Are they thriving?
This is a work in progress.
The claim is that all cetaceans, but especially killer whales, don’t fare well in human care.
“It’s difficult to imagine a species more inherently unsuited for captivity”, said Dayna Bochco, member of the California Coastal Commission and “in bed” with extremist activists like Naomi Rose and Ingrid Visser.
I can show that this claim is very uneducated and that, in fact, it’s very easy to imagine many, many species which fare worse than killer whales, even if we’re only talking cetaceans and for the sake of simplicity, exclude all other animals.
To do this, I’ll explore how other cetacean species have fared in human care, mainly by looking at survival rates, lifespan and breeding success.
Credit to Tuugaalik
Harbour porpoise
The Harbour porpoise is the most well-known species of porpoise, but it has not been kept extensively in aquaria. Today, there is one male-female pair at Vancouver aquarium (both rescued after strandings), eight at Dolfinarium Harderwijk (all rescued or born there) four at Otaru Aquarium, one at Kamogawa Sea World, and three (also rescues) at a facility in Denmark, where the porpoises are trained and used for research. The first Harbour porpoise live birth was at this facility in 2007, but the calf apparently died later. For some reason, porpoises are far harder to keep than dolphins. [Source]
Dall’s porpoise
A small number of Dall’s porpoises were captured by Marineland of the Pacific and the US Navy, and it never went well. Most died very soon from hitting against the walls of their tanks, and the longest any of them survived was 21 months. They would swim very fast around their tanks, and did not appreciate efforts to train them. Dall’s porpoises are extremely fast, the fastest marine mammal together with the killer whale, they frequently dive to deep waters of 180 meters, and “zig-zagging” around in the water at very high speeds is normal behavior for them. “Cormick (1969) reported that 10 captive Dall’s porpoises had never been observed to engage in any activity resembling sleep.” [Source 1] [Source 2]
Yes, this was actually the only picture I could find of a narwhal in a tank.
Narwhal
In the 1970s and 60s, attempts were made, surprisingly, to keep narwhals in aquaria. My initial thought was that “don’t the trainers risk being speared by the males?” (forming slightly comedic horror scenes in my head). The problems were not that, but they were largely caused by the same thing - the tusks of the males. In the wild, they ram ice with their tusks, and so they’ll do the same with glass in a tank, destroying the glass. In addition to that, all narwhals captured died within months.
Vancouver Aquarium captured six narwhals in 1970, and they all died from pneumonia. The longest-lived, a male, died after four months. However the water they were kept in was three times warmer than what they were used to, which likely contributed to their deaths. [Source]
Beaked whales
Beaked whales of various species have never, to my knowledge, been purposely captured for display or research, but only rescued and rehabilitated. A couple have been successfully released after a few days of care, but most died very soon (which is of course already common for any cetacean in need of rescue), and the longest survived for only 25 days. Beaked whales are the cetaceans we know the least about, but we do know they are deep divers. Some can dive to thousands of meters of depth to hunt squid and jellyfish, and only surface every couple of hours to breathe, so it should come to no surprise that what they need to live and thrive can’t be realistically replicated in a manmade environment.
“Rare” dolphins
There are and have been many species of dolphin which have been kept so rarely that there is not much to say on their survivability and breeding, because they are often (but not exclusively) only kept in poorer facilities, and/or only one or a few individuals at a time. So we don’t know how well they would do if as much money, energy and professionalism was put into them as often is in the common species today.
Credit to Michelle Bender
River dolphins
Many Amazon river dolphins were captured between the 1950s and 70s, and most of them died. Today, only three facilities in the world keep river dolphins. One of the ones who did make it, Chuckles, lived for 32 years at the Pittsburg Zoo. Another, Apure, died in 2006, aged in his forties. The remaining dolphin at Duisburg Zoo in Germany, Baby (pictured), is also over 40 years old. So they can live a long time in human care, but overall they did not surive well, and nothing can be said on breeding as I don’t know how much, if at all, it has been attempted. [Source]
Irrawaddy dolphin
These dolphins are very rarely kept, only in Indonesia, Thailand and neighboring countries, and not much is known about the ones that are.
Common dolphins
Humpback dolphins
There have been very few humpback dolphins in human care (about 13 today), but one, named Amity, has lived at Sea World Gold Coast (Australia) for decades, and is now roughly 60 years old, so they can definitely live for a long time in an artificial environment. There are also five of them at Chimelong Ocean Kingdom in China, transferred from Underwater World in Singapore, and three of those were born in human care, all from the same parents. So while they are not common, probably due to their less charming appearance than their bottlenose relatives, they seem to both be able to both breed and live very long lives in human care.
Credit to Ricky Romero
Commerson’s dolphin
SeaWorld has had a small breeding program of “commies”, and Marinepia Aquarium in Japan has four individuals, all captive-bred between 1991 and 2013. Tsubasa at this facility is a third generation captive-bred Commerson’s dolphin. Nanki Shirahama Adventure World has three commies, all captive-bred. SeaWorld’s Aquatica has three captive-bred animals, and one wild-caught in 1983 (this dolphin, named Juan, is thus at least 35 years old today). The oldest known is Betsy, who recently died at the age of 37, vastly beyond their wild lifespan, which is known to have a maximum of 19 years.
So they live long, breed readily, and have reached multiple generations in human care.
Credit to OpenCage
Risso’s dolphin
There are at least twenty Risso’s dolphin in Japan alone, but most were captured in recent years, and only a couple of the ten facilities have both a male and a female, so there is no breeding to speak of. They have however bred and produced hybrid offspring with bottlenose dolphins.
Credit to roamingwab
Short-finned pilot whale
Pilot whales have been kept since at least the 1940s and continually since the 50s, but only rarely and as far as I know, no calf has never been produced, because they have never been kept in mature male-female pairings. They have however proven to be able to live for a very long time. Bubbles, pictured, was captured in 1966, estimated to be three years old. She died in the summer of 2016, just months before her 50th anniversary, which would make her 53 years old at the time of death. Another of SeaWorld’s pilot whales, Shadow, is 37 years old. There are however no numbers to really get some statistics on them. Most of them are recent captures in Japan, and it’s difficult to find the ages of previous animals in America. There are today a total of 15 pilot whales in facilities across the world.
Credit to Richard Mansfield
False killer whale
These medium-sized and sleek relatives of killer whales and pilot whales have been fairly common in human care, SeaWorld once even had a small family of them, but now, only two remain in the entire western hemisphere. Kina, captured in Japan in 1987, and Chester, rescued by Vancouver Aquarium in 2014. The last of SeaWorld’s pseudorcas to die was Jozu, born at SeaWorld, and just a few months short of her eighteenth birthday. There are at least 25 pseudorcas in marine parks around the world, the vast majority being in Japan.
I don’t yet know how old the oldest pseudorca became, and I wonder if aquaria put more effort into breeding and displaying this species, they would have been more successful. But like many other species, they aren’t as eye-catching as the main three; bottlenose dolphins, belugas and killer whales.
Credit to Gabe Taviano
Pacific white-sided dolphin
This species is also relatively rare in the western world, but there are many of them in Japan, and roughly 100 total in marine parks across the world, which makes them the third most common cetacean in human care. The oldest known is Kurosu at Enoshima Aquarium, roughly 40 years old, and Betty at SeaWorld San Antonio, is almost as old. There have been at least two generations of captive-bred “lags” in North America.
Credit to Darrell Taylor
Bottlenose dolphin
Without a doubt the most common of all cetaceans in human care, over 70% of the whales and dolphins we keep are bottlenose dolphins. And unlike other species, we were breeding them successfully over 60 years ago. In 2014, Nellie died as the world’s oldest dolphin at the age of 61. She was captive-bred and spent her whole life at the same facility. I don’t know how many generations there have been bred in total, but at SeaWorld alone, there are today four generations of captive-bred bottlenose dolphins.
Everything shows that they are doing extremely well in a zoological seting.
Credit to Jason Farrar
Beluga whale
Belugas were the first cetaceans to be kept in human care, as far back as the 1860s. This was very unsuccessful as you can imagine, and almost all of them died very soon after capture. However, with the advancements in marine mammal care and zoological facilities in later decades, they are thriving in reputable facilities.
Life expectancy at birth in the wild is only about 15 years due to so many dying young, but they should be able to live many decades. Kavna who died in 2012 was estimated to be 46 years old at the time of her death, and Ferdinand at SeaWorld San Diego is now the oldest known beluga whale in the world, at 47. They are “believed” to be able to reach ages of 60 and beyond, but there is little substance to these claims as they haven’t been studied for so long.
There have been at least two generations of successfully captive-bred belugas. Not as many as some other species and some people that are pro-cetaceans in human care still consider them less suitable, but they are breeding and living long lives.
Credit to Bryce Bradford
Killer whale
Now to the main “star” of this hot topic, killer whales. They started being kept in the mid-1960s, and before the end of the decade, roughly a dozen parks had tried keeping them.
Results in the 60s and 70s were not good at all. Not as poor as some other species featured above, but still appalling. Animals frequently died young, and no breeding (including two adult females captured while pregnant) resulted in a viable calf. As an addition to that, training this species was still in its infancy, and it resulted in frustrated animals and injured trainers.
It was in the 1980s and 90s that things really took off, and started to change. Many poorer facilities had given up, while others who could care for these animals were only getting better and better results. SeaWorld, which is the focus of many (and a good example because they have long been the best in the world at killer whales, and own nearly half of the world’s captive population), have only had three calves ever die before six months of age. In 1986 (to Kenau), in 1994 (to Haida 2), and in 2017 (Kyara, to Takara). This makes for a calf mortality rate of just over 9%, compared to as much as 50% in some wild populations.
Counting from 1990 onwards, they are on a similar level or even (in the case of calves and juveniles) outperforming wild whales in lifespan. The average age at death is at 16 years, 18 excluding calves. For wild whales, this is only 13-17 years, 18-19 excluding calves.Quoting my own site Orca Facts, where I lay out all the data that I got my calculations from:
The average age at death for captive killer whales since 1990 is 16 years, or 18 years when calves (animals under three years of age) are excluded. This is from 60 animals.
It has improved substantially since the 1970s, when the average age at death was only 7.2 years (32 animals), but of course there could not be any whales decades old at that time.
In the 1980s it was raised to 11 years (24 animals, not including adult captures), with several living to their 20s.
For contrast, Southern and Northern residents dying in the 1970s and 80s average only 5.7 years and 10.3 years, respectively. (This is following the same rule as for captive animals - not counting any animal born before 1955.)
From 2000 only (37 animals), average age at death is 17.2 years, excluding calves, it is 19.1 years.
Out of these 60 whales since 1990, 15 (25%) were under 10 years of age. Seven of them were at Marineland Ontario, a notoriously poor facility when it comes specifically to killer whale survival.
For comparison, the Southern residents have lost 81 whales since 1990, and 38% of them died before the age of 10. The Northern residents have lost 119 whales in the same time, 51 or 42% died under the age of ten (see ‘Wild whale data’). This does not include all calves that die in their first six months and are never recorded, a rate scientists agree are up to 50%.
There are currently two whales over the age of 50, and they make up 4.87% (if counting all zoological whales that could be 50 today), or 6.45% (if counting the ones that survived the first 1 months after capture of whales that have reached age 50, compared to a mere 3% (by researchers, 1-5%, my research) of wild whales that reach that age. And that is counting captive whales born before 1968, most of which died in the poor care of the 1970s - given the vast improvements in later decades, far more of the young whales today should reach that age.
They breed readily and like I showed above, have a far lower calf mortality rate in human care than in the wild. We currently have four generations of captive-bred killer whales. They are healthy, interactive and social.
In short, they show every sign of being a species that is not only doing fine, but thriving in human care.
Non-cetaceans
Now far from every cetacean species have been kept, but looking at it roughly, it seems the majority of cetaceans (beaked whales, pelagic porpoises and dolphins, probably baleen hales) could never do well in an artificial environment with present technology, while killer whales as I displayed, are thriving.
But I also wanted to take the opportunity to include some species of animals other than whales that don’t do well in captivity (so far, in any case).
Credit to Brocken Inaglory
Great white shark
Many attempts to keep great white sharks have been made, but they have all failed. In 1981, a shark survived for 16 days at SeaWorld San Diego before being released, and that was a milestone. The longest ever a great white has ever been in human care was at Monterrey Bay Aquarium in 2004, when a female survived 198 days before being released. Two years later, they kept a male alive for 137 days before release, and another male the next year, for 162 days.
These were all juveniles, and the species has shown very poor signs of surviving in tanks. Frequent refusal to eat, constant banging against the walls, problems navigating, the list goes on.
So naturally, no animal has lived to an old age, and no breeding has ever taken place.
Javan rhinoceros
Not an entirely fair comparison, as they haven’t been kept in zoos for over a century. However, at least a couple of dozen were kept, but not once did they breed, and the oldest lived to 20, only half the age of a wild rhinoceros.
Credit to International Rhino Foundation
Sumatran rhinoceros
Far more well-known than their Javan relative, and unlike them they are still being kept, but they also fare very poorly in an artificial environment. Despite the advancements of zoos thoughout the decades, until recently, only one captive birth had ever occured in this species, and that was in 1889 - 128 years ago.
Between 1984 and 1996, a conservation program transported 40 Sumatran rhinos from their native habitats to zoos and reserves across the world. While hopes were initially high, and much research was conducted on the captive specimens, by the late 1990s, not a single rhino had been born in the program, and most of its proponents agreed the program had been a failure. In 1997, the IUCN’s Asian rhino specialist group, which once endorsed the program, declared it had failed “even maintaining the species within acceptable limits of mortality”, noting that, in addition to the lack of births, 20 of the captured rhinos had died.
After this, more of the rhinos died, and eventually, only three remained. They were reunited at the Cincinnati Zoo, where the first calf in 112 years was born. Soon, three more calves followed, which makes for a total of five calves. Overall, this species seems to do very poorly outside their natural environment, and only breed well in facilities very close to their natural habitat.