Beneath the Surface Quotes

“Captivity is always captivity, no matter how gentle the jailer.”
― John Hargrove, Beneath the Surface: Killer Whales, SeaWorld, and the Truth Beyond Blackfish

“After all, SeaWorld didn’t become a $2.5 billion company because of sequins and choreography. It was built on the backs of captive killer whales.”
― John Hargrove, Beneath the Surface: Killer Whales, SeaWorld, and the Truth Beyond Blackfish

“I didn’t want to grow old and live with regret that I did not speak out.”
― John Hargrove, Beneath the Surface: Killer Whales, SeaWorld, and the Truth Beyond Blackfish

“All of the reasons its orcas cannot be returned to nature stem from the fact that they have been psychologically and physically damaged by captivity.”
― John Hargrove, Beneath the Surface: Killer Whales, SeaWorld, and the Truth Beyond Blackfish

“SeaWorld’s corporate marketing strategy turned the orcas into the pandas of the sea, commercial and cuddly, with little hint of the complexities of killer whales and the effects of confinement on them.”
― John Hargrove, Beneath the Surface: Killer Whales, SeaWorld, and the Truth Beyond Blackfish

“My job now is to tell the truth—both the inspiring stories from what was a storybook career and the horrors that emerged from the corporate exploitation of the whales and trainers.”
― John Hargrove, Beneath the Surface: Killer Whales, SeaWorld, and the Truth Beyond Blackfish

“Young orcas have so much energy and curiosity—I could sense the desperation sink in when they finally realize their fate is to be one of repetitive performance and routine.”
― John Hargrove, Beneath the Surface: Killer Whales, SeaWorld, and the Truth Beyond Blackfish

“I had a boyhood dream that came true, almost magically, like something out of a children’s storybook. In time, I discovered that the gorgeous dream was only part of the story, that the bigger story was more of a nightmare, for myself and for the whales. I have lost the whales; they are no longer in my life, and that breaks my heart. But I have gained something else: a new path that is becoming clearer as time passes. I want to remember the whales and share them with you. I want you to know what I have learned so we can save them together.”
― John Hargrove, Beneath the Surface: Killer Whales, SeaWorld, and the Truth Beyond Blackfish

“They are no longer really orcas but mutants, genetically killer whales but made up of warped psychologies.”
― John Hargrove, Beneath the Surface: Killer Whales, SeaWorld, and the Truth Beyond Blackfish

“In retrospect, the process sounds barbaric: using behavioral training methods to get a hugely intelligent animal to submit to being artificially inseminated for the benefit of a corporation.”
― John Hargrove, Beneath the Surface: Killer Whales, SeaWorld, and the Truth Beyond Blackfish

“(SeaWorld likes to say that they own only five orcas captured in the wild. More accurately, they have owned 32 killer whales captured in the wild throughout the company’s history, only five of whom have survived.)”
― John Hargrove, Beneath the Surface: Killer Whales, SeaWorld, and the Truth Beyond Blackfish

“Nothing in the ocean hunts killer whales as prey.”
― John Hargrove, Beneath the Surface: Killer Whales, SeaWorld, and the Truth Beyond Blackfish

“Captive whales bake in the sun and suffer from sunburn and dehydration. Orcas in the wild spend much of their time fully submerged.”
― John Hargrove, Beneath the Surface: Killer Whales, SeaWorld, and the Truth Beyond Blackfish

“Among the calves born in SeaWorld who survived more than ten days, the average life span is only 8.8 years.”
― John Hargrove, Beneath the Surface: Killer Whales, SeaWorld, and the Truth Beyond Blackfish

“Pity the male orca with no female relations. He is shunted aside in whale society, very quickly pines away and dies. SeaWorld has basically forced motherlessness on many of its male orcas. It is these males who are often the outcasts of the societies that emerge among SeaWorld’s orcas, subjected to vicious and repeated attacks by the other whales.”
― John Hargrove, Beneath the Surface: Killer Whales, SeaWorld, and the Truth Beyond Blackfish

“Dr. Rose has an accurate but tragic assessment of the plight of SeaWorld’s orcas. “I personally think,” she says, “all captive orcas, whether caught in the wild or born in captivity, are behaviorally abnormal. They are like the children in Lord of the Flies—unnaturally violent because they do not have any of the normal societal brakes on their immature tendency toward violence. Children can be very violent, but under normal circumstances, they are socialized to suppress that violence and channel it productively as they mature.”
― John Hargrove, Beneath the Surface: Killer Whales, SeaWorld, and the Truth Beyond Blackfish

“For example, there is the matter of eating paint. The whales peel the paint off the pool’s inner walls with their teeth. To those who witness the behavior, it looks as if they are nibbling on the wall or the floor of the pool. They are trying to occupy themselves, stimulating their enormous jaws and great intelligences with obsessively meticulous work.”
― John Hargrove, Beneath the Surface: Killer Whales, SeaWorld, and the Truth Beyond Blackfish

“Orcas can sense affection and they can return it.”
― John Hargrove, Beneath the Surface: Killer Whales, SeaWorld, and the Truth Beyond Blackfish

“the wild, every whale knows its place in its family and in its pod—and who has precedence over the other. But in a marine park, that hierarchical structure is both repressed and supersized.”
― John Hargrove, Beneath the Surface: Killer Whales, SeaWorld, and the Truth Beyond Blackfish

“No SeaWorld trainer has been allowed into a pool to perform with a killer whale since February 24, 2010, when Dawn Brancheau, one of the most skillful and experienced of our small club, was killed by the 12,000-pound male orca Tilikum in Orlando.”
― John Hargrove, Beneath the Surface: Killer Whales, SeaWorld, and the Truth Beyond Blackfish

“more critical development in the marketplace: that the potential audience has become savvier about animal rights.”
― John Hargrove, Beneath the Surface: Killer Whales, SeaWorld, and the Truth Beyond Blackfish

“After the deaths of Alexis and Dawn in 2009 and 2010, SeaWorld took the $5 an hour increase away. Since waterwork was now proscribed by OSHA, the company explained, trainers weren’t swimming with the whales anymore and shouldn’t be paid the extra (at first known as “hazard pay,” then, for legal reasons, changed to a “premium”). They seemed to overlook the fact that Dawn was not performing waterwork when she was grabbed, pulled in and dismembered.”
― John Hargrove, Beneath the Surface: Killer Whales, SeaWorld, and the Truth Beyond Blackfish

“In captivity, all the orcas are ‘feral’ children—they had no adult orcas to socialize them properly.”
― John Hargrove, Beneath the Surface: Killer Whales, SeaWorld, and the Truth Beyond Blackfish

“Unlike in SeaWorld, there is no known instance of mother-son mating in wild orca communities. In SeaWorld Orlando, Katina mated with her son Taku, resulting in the female calf Nalani. Kohana was bred with her uncle Keto twice. This is an instance of what appears to be a taboo—strictly reinforced in the wild by generations of matriarchs—that has broken down in the confines of captivity.”
― John Hargrove, Beneath the Surface: Killer Whales, SeaWorld, and the Truth Beyond Blackfish

“Males have no status apart from their mothers or an equivalent female.”
― John Hargrove, Beneath the Surface: Killer Whales, SeaWorld, and the Truth Beyond Blackfish

“Corky is the oldest whale at SeaWorld (as well as the oldest orca in captivity in the world) but the name first belonged to an orca from the early days of the marine park, one that died in 1970. Corky would not get to SeaWorld till 1987, along with her companion, friend and sometime mate Orky.”
― John Hargrove, Beneath the Surface: Killer Whales, SeaWorld, and the Truth Beyond Blackfish

“the vocalizations. She concluded they were long-range vocals. Unable to sense her daughter’s presence in any of the adjoining pools, Kasatka was sending sounds far into the world, as far as she could, to see if they would bounce back or elicit a response. It was heartbreaking for all who heard what could easily be interpreted as crying.”
― John Hargrove, Beneath the Surface: Killer Whales, SeaWorld, and the Truth Beyond Blackfish

“You might say that I trained her. But that would be generous. More accurately, she had made certain that I had learned the right way to treat her.”
― John Hargrove, Beneath the Surface: Killer Whales, SeaWorld, and the Truth Beyond Blackfish

“These whales live lives of quiet desperation and intense boredom. It is the kind of ennui that can be fatal—to both whale and human.”
― John Hargrove, Beneath the Surface: Killer Whales, SeaWorld, and the Truth Beyond Blackfish

“Play fulfilled some of the deeper needs of the orcas. I was aware even then of how boring and sterile their captive lives were. In the evenings, they would float in limited space, almost never having access to all the pools in Shamu stadium, usually restricted to just one or two.”
― John Hargrove, Beneath the Surface: Killer Whales, SeaWorld, and the Truth Beyond Blackfish