Parents make mistakes too, don’t try to hide from them or cover them up. Admit them and teach your kids from the mistakes you make – K. Heath
A trip to San Diego’s Sea World has been on my Bucket List since I was a little girl. I’ve dreamed of watching the Killer Whales. Growing up I never considered how they were brought to the aquarium and how they lived. To be truthful, I still hadn’t really thought about that until we visited and my 8 year old son began pondering these questions. In some ways I feel a lot of guilt about our visit which is amplified by the resounding looks of shock when I tell people we added it to our itinerary.
On a warm winter’s morning in early January, we headed from our hotel in San Diego to the famed Sea World park. On arrival, we paid the extra few dollars for parking close to admission. Unlike many of the parks we had been to previously, the lines were not big and we were inside within minutes.
Once you move through the entry gates the first thing you come across are an array of touch pools. There are a number of different aquatic animals that you can gently touch across 5-6 pools. Our favourite were the Cleaner Fish. If you’ve been to Thailand you will know these fish well as tourists often fill up their Facebook threads with images of their feet in buckets of water with these fish. We only put our hands in. Wow! As 20 or more Cleaner Fish start cleaning your hands you’ll feel like you have an electrical current flowing through them.
We moved on to the dolphin pools where a small pod were playing. They swim around the pool jumping and splashing. Sometimes they will approach the side for a pat, but largely they kept to themselves and played.
By now we had grown accustomed to the lines in America, so while it was 45 minutes away, we decided to line up for the Shamu Show. This is what Sea World is famous for. I was very excited.
The actual show lasted for maybe 30 minutes give or take. A mother and calf along with the Aunty did a few splashes and also beached themselves on a shelf in the water. The trainers let us know that the calf was only a month old and then described its birth. R started to become distressed. “Are they happy?” He asked. “Why is its fin like that?“. T and I looked at each other. After the performance we walked down to the underwater viewing tank. We watched one of these majestic creatures position itself vertically so it could repeatedly scratch its back against a corner in the tank. Its pool mate swam around in circles. “Is it bored mum? Is that why it’s swimming in circles“. This was our brief encounter with the Orca’s. I was conflicted. On one hand I was feeling incredibly excited to be so close to the animals I had dreamed of seeing since I was small however this subsided as guilt washed over me. I was contributing to these animals being contained in this aquarium. I was a part of the problem.
The remainder of the park was quite similar to Australia’s own Sea World on the Gold Coast. The exhibits are large, the rides fun and there is plenty of food. There weren’t many lines anywhere else in the park. One of our favourite sections was the winter wonderland section where the kids could indulge in a snow fight and have a go at tobogganing. It was so much fun and their first experience with snow, albeit man-made. We also loved the seal show where a Sea Lion and Seal perform a small amount of behaviours amongst a larger story led by human actors. The kids couldn’t stop laughing.
I enjoyed the visit but found it confronting on a number of levels. Master R found the experience perplexing and has been researching more about sea animals since we’ve arrived home. He discovered that in there is one documented instance of an Orca being successfully reintroduced to the ocean after years he captivity. He’s decided to write up a plan for Sea World to do the same and offer cruises to watch them.
On a positive note, over the last 50 years Sea World San Diego has rescued 24,000 marine animals which should be celebrated.
Are you in Australia? Head over to the The Oceania Project – Caring for Whales, Dolphins and the Oceans which lists a number of organisations who are doing great things for marine mammals.
Oh that would be sad. But as you said there was a positive and although as visitors we may contribute to this orca in this situation many like you stated have been rescued… Just free the big one…. And great that a little conservation warrior has been created because of this. 🙂
What am awesome day out for the kids (and adults). I hope to be back in Australia next year and take my son to show him! Thanks for linking up with #SundayTraveler.
I understand what you mean. When some family visited us in California a few years ago, we took them to Sea world and had a really fun time. And then I learned the truth about how they are captured and living conditions and saw the movie Blackfish. I can never support these kind of organizations again. I’m glad your son asked the questions. It is a very confusing situation but all that matters is that your learned from it! And that is so sweet what your husband is now doing.
It’s always tough to know whether or not you should support organizations like these. As a kid, I absolutely loved them and I have great memories of Sea World, but now as an adult, I don’t know what I’ll do when it comes time to having kids of my own.
I always feel conflicted about any attractions that involve animals in captivity. The worst I ever saw was monkeys and dogs doing tricks and riding bicycles etc at a theme park in Vietnam. But, at some attractions, animals are rescued or endangered species breeding programs are run…and that is funded because of the visitors. Its good that kids ask these questions.
My son was worried about the Dulgong’s at the Sydney aquarium too until he researched and discovered that both had been rescued, rehabilitated and set free only to become ill again in the wild. It really is a balance when we start thinking about animals in captivity.
Animals in captivity is such a complicated issue. I’m a volunteer Ethics teacher at my kids’ school and it was one of the topics we covered last year. But it is such a good topic to get kids thinking about all the conflicting points of view and realise that there’s no easy answers.