Translator: Ilze Garda Reviewer: Denise RQ
I'd like to talk about family, the topic, I think, we can all relate to.
I imagine we would all agree that having a loving family
makes us stronger, more secure, and more confident.
Even as adults, you probably consider your parents and siblings
among the most important people in your lives.
And if you grow up without a functional family,
you might carry emotional scars as an adult.
But I'm not talking about people, I'm talking about killer whales, or orcas.
Now, most people know orcas from seeing them
in marine theme park shows like this one at SeaWorld.
This is the image people think of when they think killer whale,
they think Shamu.
But I believe that orcas don't belong in captivity
because this destroys family,
which for orcas is probably even more than for us, it's everything.
I want to tell you about orca families in the wild
to help you understand why it's important for us
to retire Shamu - both the character and the real whales who play the role.
Some of you may have heard of the film "Blackfish",
or the books "Death at sea world" and "Beneath the surface".
They came to the same conclusion that orcas don't belong in captivity,
but I'm going to focus on orcas' social structure
because I believe it's the main reason
that orcas do not and cannot thrive in captivity.
Obvious arguments against keeping orcas in captivity
are that they are large, far-swimming, and deep-diving.
They can reach 30 miles per hour, and they can travel 100 miles in a day.
They are going to suffer when they are put into small spaces.
Every orca population has a distinct diet and language,
these are learned cultural differences.
Orcas have their cultural identities stripped from them in captivity.
They can live a long time, into their 30s, 40s, 50s, even their 90s.
There is a whale off the coast here in the Pacific Northwest
who is believed to be over 100 years old.
But in captivity, most don't make it past 25.
They are intelligent.
There's still scientific debate as to how smart is smart,
but they have long memories,
they can certainly understand complicated signals from their trainers,
and they can recognize themselves in a mirror,
which is a form of self-awareness,
the ability to distinguish oneself as separate from others.
It's a rare ability in animals,
and it's one we, humans, don't develop until we are two or three years old.
I can assure you that these whales are thinking about those people,
I have no idea what
(Laughter)
but they are thinking.
These intelligent beings are living in bare, boring enclosures in captivity
whose only similarity to the ocean is saltwater.
But the most remarkable thing about orcas is their families.
This interaction is meant to illustrate the loving bond
between a trainer and a captive charge.
The marine theme parks refer to the trainers and the whales as family.
But this isn't family.
This is a family.
This is a mom and her sons and daughters. Her mother, her brothers and sisters.
The tall, straight dorsal fin belongs to an adult male,
and he is traveling with his mother.
Orca society is matriarchal with females as the naturally dominant sex,
even though the males are far larger.
Even more remarkable, female orcas experience menopause,
which is actually pretty rare phenomena in the animal kingdom.
Usually both males and females have biological value
only as long as they can reproduce,
and they die soon after their reproductive system stop functioning.
But what if a mother's continued presence in her children's lives
helps them survive or reproduce?
Personally, I couldn't have gotten through graduate school
or bought my first home without help from my mother.
So menopause evolves in species with close-knit families
where older females have value,
whether it's through knowledge of reliable fishing grounds in orcas, for example,
which recent research has provided evidence for,
or direct help with raising grandkids, say.
Now, the older a male orca is,
the more successful he is at fathering offspring,
and a recent discovery based on years of data has determined
males with living mothers live longer.
So the longer mom lasts
- up to 50 years past the end of her reproductive life in orcas -
the more grandkids and sons will sire.
Up to four generations can travel together.
Daughters who do associate with their mums throughout their lives
start spending less time with her when they're busy with their own kids.
As for sons, they will spend up to 70% of their time
within one body length of their mother until the day she dies.
(Laughter)
The only other example I can think of in mammals
where a son is that close to his mom is probably in some human societies, right?
(Laughter)
The nerdy guy who lives in his mom's basement...(Laughter)
Male orcas are six-ton mama's boys.
(Laughter)
But they don't mate with their mothers and sisters.
This was determined by taking skin samples and doing genetic relatedness testing.
That's pretty remarkable.
A male will live with his female relatives his entire life,
but just as in most human societies, incest is a tabu.
He will only mate outside his immediate family.
Now, it's possible that some moms introduce their sons to nice girls
(Laughter)
like my Jewish grandma did with her three boys,
but unlike my father and my uncles,
it's probable that orca sons recognize a good deal when they see it,
and, you know, let their mom hook them up. (Laughter)
But there is no paternal care in orcas.
An outside male will come in, he'll get some,
and he goes home to his mom.
(Laughter)
There's still the requirement of a family,
you need a village to raise an orca calf.
The older brothers and sisters will babysit their younger siblings,
I think that is really cool, this gives the mom a break,
it teaches daughters valuable motherhood skills,
and it's a way for those mama's boys to pay their rent.
(Laughter)
But what about those older postmenopausal females?
Well, they have value not just for their knowledge or the help with grandkids,
they play the role of Mrs. Robinson,
little old ladies and adolescent boys have sex.
(Laughter)
Because let's face it, adolescent boys are disruptive,
all those hormones surging and nowhere to go
because eligible females won't give them the time of day.
It's usually young male mammals
who get the itch to leave the home territory,
but in orcas, postmenopausal females
will scratch that itch, without fear of pregnancy,
so adolescent males are less disruptive, and they can stay at home.
(Laughter)
Now, my graduate research described the all-male group.
This is where male relatives and their friends of all ages
get together and socialize occasionally.
They work out their aggressions with mutual, ritualized interactions.
Sounds familiar?
They play football, they box, they go down to the bar for a beer.
This helps them avoid real male-male aggression
like you'll see in other mammals during the mating season.
Now, what I've just described doesn't fit all orca populations,
there are some that are more like us:
the kids grow up and do move out, but they come home to visit occasionally.
Their family ties are looser, but they still exist.
Captivity destroys all of that.
Some captive orcas are held alone, like this one in Miami.
Others are held in groups of whales from different families,
different cultures, entirely different oceans.
They would never even meet, let alone live together, in the wild.
They grow up without knowing proper social etiquette.
Males who have no postmenopausal females to train them can be violent when mating.
Dominant females can assert their dominance with unnatural violence.
This is Kandu who in 1989 attacked another female so violently
that she broke her own jaw, severed an artery and bled out in minutes.
That is blood spraying from her blowhole.
This level of aggressive interactions has never been observed in the wild.
And it's not just dominant females.
This is Nakai, a young male,
who received this injury which goes down to the jawbone
after an altercation with other whales in his tank.
The facility that holds them claims that he was wounded
when he hit his chin on some bit of concrete or metal in his tank,
but there is nothing in his enclosure
that is sharp enough to have done this damage,
except the teeth of another orca.
Adult males without families have no social status,
no social protection, no social role other than stud.
This can lead to frustration and aggression
with trainers and other whales.
This is Tilikum, the whale featured in the film "Blackfish"
who in 2010 mauled and killed his longtime trainer Dawn Brancheau.
His life has been one of an unending frustration,
and in the 32 years that he's been in captivity,
he has killed three people.
But he is not the only killer killer whale in captivity.
A male named Keto killed his trainer in Spain, Alexis Martinez,
only 9 weeks before Brancheau died.
Yet, throughout history, despite their reputation,
there are no records of wild killer whales killing humans beings.
Captive orcas have committed incest, with at least one known case
of a son mating with his mother and producing a daughter-sister.
For me,
this is the most horrible difference between wild and captive whales,
it shows just how abnormal they are.
Captive sons never learn they shouldn't mate with their mother,
and captive mothers never learn they shouldn't let them.
Young females are bred far too early,
when they're physically, but not socially or emotionally ready.
They are children having children,
and these days it's often done through artificial insemination.
They don't know how to be proper mothers, so they sometimes reject their calves.
Instead of this - a calf being raised surrounded by family -
captive orcas have this:
limited space, and few or no family members
to help them learn how to be orcas.
Or still, they might have this.
This young whale was captured in the Sea of Okhotsk, in Russia.
Captures of wild orcas have ended essentially decades ago,
but recently, Russia is taking up the trade again.
In the past three years, 10 young whales have been ripped from their families
and sold into the marine theme park industry in Russia and China.
What we do here in the US sets an example abroad,
and in this case isn't a good one.
Now, there are some good orca moms in captivity.
They have several calves successfully, and they raise them devotedly.
But they are not rewarded for that devotion.
Many times the calves are taken from her
to be shipped to some other facility for management purposes,
when they're still profoundly dependent on her,
sometimes when they are as young as two or three years old.
That's exactly the same as taking a toddler from his or her mom.
Think about that.
We all have family.
How can it be morally right for us to do to others,
even when those others aren't human,
something that we would consider devastating if it happened to us?
That comparison isn't anthropomorphism,
it's empathy.
Now, there are only 56 orcas in captivity in the entire world,
we can fix this problem.
But with the recent resumption of captures in Russia, we need to act now.
So how can you help?
When you're talking with your own family,
and you're considering where to go on your family trips,
think about whether you want to spend your money at a marine theme park
now that you know what you know about the whales' remarkable families.
Consumer choice is a powerful force for change.
After "Blackfish" aired on CNN in 2013,
SeaWorld's annual attendance dropped by more than 1,000,000 visitors.
(Applause)
And its stock price dropped almost 50%.
Write to marine theme parks and tell them you support
the gradual phasing out of orca exhibits and shows.
We're not asking for anything radical, we're trying to be reasonable about this.
Tell them you support
the retirement of the currently captive orcas to sanctuaries,
and while you're at it, please, tell them you support that
for the other captive whale and dolphin species too.
Captive display of orcas began with good intentions,
but that was 50 years ago,
before we knew anything about these whales in the wild.
And now we do know, so we have to change.
These magnificent mammals do not deserve a life in a concrete box.
We need to leave them and protect them in the real sea world,
instead of forcing them to live in ours.
Because family is everything.
Thank you.
(Applause)