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In this blog post, you will be reading about the life of animals in captivity or those free to roam but hunted in the wild. You’ll learn about Seaworld’s Orcas, Ivory, and Zoochosis.

Sea World

Have you ever been to Seaworld? Have you seen the Orca shows? I’m going to tell you the truth about Seaworld.

First of all, Seaworld mistreats Orcas. They have ten Orcas and have had Orcas since the 1960’s. The whales were once friendly to humans, now, they kill humans. Also, even though Orcas aren’t caught in the wild anymore, they’re still bred in captivity.

Now that Seaworld is hearing this stuff, they say that they’re going to make a bigger, more beach like, pool that is almost twice the size as the one the Orcas are in now. But a bigger prison, is still a prison. As for the Orcas, they still won’t get the exercise that they need. Plus, an Orcas diet is mainly seals that their pods hunts together.

Not the already dead fish that Seaworld gives them that the Orcas did not catch. Lastly, a lifespan of an Orca is about the lifespan of a human. In captivity, the Oras die around three times as fast.

Ivory

Now you’ve learned about Seaworld, but not about ivory. To start, parks in Africa are war zones for humans and animals. Africa’s a war zone because of ivory tusks.

In Africa having ivory is a symbol of wealth. The price of ivory could be around ten times the amount of money Africans usually get in a year. The real price is one thousand dollars a pound. For poor people in Africa, that money can be hard to resist. Also, some people take big risks for ivory. Even military officials were found poaching. Ivory can be made into jewelry, religious sculpture and even chopsticks.

Poachers usually poison the elephants because park ranger can’t hear poison, but they can hear gunshots. After poisoning the elephants, the poacher will saw off their tusks, leaving the bodies to die. Then the ivory is smuggled out of Africa. The rangers are now carrying machine guns. Ten park rangers have died from 2008 due to illegal poaching, not to mention thousands of elephants are slaughtered each year, and because of this African elephants are facing extinction.

Zoochosis

My last story that I’m going to tell you about is Zoochosis. Zoochosis is a mental illness that animals in captivity usually have when they have been taken out of their home and put in a new home, and family, that was nothing like theirs. Scientists have found that 22% of the time, elephants are engaging abnormal behaviors, and thirty percent of bear's time, their pacing around in distress.

Zoochosis includes animals pacing back and forth, twisting their necks, bobbing their heads up and down, walking in never ending circles, hurting themselves, shaking bars, and biting the bars of their cage. Also, animals in captivity are way different than animals in their home. In a killer whale’s home, they swim around one hundred miles a day and dive around one hundred feet down. In captivity, they can’t do that.

Another thing animals can’t do in captivity is hunt in a pod, or group, and talk to other family members. Lastly, animals need companionship, and that is the last thing that they can’t have in captivity.

In my opinion, an animal’s life at SeaWorld or in captivity else where is pretty sad. And it's even crueler for animals to be hunted in the wild for their unique characteristics.