Whales are among my favorite gentle creatures of the sea.

When I was 17, I had the experience of traveling to the Sea of Cortez on a biology expedition for two weeks where I lived aboard a boat with about 40 other students and 10 professors.

During the trip, I was out on a six-person-skiff for a day excursion, and we came upon a pod of five Orcas. There were three females, one male and a baby. The whales came so closely to our boat that I could have reached out and touched one of them with my hand.

It was an awesome and soul moving experience and I will always be grateful for that day: seeing and connecting with these majestic creatures living life how they are meant to, wild in the sea I so love.  

I also happened to grow up by the ocean and sailed the seas of San Diego, home to Sea World (which I have chosen to boycott for ethical reasons). My mother took me there once when I was about 10-years-old; I vowed never to go back, as I knew then that there was something terribly wrong with keeping magnificent and playful dolphins and whales in tiny cement pools and making them perform like circus animals.

It brings tears to my eyes just thinking about it.

I feel so strongly about this issue that my children have never seen a water ‘theme park’ such as Sea World—I refuse to spend even one penny to support these organizations’ causes, which I feel are misguided. Better to visit the beach or go for a sail and get to know nature in its true glory, instead of paying for a highly priced fantasy package of illusion sold in the guise of an experience to “Dive deep and connect with the big blue ocean at SeaWorld® San Diego, where the aquatic world comes alive like nowhere else.”

I came across two interesting videos on Sea World and Orcas which confirmed my belief on how keeping whales in tightly contained pools for decades is akin to making a people live in bathtubs for the same amount of time.

I could continue, but these videos say everything that I have known in my heart since I was young.

Firstly, on the untrue stories that people are being fed concerning Orcas at Sea World:

And more on the plight of Orcas:

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Editor: Bryonie Wise