A Whale of a Business

In five days from today's posting, Blackfish will premier. It is the follow up to the 2009 documentary The Cove, which is one of the best docs I've ever seen. Blackfish will focus on orca whales in captivity.

I've been debating for a while about blogging about stuff, anything and everything, around Los Angeles. Well, I began looking into the now closed Marine Land of The Pacific that operated in Palos Verdes from 1954 to 1987, and I found something interesting in my research: SeaWorld purchased Marine Land in 1987.

Why this is significant after the jump...

When SeaWorld wrote the check they promised not to close Marine Land but soon abandoned it. What they didn't abandon were the whales. Why is this important? It is important because SeaWorld has a policy of not capturing animals from the wild, but receiving them from other facilities, through captive breading, and rescuing - if you can't tell by now this is a lie, or at its nicest a grey area because SeaWorld funds capture programs - watch the doc and it will all be explained.

Bellow is a Frontline piece called A Whale of a Business (Frontline's page for the program with a good deal of additional info), focusing on SeaWorld and the sad plight of the captive orca Keiko of Free Willy fame. 

Here is PDF article called Whale Done about Frank "boots" Calandrino who was the man who did the capturing for Marine Land in the May 1980 issue of Westways. 

Image above is by the illustrator Tiffany Turrill and titled The Dolphins of Japan.

A Whale of a Business by Explore2