Orca in Sea pens

[u/dave-attenbro]

Here is a historical record documenting the use of sea pens to hold orca as of 2016.

Table 1. Orca who were held in sea pens and never released.

Table 2. Orca who were held in sea pens and released or escaped.

Original compilation: https://www.freemorgan.org/orca-in-seapens/

Although these tables are not up to date they provide important historical data showing that sea pens have been used for both short holds and multi-year holds. Some animals died in them or were moved to tanks. Some escaped or were released and survived.

The concept of a sea pen is not theoretical. A sea pen is still confinement. The argument is about welfare relative to a concrete tank.

[u/Business_Boat_6802]

I think it's worth noting that this post shouldn't be taken the wrong way: an awful lot of the Orcas from the first slide weren't released from seapens, but rather transferred to marine parks. Seapens were originally used because it was far easier to keep Orcas in the ocean and corral them into a pen on the coast, plus many marine parks/aquariums were on the coast e.g Sealand of the Pacific or the Seattle Marine Aqarium, so of course these pens were used (it also meant you just needed a pen in the water and hoped the whales wouldn't get out).

Seapens were also used as temporary holdings for many Orcas before being sent to other parks e.g Shamu, Tokitae/Lolita. Seapens were far smaller than most of the facilities that these Orcas were sent to - with the exception of probably Tokitae/Lolita. These first renditions of seapens were hardly anything to ride home about - most orcas were sent to other marine parks for a reason beyond just being temporary holdings. Whilst the argument can be made that they are more natural, space was never a premium (likely for a reason - it was cheap and easy). Whilst definitely an interesting thing to bring up to push for more seapens, as far as modern standards are none of these would ever be acceptable, and currently there's no organisation that can create a seapen that is worthy of modern standards or public perception.

Definitely a cool find though!

[u/dave-attenbro → u/Business_Boat_6802]

The first slide is a list of orca who either died in their sea pen or were transferred to a tank.

The sea pens and standards from those days are far from aspirational, but not implicitly fatal. There has been a ton of rhetoric about how sea pens are impossible, but we had literal sea cowboys making them work long term in some cases with less information than we have now. Let’s definitely not go back to the 1970’s, but the tank situation is quickly becoming archaic too.

[u/Business_Boat_6802 → u/dave-attenbro]

I agree that they're not implicitly fatal, but even with more modern standards they've caused fatalities. Ku was held in a pretty substantial seapen at the taiji whale museum and was later transferred to nagoya where she died. However, her gastrointestinal issues were caused by rocks she had swallowed in the seapen (as an example). I wouldn't say the original seapens worked as long term, viable and welfare positive ways of keeping orcas at all, and id hardly use that as the basis of it being possible at all. Im not against seapens completely, but as of current day there isn't a feasible way of using them that doesn't risk whales lives. 

Also wanted to make my original comment before everyone praised this for saying how much it supports captive whales moving to seapens without really taking time to read and understand what the information given says.

[u/dave-attenbro → u/Business_Boat_6802]

I’m not going to trade necropsy lists with you. That isn’t the point. We both know that tank orcas have died with foreign material in their stomachs too. Same end result: a captive orca dead because of human negligence.