This is bullshit. Seem happy enough? What, do the dolphins seem happy enough to you because they're always smiling? You don't know a goddamn thing about the welfare of these animals.
Helping injured whales and dolphins is commendable of course, but I can guarantee that not a single dolphin or orca is happy to live in a tiny pool.
what? How the hell can you guarantee that?
The thing that gets me about the entire ordeal is that a giant amount of anti-seaworlders probably own pets of their own. Should they be confined to such living situations? Getting food whenever they want, being cared for? It's insane, and it fits right with PETAs agenda, which is basically kill all captive animals and never do it again.
The whales I can understand to an extent, I think the tanks should be bigger. But take out the skewed stats, and the whales lifespan is fine. They don't play happy, they are happy. Keiko the killer whale was released... what happened? He came back to sure looking for human contact and not too long later died from pneumonia. Animals often enjoy interaction.
On top of this the money is like others have said, used to preserve and rescue countless animals. Beached whales, sea lions, walruses. Hell the orlando sea turtle exhibit is both incredible, but also depressing. They have multiple giant sea turtles rescued from various different issues, whether it be pollution, oil spills, shark attacks, etc. They're deemed unreleasable and they give them a home. They have one that lost its lower jaw after an oil spill. They personally feed it every day. The people who work their aren't slave drivers, they clearly care about the animals it's why they get into it.
If we shutdown seaworld, we may as well shutdown every aquarium and zoo in the world, because it's quite literally no different.
