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Disastrous-Soup-5413 t1_jbqndtr wrote

Why didn’t they release her?????

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Zombie_Harambe t1_jbqnq5j wrote

Too old. Didn't have any parental nurturing and no survival instincts. Orcas have distinct language. They shun outsiders who can't speak theirs. She would have been alone and incapable.

It begs the question. Which is better. To be free but in danger. Or to be trapped but safe. Most would agree it be better to let the poor whale know some glimmer of freedom and happiness before dying in the wild. Better than more decades in a concrete cell.

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Quix_Optic t1_jbr8ki3 wrote

They could've at least given her a bigger goddamn tank, if anything.

I also read that an agency was thinking of creating a large actual ocean space and having it blocked off so she was still "captive" but could be in a natural habitat.

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EmotionalSuportPenis t1_jbs1hoh wrote

There are some wildlife education programs where an animal is temporarily captured from the wild, provided with highly nutritious food and extensive veterinary care, kept for a finite amount of time (usually a season or 1-2 years) to be an "animal ambassador" where people have a chance to see them, and then released back into the wild in a much stronger, healthier state than they would have otherwise been without human intervention. I think that's about the only ethical way to do something like this, but that kind of program is usually done with smallish animals like owls and rabbits, not a whole-ass pod of orcas.

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izzittho t1_jbuot5s wrote

This is basically what a lot of actually good zoos do. And for threatened/endangered species, they work on breeding programs, often with other good zoos, to get individuals re-released into the wild to re-establish populations.

The zoo part of it all basically exists for awareness/fundraising for all of that - they let the public see and get to know/love the animals so they can see the importance of protecting/saving them, and generally only keep long-term any animals that just cannot be released, with the goal of actually minimizing the amount that they need to keep. I think that’s a good thing.

You can really see the difference in their behavior and in the enclosure designs and everything. For one, you can’t always see the animals, which is exactly how it should be. They’re allowed to hide when they want, are never alone except for animals that prefer to live alone (some lizards, etc.) Basically, zoos can be good. Captivity generally isn’t the best place for any wild animal, but given the amount that already exist there, there are a lot of zoos that are taking it in an ultimately good direction.

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Disastrous-Soup-5413 t1_jbqsm2i wrote

Thx, I was seriously wondering ….

yeah it’s worth the chance out in the wild. I can’t imagine she couldn’t kill something to eat, they lure & kill birds near the tanks ?…..(I know nothing but am hopeful)

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Aazadan t1_jbqu1m2 wrote

Orca's eat a lot. Most animals in captivity take substantial effort to rehabilitate into the wild so that they don't just die. There's not really a good program to do that for Orca's. Seriously, it's orders of magnitude harder and more expensive to rehabilitate an animal.

Lets put this into a human anology. A kid who speaks only Japanese does something at age 15 and spends the next 20 years in the US in a Supermax with only Russian speaking cellmates. Then spends the following 20 years in solitary confinement with no language. Then is released onto a street in the US with no education, no assets, no job skills, and no support network. What do you think would happen? And that person would be much better off than the Orca.

It's unlikely the park could afford rehabilitation, even if they wanted to.

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Zombie_Harambe t1_jbqutnk wrote

The best method may be simply to introduce her to a pod and hope the whales can find a way to show her the compassion humanity so cruelly denied.

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dogwoodcat t1_jbqvqv6 wrote

If they can identify and locate the whale's pod quickly enough (typically within a few days of separation) there is a chance. Otherwise, it has to be a captive until someone figures out a better way.

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Send_me_snoot_pics t1_jbr81rj wrote

Didn’t they try this with Keiko and it ultimately didn’t work out because he kept trying to seek out human interaction?

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Relevant_Quantity_49 t1_jbrc6wc wrote

It's a little more complicated than that.

Orcas are socially complex animals, with each pod often having distinct behaviors and vocalizations. To use an anthropomorphic term, orca pods can be said to have distinct cultures. You can't introduce an animal from one pod into another and be assured it will seamlessly integrate; you have to find the animal's original pod.

The rehabilitators never found Keiko's original pod. Instead he was released near a random pod of wild orcas with hopes he would somehow integrate. It was the orca-equivalent of taking some WASP from the American suburbs, dropping them into rural Afghanistan, and hoping it would work out.

It didn't work, so Keiko remained solitary with respect to other orcas. It's no wonder he sought out human companionship; orcas are social animals, and he had years of positive reinforcement around people. Worse, John Q. Public sought him out, further strengthening that relationship.

If we wanted to try again, the best candidate (assuming she's healthy enough) would be Miami Seaquarium's Lolita. We know exactly which pod she came from and where they are--they're one of the best studied pods in the world--and when a vocalization study was conducted, IIRC, in the 90s, she still recognized their calls. Quite frankly, Miami Seaquarium could contribute more to orca behavioral research by supporting such a project than they ever have because it would give us a chance to see whether or not an animal separated from its pod for decades could successfully reintegrate. Would they accept her? Would they take care of her? Would they teach her to be a wild orca again? Answers to such questions would tell us a lot about their capabilities as animals.

(Source for information on Keiko: As an undergrad studying Animal Behavior, I attended a seminar on the effort and failure behind Keiko's rehabilitation, held by people involved in it.)

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Nugur t1_jbshqi6 wrote

I think others would kill her.

There’s a video on there where a house pet duck was left out to play at the park with wild ducks. The wild ducks know she’s was foreign and drown the poor fella

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OneHumanPeOple t1_jbrh4vj wrote

The excuse was that she didn’t know anything about the ocean and didn’t have and family ties so she would have died.

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Disastrous-Soup-5413 t1_jbrisem wrote

So letting her ram her head into plexiglass instead of try to survive in the ocean was the lesson of two evils. So sad

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