The West is declining and the East is rising. How long can the killer whale show be performed in China?

Since the first commercial dolphinarium in Florida opened in 1938, cetacean shows have been performed in aquariums around the world for 80 years. In 1993, the last dolphinarium in the UK closed. Three years later, two bottlenose dolphins crossed the ocean from Japan and settled in Qingdao, China. In 2013, India’s Ministry of Environment and Forestry issued a ban on keeping cetaceans in captivity. Starting in the same year, Chimelong Ocean Kingdom successively imported 9 killer whales from Russia. In 2016, the American aquarium SeaWorld announced the end of killer whale breeding and performances. In the same year, six killer whales entered Shanghai Haichang Ocean Park and Wuxi Changqiao Ocean Park respectively. On November 16, 2018, Shanghai Haichang Ocean Park kicked off the Chinese killer whale show with its first "King Killer Whale Popular Science Show".

Every starting point for cetacean performances in China was after other countries had begun to ban them. This time, we went to see the killer whale show in Haichang, and the result was still very uncomfortable.

Haichang Ocean Park calls this killer whale show a "popular science performance." The park said, “In the more than 20-minute performance, 70% of the time is used to show the natural living conditions of killer whales. At the same time, given that killer whales are willing to interact with people, in the remaining 30% of the time, except for a small number of trainers and tigers, The whale’s *** also performed with the audience.”

Guoke’s netizen Qiuqiu went to watch the real performance and found that the entire show still used whale and dolphin performances. Common tricks: jumping on the water, hitting the water with its tail fin, opening its mouth to beg for food, being touched or even kissed by the trainer, and "stranding" on the display stand to "greet" the audience. The so-called "science popularization" is just a short paragraph of science popularization materials read according to the script at the beginning of the performance. The subsequent explanation was full of misleading information. For example, when introducing the high intelligence of killer whales, the killer whales were asked to show a "smile" and explained that this was a sign that the killer whales were living a happy life. Noise in aquariums is a source of stress for captive cetaceans. At the scene, the music and audience cheers were still noisy, and the commentary did not mention the possible impact of noise on killer whales. Instead, it used "killer whales use sonar in the sea" to encourage the audience to cheer and applaud louder.

Indeed, killer whales will jump, hit the water with their tail fins, and deliberately beach themselves on the beach in the wild. However, these behaviors have a clear ecological purpose in the wild, and are not for performance or interaction with people. Although the killer whales in the performance were deliberately induced to display these behaviors, they were completely out of the ecological environment that they should have. Therefore, it cannot be said to reflect its natural life state in any way, and it is completely different from the description of the program.

For example, slapping with the tail fin is an aggressive behavior for killer whales in the wild. The powerful tail fin can hit the prey until it loses its ability to move, making it easier to hunt. It is definitely not for splashing water to amuse the audience. . "Stranding" is also a special hunting technique developed by smart killer whales to catch prey in shoals and on the shore. It is not intended to greet the audience. Killer whales in the wild don't even open their mouths to beg for food, not to mention that the killer whales only get a few frozen small fish during the performance. You must know that the four killer whales performing are from the Sea of ??Okhotsk in the Far East of Russia. They are a type of passenger killer whale that feeds on marine mammals. They usually like to prey on young pinnipeds and baleen whales. How can such natural behavior be displayed?

The true natural life state is the various hunting strategies and techniques developed for survival in the cold Russian ocean; it is the amazing cooperation skills of killer whales to round up baleen whales that are larger than themselves. ; It is the interaction with other marine life in the complex and changeable marine environment; it is the communication and play with the mother and brothers and sisters in the family. None of these can be seen in a performance pool that is small and monotonous and lacks habitat creation. Killer whale performances are still far from showing the natural living conditions of killer whales.