauling them on board in a specially designed frame, then placing them in foam-lined boxes full of seawater. However, restrictions on US Orca import permits and advances in captive breeding programs meant that the market never became as large as expected. Growing concern from conservationists and animal rights activists has caused the Icelandic government to limit the number of orcas that may be captured each year.The Icelandic captives included Keiko, caught in 1979 and sold to the Icelandic aquarium in Hafnarfjörður. Three years later, he was sold to Marineland of Canada, where he first started performing for the public and developed skin lesions indicative of poor health. He was then sold to Reino Aventura, an amusement park in Mexico City, in 1985. He was the star of the 1993 movie Free Willy, the publicity from which led to an effort by Warner Brothers Studio to find him a better home. Using donations from the studio, Craig McCaw from the Oregon Coast Aquarium spent over $7 million to construct facilities to return him to health with the hope of returning him to the wild. He was airlifted to his new home in January 1996, where he soon regained weight. In September 1998, he was flown to Klettsvik Bay in Vestmannaeyjar in Iceland, and gradually reintroduced to the wild, returning to the open sea on July 11, 2002. Keiko died from pneumonia on December 12, 2003, at the age of 27 years. He had become lethargic and had a loss of appetite.
North Western Pacific captures
1,477 orcas were hunted in Japanese waters between 1948 and 1972, 545 of them around Hokkaido. Orca encounters in Japanese waters are now rare. In 1997 a group of ten orcas was corralled by Japanese fisherman banging on iron rods and using water bombs to disorient the animals and force them into a bay near Taiji, Wakayama, a technique known as dolphin drive hunting which these villagers have been practising for years. The orcas were held in the bay for two days before being auctioned to Japanese marine parks. Five animals were released, and the other five transported via road or sea to the aquariums. All five are now dead.The first live orca captured in Russia was an -long female estimated to be about six years old, captured off the Pacific coast of the Kamchatka district on September 26, 2003. She was transferred over to a facility owned by the Utrish Dolphinarium on the Black Sea, where she died in October 2003 after less than a month in captivity.
Orcas born in captivity
The majority of today's theme-park orcas were born in captivity: 33 out of 56. Kalina, a female orca born in September 1985 at SeaWorld Orlando, was the first captive orca calf to survive more than two months. Her mother, Katina, was captured near Iceland, and her father, Winston, was a Pacific Southern Resident, making Kalina an Atlantic/Pacific hybrid—a situation that would not have occurred in the wild.The first orca conceived through artificial insemination was a male named Nakai, who was born to Kasatka and father Tilikum at the SeaWorld park in San Diego in September 2001. A female orca named Kohana, the second orca conceived in this manner, was born at the same park eight months later. Artificial insemination lets park owners maintain a healthier genetic mix in the small groups of orcas at each park while avoiding the stress of moving the animals between marinas.
The practice of exhibiting orcas born in captivity is less controversial than of retaining free-born orcas, since the captive-born orcas have known no other world and may not be able to adapt to life in the wild. Captive breeding also promises to reduce incentives to capture wild orcas. However, in January 2002 the Miami Seaquarium stated that captive orcas are dying faster than they are being born, and as it is virtually impossible to obtain orcas captured from the wild, the business of exhibiting captive orcas may eventually disappear.