Wednesday 24 February 2016 | 36

Tilikum: The Blackfish effect

Tilikum: The Blackfish effect

Mis à jour le 07 May 2019

Tilly, dear Tilly. Six years already. We fight for you and yours. We do not give up. Resist a little longer, we are moving towards your freedom, towards your freedom. Your desperate gesture has been heard. Continue to resist !

Hr blog

Today, after thirty-three years of detention, Tilikum, aka Tilly, is subdued by tranquilizers, floating motionless and facing a wall. His dorsal fin is so flaccid that it hangs on his side. Sadly, echoing The One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, Tilikum was punished for wanting to break his chains. Seaworld, who wants him alive, has put him in a chemical straightjacket. He is a "breeding bull". His seed is highly prized.

However, his suicidal revolt will not have been in vain: thanks to him, all captive orcas can now benefit from a new public gaze. The Blackfish effect continues to eat away at SeaWorld and soon, all companies that exhibit orcas in glass jars will have to deal with this change of opinion. Tilikum is a whistle-blower, a Spartacus amongst orcas!

At sea, no orca has attacked a human. In captivity, there have been hundreds of incidents. Why this violence? Orcas are not happy; SeaWorld explains that they are receiving the best veterinary care and the best gourmet food? No, they are not. Orcas have extremely developed brains. Maybe even more developed than that of the human brain ...

When it was revealed in Death at SeaWorld and then in Blackfish in 2013, Tilikum's story moved the world. Clearly the victim of an industrial lobby, his violent attack has paradoxically revealed all the "humanity" of captive orcas, all the suffering that these giant slaves feel, locked up in an overcrowded pit, and that sometimes makes them swing from the "dark side" of the force, to use John Hargrove's words.

Born in the icy waters of Iceland, Tilly was kidnapped from his mother and tribe in 1983, at the age of two. He later became a gigantic male, but he was still a shy male. At Sealand of the Pacific where he was brought, he was locked up every night in a shed with two aggressive females. Every morning he came out covered in wounds. And one day, at the end of his nerves, he dragged his trainer by the foot and drowned her. A little later, he killed a drifter who had probably plunged into his pool. But for SeaWorld, the moods of killer whales must not be known. Tilly's past has been concealed. Until the death of Dawn Brancheau, February 24, 2010.

Tilikum's mad despair did not go unnoticed. His miserable life, his anger, this dignity that he desperately tries to win back, inspires our struggle. We do not want killer whales to be enslaved any longer. We do not want to see them suffer anymore. We must save Tilikum and the fifty-five other orcas that are still held in the world!

Please sign and diffuse our petition for closing dolphinariums !

Tilikum died in January 2017.

Hr blog

In the subject

Animal testing: investigation from One Voice in Mauritius into long-tailed macaque breeding farms 'Monkeys Labs': from condoned mistreatment, proven trafficking, and health risks

Comments 36

I accept that publication of my comments is subject to the code of conduct.

carson | Monday 04 July 2016

J'ai vu blackfish avant hier et je suis vraiment bouleversée de ce que les hommes ont pu faire subir aux orques, une espèce qui a une intelligence presque humaine et qui surtout ressent des émotions autant que nous, voire plus ! Les parties de son cerveau gérant les émotions sont plus importantes que dans le cerveau humain... L'enlèvement des petits orques à leurs mères par les hommes est abject, car il s'agit bien d'un enlèvement lorsqu'on voit les mères orques s'agrouper près du bateau où leurs petits ont été capturés et s'agiter, et couiner pour communiquer et hurler de détresse. Il est démonté scientifiquement que le lien entre la mère et le petit chez l'orque est très profond, c'est un lien humain. L'orque est un animal sociable, enjoué, qui vit en groupe, avec sa famille, qui parcourt des centaines de kilomètre, ivre d'espace, de liberté. Quelle tristesse de voir ces animaux fascinants cloîtrés dans un bocal de quelques m², affamés et obligés de faire les clowns dans un show plein de paillettes, à cause d'hommes, qui ne s'intéressent qu'à l'argent ou au divertissement.

J'ai honte pour les hommes qui ont participé et laissé faire cette chose atroce. Descartes disait que l'homme était comme le maître de la nature, certes, mais il doit aussi en prendre soin.

ltet | Monday 04 July 2016

Tous Les Animaux sont des êtres sensibles capables de ressentir des émotions.

Nono | Sunday 03 July 2016

Il faut que l'homme arrête de se prendre pour Dieu,
Et laisser les animaux vivre dignement
Plutôt que les enfermer, il faut aller les voir dans leur milieu naturel.

Il y a quelquefois des moments où la modération nous coûte cher.
Et l'envie de crier ....,..,,,,,,,. Est au bord des lèvres
Quel monde on va laisser à nos enfants ?!

Viviane | Sunday 03 July 2016

Quelques mots, juste quelques mots...relâchez-le!