My family and I were hosted by SeaWorld San Diego with a trip to the park, however all opinions expressed here are my own. #Sehablaballena #Partner

Last Saturday, my family and I had the opportunity to visit SeaWorld, a place I grew up loving to go to, however, hadn’t been to in the last 6 years.

My family and I live right here in Southern California, so why hadn’t we come in all those years to visit SeaWorld then? Well, before I get into our whole recent SeaWorld experience, let me first address ‘the elephant in the room,’ or in this case, ‘the whale in the room.’

Like so many of you out there, my family and I stopped going to SeaWorld because we were horrified and saddened by the documentary, ‘Blackfish,’ and I even wrote a blog about it after I watched the documentary that you can read HERE.

If you just read my blog that I wrote 4 years ago about ‘Blackfish,’ and its claims on SeaWorld, then you know there were several issues that upset me, the biggest one being that of Mother Orcas being  separated from their calfs. I will address these issues I had with SeaWorld to my readers and then also disclose to you my most recent findings from visiting the park.

Also, I will not be addressing every single issue that came up in the documentary ‘Blackfish,’ so I may not cover something that was in the documentary that may have specifically upset you. Therefore I encourage ALL of my readers to visit ‘The Truth About Blackfish,’ from the SeaWorld Cares website. It is at this link that you will find SeaWorld’s answers to all of your questions that may have come up as a result of watching, ‘Blackfish.’

I will return to ‘Blackfish,’ in a bit, however, I wanted to touch base on one very important fact about SeaWorld and that is that they are responsible for rescuing over 17,000 animals. I personally had the opportunity to go behind-the-scenes at SeaWorld to visit their Vet facilities, their food kitchen for all the animals, their private nursery area for mothers and their babies, as well as see some animals, which were going through rehabilitation before being sent back out into the ocean. I was extremely impressed with their rescue and conservation facilities and even more so impressed by their staff. The vets, the trainers, and just the overall staff in general had one big thing in common, and that was how much they loved the animals they were caring for at SeaWorld and how very proud they were to be working there.

Before being a place of entertainment, SeaWorld maintains that their biggest mission is that of the rescue and conservation of animals, as well as the educating of the general public about the importance of taking care of them and their habitats that they live in. After speaking with several of the staff members, I believe SeaWorld’s mission to be true.

The staff was not only extremely knowledgeable, but they were also very passionate about their work and their relationships with the animals. As a matter of fact, a member of their staff, Kelly, who we had an extensive conversation with about the film ‘Blackfish,’ was visibly and emotionally choked up about the film, which she believes truly lied about SeaWorld and all of the caring people who have dedicated their lives to loving these animals. She said she was literally sick to her stomach after watching that film because it attacked, exploited, and villainized the very people who took such great pride in their work in helping to protect these animals.

Kelly, like so many of their staff members, has worked at SeaWorld for many, many years. Seeing her talk about her extensive interaction with the animals throughout all of her years there, it wasn’t difficult to see her sincerity and pride for what she does and where she works. That seemed to be the running theme with every staff member I spoke with at SeaWorld. They were just so in love with the animals and were so very proud to be part of the SeaWorld family and all of its positive works.

However, with this said, I still had tough questions to ask Kelly and she was very open and easy to talk with in regards to them. Of course, my first question I asked her about had to do with the separation of Orca mothers with their calfs and I specifically asked her about the example from ‘Blackfish,’ and this is what she had to say about that.

She said that the calf was not removed from her mother when she was a baby. She said that by the time the younger whale was relocated, she was already full grown and had a calf of her own, in which she was relocated with her own calf. She said that SeaWorld always tries to keep whale pods (families) together and that they had a 3 generation family of whales in the park currently. She said the only time SeaWorld may separate family members is if one of them is being behaviorally disruptive to the point that it is disrupting the whales’ social structures. Other than that, Orca families are kept together. Kelly also said that the whale cry we hear in ‘Blackfish,’ is not even that of a whale at all and that animal experts will tell you that whales don’t make that specific sound that we all heard in the film ‘Blackfish.’ Therefore, the film itself “falsely” depicted the calf/mother separation, and apparently that cry from the mother whale was dubbed into the film and is not even a sound of a whale at all.

SeaWorld says that ‘Blackfish’ is not a documentary, but really just Propaganda. Once again, I encourage ALL of my readers to read ‘The Truth About Blackfish,’ from the SeaWorld Cares website.

Another important fact is that SeaWorld does NOT collect whales. They haven’t collected in 40 years and even back then when they did so, it was following Federal laws and they had Federal permits to do so. Instead, SeaWorld has had a successful Breeding Program, which has now come to an end as well because SeaWorld has listened to the sentiment of the public asking them to no longer breed Orcas into captivity.

In addition, the public has also asked to end the whale performances as well. As a result, SeaWorld has also adjusted this too, and is currently transitioning into a more educational program about their whales that will focus more so on conservation and less on theatrics. I am personally very excited to hear about all of these exciting and positive changes coming to Sea World and I’m very pleased to now tell you all about The New SeaWorld!

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