As if you needed more reasons to believe orcas shouldn’t live in glorified fish tanks, one at a SeaWorld-owned park appears to be crying for help. Footage surfaced recently of Morgan, a female killer whale at Loro Parque on the island Tenerife, beaching herself during a performance. When she should have been entertaining pasty British tourists, she hauled herself out and sat motionless for several minutes — a behavior that alarms some experts who say orcas do not display in the wild.
Some online commenters speculated that Morgan was trying to kill herself. But a former SeaWorld trainer featured in the documentary “Blackfish” believes Morgan was was trying to escape violent attacks from fellow killer whales, specifically a group of males with whom Morgan is confined.
Here’s the most maddening part. In 2010, Morgan was rescued from the Wadden Sea in Northern Europe. She was in bad shape and a a Dutch marine park took her in. Thing is, this was carried out under a capture-and-release permit. Several years later, Morgan — aside from the violence of other captive whales — is doing much better. So release her back to the wild, yeah?
Before “Blackfish” shed light on the plight of captive orcas, SeaWorld was apparently eyeing Morgan to add genetic diversity to the captive population. But the documentary led to the park’s decision to discontinue breeding its killer whales at all its parks, including Loro Parque. If SeaWorld holds to that, Morgan is no longer of value beyond performing tricks to the delight of sunburned tourists. Dutch officials ruled in 2014 that releasing Morgan was too risky because she was too young to feed herself at the time and would be unable to locate her pod. Subsequently, her handlers say Morgan has severe hearing loss, positing that as the reason she became separated.
Activists from Free Morgan Foundation and The Born Free Foundation claim Morgan shows “evidence of self mutilation, caused by repeatedly banging her head.” According to the latter group, “We had also received word that there have been, and continue to be attempts to breed from Morgan. Whether Loro Parque now cease from such plans, no one knows.”
All of this has led to cries from activists and the Twitter-verse to #FreeMorgan. Here are some of the posts:
#FREEMORGAN #Tenerife @SeaWorld These beautiful animals do not belong in captivity. Visitors to Tenerife please don't go to @LoroParque 🐳
— Suz (@DaisysMum5) June 5, 2016
2⃣9️⃣7️⃣8️⃣days in captivity NOW TO BREED @LoroParque Thanks to @SeaWorld + Dutch #RuleOfFLAW pic.twitter.com/S8OiFMOzBq #FreeMorgan #Blackfish
— Gerda van Rijn (@GerdavanRijn1) May 31, 2016
