My name is Brealyn Thon, I am 17 and in my last year of high school. I remember going to SeaWorld when I was little and watching the Whales perform. I thought it was so amazing. A few years later I remember hearing my dad talk about how they do not treat their Orcas as well as they should. I thought that this couldn't be true, the trainers seemed to take such good care of them and seemed to really love them. This is what started my research at such a young age.

I shortly realized that my dad was right and that even though the trainers do care about these animals and that they want to change how they are treated, they are unable to as that is above their job title. John Hargrove, a former Orca trainer at SeaWorld said that behind the scenes, SeaWorld isn't a magical place like we all think of it as. 

Captive Orcas do not live as long as Orcas in the wild. They live about a third of the time they would in the wild, in captivity. In their short lives they also just swim around in circles and hurt themselves when not training and putting on shows.

All though these beautiful animals seem to be happy by doing tricks and splashing around during the shows, it is a different story afterwards. The Orcas at SeaWorld get bored because the training is the same all the time. They show that they are bored by chewing on the concrete and hurting themselves on purpose because they think that they will be able to escape.

In the wild Orcas swim up to 100 miles a day and dive down up to 500 feet everyday. The tanks at SeaWorld only give them about 10 feet to dive down from their original length. In order to swim 100 miles a day at SeaWorld, they would have to swim about 1,900 laps in their tank

Although SeaWorld has said they have stopped taking animals from the wild and breeding them, there is still a long way to go to solve this problem. There are still 60 Orcas in captivity as of August 2019 worldwide, swimming around in these small tanks. 

It is time to stop these things from happening and in order to have this problem fully solved, the following must be done: 

Enforce strict laws on tank sizes

Provide awards to aquariums that have big enough tanks for these animals to swim and dive. 

All captive Orcas would have to be put into a rehabilitation program, we have seen that this has worked with Keiko, the whale from free Willy. 

Some things that you can do to get involved and help the cause are:

Avoid SeaWorld!- If you do not pay and go to SeaWorld then they aren’t selling tickets and they don't have enough money to keep animals like orcas in captivity. 

Spread Awareness!- If you tell your friends, family and coworkers, they can learn about it and help to make a difference too.

Donate!- If you are able to, you can donate to the International Marine Mammal Project. You can take the money you were going to spend on tickets at SeaWorld and donate to this organization that helps to get sea animals back into the wild.

Sign This Petition!- By signing this petition, you can both raise awareness as well as show your support to this cause and it is suppers easy!