Jennifer Loewenstein

Blackfish raises the unavoidable questions around keeping wild animals in captivity for the purpose of human entertainment. It is a searing expose of the psychological and emotional damage suffered by these animals whose lives are devoid of the stimuli they find in their natural environment. The animals spend two-thirds of their lives in darkened water tanks so that they can be trained and marketed as performing orcas. I’d like to think common sense would make humans recognize how devastating life in captivity would be for these animals; but Blackfish shows us that, on the contrary, the profits reaped by selling whale shows and the like at Sea World is what drives this barbaric industry.