Obituary of an Orca
Orbital's Sumi Bal pays respects to the recent passing of Tilikum.
Tilikum, the orca whale that inspired the documentary Blackfish, has died.
This is the whale that spent his entire life in captivity, being taken from his mother in the wild at just two years old. Used in every SeaWorld show for a mere five minutes to splash an unapologetic audience, the majority of his existence was spent alone, awaiting that five minutes. Now if that isn’t depressing, I don’t know what is.
This is the whale that bred the majority of orcas at SeaWorld enclosures. This involves involuntary masturbation, and insemination of the female whales. In other words, rape.
This is the whale that suffered extreme mental and physical trauma due to imprisonment with two physically dominant female whales. One...