SeaWorld is famous all over the planet for the amazing experience they give to their visitors. SeaWorld is an aquatic themed water park, merged with an amusement park, an amazing aquarium filled with all manner of marine and aquatic animals. SeaWorld is especially famous for the amazing tricks they perform using seals, dolphins and most notably orcas or killer whales. Despite being called a whale, these gentle giants are actually of the Dolphin family and are also its largest members. SeaWorld has always been held in high esteem because of all that they have accomplished with their marine animals, but now it seems that SeaWorld is about to be proven wrong about everything they had claimed to know.
1. Look at the Magnificent Flip
Till date SeaWorld had claimed that the lifespan of orcas were roughly twenty years. They have now been forced to eat their words because an orca nicknamed “Granny” has been spotted off the western coast of Canada along with her family. Scientists have determined using a complex scientific process that this orca is more than a hundred years old. She is in fact one hundred and three. Granny as the whale has been affectionately named was discovered while she was swimming in the waters of Canada’s west coast along with her family consisting of her children, her grandchildren and even her-great children. The Killer Whale is the only mammal that stays with its mother throughout its life. The proud matriarch of this large family has shattered all that was known about the life spans of the orcas by revealing her existence.
2. A beautiful animal in a beautiful ocean
SeaWorld’s claim that the life span of killer whales was unknown has been reduced to shambles because living specimens like Granny prove them otherwise. Many experts are of the opinion that the whales, which are bred in captivity only, have an estimated lifespan of four and a half years. It has been seen that many of the orcas at SeaWorld die before they even reach the age of twenty. This is one of the reasons why whales are forced to breed at younger ages in captivity, because of their reduced lifespan. This is also responsible for the deterioration of health of the species.
3. Leaping 15m out of the water
Breeding in captivity has another important adverse effect on the orcas. Orcas are capable of swimming close to a hundred miles in a day and it is precisely this which has kept Granny so fit and healthy despite her advanced age. This also allows her to make the eight hundred mile journey from California with ease. The orcas of SeaWorld born and brought up in captivity are thus unable fully utilize their potential and with each passing generation their species is becoming weaker compared to their family members in the wild.
Granny was first spotted in the early part of the last century near the nineteen thirties. She has after that given birth to two calves and they in turn had children of their own. As her family grew Granny has lived with them peacefully without any human intervention and has swam across an astonishing distance all over the planet.
Image Source
http://www.oocities.org/orcasforever3/breachingorcafromOrcaVisions.jpg
https://www.defenders.org/sites/default/files/magaizine-spring-2016-orca-dave-ellifrit-center-for-whale-research-nmfs-permit-15569-dfo-sara-272_.jpg
http://www.outsideonline.com/sites/default/files/migrated-images/wild-orca-alaska_si.jpg
