Local authorities of California is now prohibiting the theme park SeaWorld from breeding whales while in captivity, that questions the park's practices when it comes to taking care and protecting marine animals, as the park is known for its killer whale attraction.
The California Coastal Commission came up with this ruling after the request of the San Diego theme park to expand and construct more tanks for the orcas. SeaWorld's statement says that management were "disappointed" with this ruling from last Thursday.
To date, SeaWorld is extensively planning to build two more tanks for public viewing and additional research. According to John Reilly who is the SeaWorld San Diego Park President, breeding is a natural and fundamental process that is important to any animal's life and depriving a social animal the right to reproduce is inhumane.
The Commission approved the theme park's building projects under the conditions that the park would prohibit breeding in captivity along with artificial insemination. This also include the sale, trade and transfer of animals in captivity.
According to Commission spokeswoman Noaki Schwartz, they received more than 120,000 emails from people regarding this proposed SeaWorld expansion, where the majority expressed strong opposition of the project.
Currently, this ruling is only effective for the San Diego branch of SeaWorld and not its branch locations in Florida and Texas.
PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) praised this ruling where they said that this can effectively put an end to the orca whale aquarium. PETA's statement revealed how this rule can ensure that no more orcas will be condemned to a nonlife of loneliness, filled with misery and deprivation.
In the past years, SeaWorld was already under heavy criticism especially in 2013, when the release of the documentary "Blackfish" attacked the company's killer whale program. The documentary reveals how orcas that are in captivity eventually become bored, resulting in more aggressive animal behavior especially to human trainers.
In response to this, SeaWorld called the documentary "false and misleading". Apart from this film, exposing alleged animal malpractices, many celebrities are already against the treatment of the theme park of captive marine animals.
SeaWorld reported last Augus about an 84 percent drop in earnings from the second quarter of 2015, compared to 2014 and a two percent drop in visitor populations.