It is yet another controversial story out of the gates of SeaWorld. Footage captured one of the park’s performing Orca whales attempting to commit suicide. The video shows the captive killer whale attempting to beach itself during a show in Tenerife. The Orca, named Morgan, is seen on video laying motionless on the concrete. Experts say this type of behavior is consistent with whale suicide.
The video was shot by an audience member during a May 16 show. After ten minutes of Morgan’s behavior, the audience was forced to leave the theater.
This isn’t the first time the whale has displayed this kind of behavior. Just a few weeks ago the same whale was seen hitting her head against an enclosure gate. It appears she is trying to escape the area. Video surfaced of the previous incident as well.
Experts quickly spoke out about the whale’s actions and explained that this behavior was very worrisome.
“The orca is obviously in huge distress and rams its head forcefully against the metal gate in what seems to be an attempt to escape,” said Helene Hesselager O’Barry, of the Dolphin Project.
Now, killer whales are known to sometimes come ashore to hunt. However, they can not spend very much time out of water because the pressure could crush their internal organs. In fact, these species of whales remain in constant motion in the water even while sleeping.
Morgan is one of the park’s only whales that was born in the wild. At first, keepers had an issue with her bullying the other orcas. The particular SeaWorld park, Loro Parque downplayed the event and made several excuses, calling the actions “manipulation through exaggeration and dramatization of a completely normal situation in which there is no problem for the animals.”
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