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THE LAST ORCA has been born in captivity at a SeaWorld park in San Antonio just over a year after the theme park decided to stop breeding orcas following animal rights protests and declining ticket sales.
The Orlando-based company said the orca — the last in a generation of whales bred in confinement — was born yesterday afternoon.
SeaWorld did not immediately name the calf because the park’s veterinarians had not yet determined whether it was male or female.
The mother, 25-year-old Takara, was already pregnant when SeaWorld announced in March 2016 that it had stopped breeding its orcas. The gestation period for orcas is about 18 months.
Preparing late last month for the moment, SeaWorld’s chief zoological officer, Chris Dold, told the Associated Press he expected the birth to be bittersweet, because it would be the last such event at any of the parks.
Can’t watch the video? Click here.
Hours after the calf was born at about 3:30 pm local time (7.30pm Irish time) yesterday, Dold said SeaWorld staff only felt like celebrating. SeaWorld said mother and calf both appear healthy.
“These are extraordinary moments,” he said by phone while traveling to the US from Abu Dhabi, where SeaWorld is developing its first new park without orcas.
It’s a tempered celebration only because we’re focused on the health of these guys.
SeaWorld decided to stop breeding orcas, and phase out its world-famous killer whale performances by 2019, after public opinion turned against keeping orcas, dolphins and other animals in captivity for entertainment.
The backlash intensified after the 2013 release of Blackfish, a documentary critical of SeaWorld’s orca care. It focused on the orca Tilikum, which killed trainer Dawn Brancheau in Orlando in 2010, dragging her into the pool before shocked visitors after a Dine with Shamu show.
Tilikum, which sired 14 calves over nearly 25 years in Orlando, died of bacterial pneumonia in January.
The newborn calf was sired by Kyuquot (pronounced ky YOO kit) at the San Antonio park by natural means. It brings SeaWorld’s orca population in the US to 23. All the orcas are expected to remain on display and available for researchers for years to come in Orlando, San Diego and San Antonio.
SeaWorld has said it plans to introduce new “natural orca encounters” in place of theatrical shows. This summer, the San Diego park will unveil a new, educational attraction in a revamped pool, and new orca attractions eventually will follow in San Antonio and Orlando.
Birth control
The calf will be visible to visitors either in the orca stadium pool at the San Antonio park or in two adjacent pools. Observations about the calf and Takara by SeaWorld trainers will be provided from the moment of birth to researchers trying to fill gaps in their data about wild killer whales.
Dold said veterinarians at the San Antonio park told him the calf was born normally — tail first — after about an hour and a half of smooth labour. Both orcas were swimming calmly, including taking breaths at the water’s surface, and trainers would be watching for the calf to begin nursing.
“Mom generally will rest but she can’t rest too much …. mom’s not holding onto the calf, but it’s riding in her slipstream, and that’s how it gets around,” Dold said.
Our expectation is that all of this will go smoothly, but we take none of that for granted.
Birth control and “social management” will prevent future orca pregnancies, said spokeswoman Suzanne Pelisson Beasley. SeaWorld has not collected a wild orca in nearly 40 years and most of its orcas were born in captivity.
Researchers have said they worry that SeaWorld’s decision to stop breeding orcas will slowly reduce their ability to study orca health, growth and behaviour, limiting them in coming years to collecting data from a small pod of aging whales.
Heather Hill, a St Mary’s University comparative psychologist who plans to monitor the sleeping habits of Takara and the calf over the coming year, said it was frustrating to see research opportunities at SeaWorld undermined by public opinion amid federal cuts to science funding.
“This will be one of the first times we’ll be able to see not just a mother with a newborn calf but also a newborn calf with siblings,” Hill said.
Peta
In a statement, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals Executive Vice President Tracy Reiman said the mother and her calf should be retired to a seaside sanctuary.
“Throughout her life, Takara the orca has been artificially inseminated many times, separated from her mother and two of her children, and shuffled from theme park to theme park at SeaWorld’s whim,” Peta’s statement said.
This is Takara’s fifth calf. Two of her other offspring remain at the San Antonio park, while one lives at SeaWorld Orlando and another has been loaned to a park in Tenerife, Spain. SeaWorld has no current plans to separate Takara and the newborn in the future, or to move any of its other orcas, Dold said.
In March, Dold said SeaWorld remains committed to orca research and conservation, calling the last orca birth in captivity “a solemn reminder of how things can change and how things can be lost”.
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Let’s see Wi-Fi map now just to compare.
Very impressed with the detail.
We have the most expensive electricity in Europe. Why no proper competition as the companies only cut rates 3% when wholesale prices down 40%. What’s the regularator doing acting like the absent bank regulator that we wrongly still paying for with cuts to disabled services Tom Clunun highlighted.
Oh we still have Green Partys levies and carbon regressive taxes that the UK and a lot of other bigger countries don’t impose on customers
@Stan: Job of regulator who never seems to come on radio and explain what he does…..Job is to make sure options exist so customers can switch….Has no roll in encouraging price reductions just sets the maximum price….Not a consumer advocate just there to make sure several companies provide electricity….
@John003: we had the cheapest electricity in Europe when the ESB themselves set the price, now we have the regulator involved, he introduced competition, set the price and now we have the most expensive in Europe! Some joke
@Stan: no we don’t have the dearest rates in Europe, you may want to have another look.
Wholesale oil and gas rates only make up a small section of costs.
Transmission, distribution, generation, RES etc are external costs to the wholesale market
@Stan: somebody has to pay for the wind developer
@Windy Atlantic Way: somebody has to pay the inflated salaries in the ESB. Even Brendan Ogle said they were “spoilt”. Brendan was on 80 grand a year at the time.
@ricky bobby:
How can we resist. Helpless! At least we could fight the water tax.
Where did moths bump into before electricity was invented? No joke I’m seriously intrigued (and bored)…
@Noel James Doherty: Probably oil lamps…
@Noel James Doherty: candle light, parrofin lamps, etc
@Michael Leahy: the light bulb really screwed up the moth didn’t it Michael
@Michael Collins: are there moths on their way to the sun now going, it’s gonna be worth it
@Noel James Doherty: lol!! Far fewer burnt alive though!!!
@Noel James Doherty: Electricity wasn’t invented, it was discovered.
@Gary: the logic behind your reply Gary has neither been invented or discovered yet
@Noel James Doherty: And yet… he’s right!
Unfortunately the vision that rolled out electricity to all is now gone, we managed to put this kind of infrastructure in over the years when Ireland was destitute, today we have a very lacklustre broadband plan that seems to suggest rural Ireland will remain without any high speed broadband for years if not decades, lagging the rest of Europe.
@Karl: my result now http://beta.speedtest.net/result/6652106540 from rural Leitrim . I wouldn’t say we are that bad just dont get your broadband from eircom woops I mean eir
90 years on and we still suffer from power cuts…….
@Kerry Blake: why don’t you move to somewhere like Florida or somewhere in the hurricane corridor and you’ll know what power cuts are really like
@Kerry Blake: always going to be operational issues. They are rare enough to be fair
@Jamie: Why would I move to Florida to experience power cuts when I can do the same in Ireland like…..
@Kerry Blake:
I guess outages can vary depending on your location. In nth Dublin I can recall 1 outage of 30 minutes in past year due to lightning strike (last month). Over past 30 years it been perhaps once every 2 years. First world “problem”.
@Kerry Blake: wow, your some idiot
@ricky bobby: The irony in your comment.
@Gary: I don’t see it?
I wrote about some of my dad’s memories of electricity coming to East mayo
http://fensterdj.tumblr.com/post/155294534135/the-electrification-of-rural-mayo-some-memories
1978 Black Valley, Co. Kerry.
1996 Cape Clear, Co. Cork
And now we are faced with mandatory/compulsory ‘smart’ meters.
@eastsmer: what’s wrong with smart meters? You wont be paying anything extra and it should make the suppliers more efficient. Unless your are one of the loonies who images smart meters give you cancer, AIDS, autism as well as spying on you?
@Pat O’Leary: Why do you think we are being forced to install ‘smart’ meters ?
If they were for our benefit we would ask for them.
@Pat O’Leary:
“Won’t be paying anything extra”. Ah! Got to love the innocence Lol..
Electricity very expensive,why do we pay regulators huge salaries.if they were on minimum wage they would not be so generous to these big company’s.they should be put on it for 12 months.
Jaysus, Dunboyne wasn’t connected until the 1950′s! Two world wars had already finished by then!
Much better map than Ryan Tubridys.
Perhaps they might find light in many of the 6 county areas in future also.
moneypoint power-station not on map?
Nice information and its really important to highlight how these projects were designed, built, ran and some decommisioned, and it was not a huge disaster i.e. their is huge NIMBYism now to critital infrastructure – but here is loads to show that in Ireland we actually do it reasonably well with concern for all. Yes some could be done better but in the most part Electric connections are very important for all..
.. pity the map does not include a layer for the stations which are owned by third parties. … Edenderry, Rhode peaking, Huntstown, synergen in ringsend..
Ok – I guess someone could go and add it, its all public layers.
Also some of the 400Kv line projects were massive in their own right too – cutting trho
have your say