Images From SeaWorld And The Zoo That’ll Break Your Heart

By Abdullah Sohrab Khan in Heartbreaking On 22nd August 2017

Since the highly public controversy that lead to the death of Harambe the gorilla, the shocking facts of animal cruelty in zoos and SeaWorld are coming to light and here we look we look at some of the disturbing images that portray the disturbing life of captive animals.

#1 Harambe And The Question Of Safety

Harambe the gorilla became and internet sensation after people found out about its killing. It was one of the most publicized incident that has taken in any zoo around the globe in the past decade. In 2016, a child of age 3 feel into the enclosure of the gorilla, Harambe, who was 17 years of age at the time having moved to the zoo just two years prior to the incident. The gorilla grabbed teh child and carried him around the enclosure. The zoo officials felt the the child's life was in danger and shot the gorilla who died on spot. Even though experts say that it was in the best interest of the child to have the gorilla shot. This raised a lot of question regarding safety of human and animals in the zoo. Most people blamed the child's parent and insufficient precautionary measures around the enclosure to avoid any such thing from happening. This did bring all the zoos around the world in question.

#2 Riding Whales Is Hard Work

Though this article is mostly about the harsh conditions that animals face in captivity, it does not mean that the humans that have to deal with them on a daily basis have it any easier. They have to go through rigorous training to deal with these dangerous animals thought still things can go south very quickly. This picture portrays one such case in which a svelte swimmer puts up a spectacular show for the audience with a giant sea creature, until the stunt goes wrong and he falls in the water to which the crowd laughs. Though he did not get hurt, but could have been if instead of the water he had hit the surrounding floor or some kind of a bar which would have been fatal.

#3 Animals Fight One Another And Can’t Escape

The picture itself is not self explanatory, though the marks that you see highlighted by the red circle are called "rake", which are biting or scratch marks left bu other animals that have attacked the whale. Though the people at the SeaWorld were not sure which other animal had done it but animals fight often and while in captivity there is no where for them to hide from their predators. SeaWorld's star whale, Tilikum, often had suck rake marks and would leave trails of blood after which he had to be kept in the shadows until the scratches healed.

#4 Elephants Never Forget

Slightly expanding the scope of animals in captivity, we discuss the conditions of animals in circuses where animals are but through rough routines just to get few round of applause from the crowd. Animals such as elephants are used in quite a few tricks such as them standing on their heads. This puts immense pressure on it's neck, almost crushing it and bull hooks are used for "teaching" the animals these tricks. Even looking at the above picture we could see how this young elephant is strapped on all his limps and forced to do stuff against its wishes.

#5 Giraffe: It’s What’s For Dinner

Zoos and organizations of it's like treat these animals so as these are not basically wildlife refugees. In the end all these organizations are businesses and all they care about it what makes them the most money least bothered about the cruelty they unleash on the animals. One such case is of a giraffe born at the Copenhagen Zoo named Marius. After analysis of Marius, the zoo officials came to the conclusion that he was not fit for mating purposes and there were already several genetically similar giraffes so they decided slaughter the poor animal and chopped him into bit to be fed to the lions. Not only that they made sure they made money from this so they allowed the audience to watch this as the animals ripped apart Marius's carcass. There were even offers from other zoos to give a living space to Marius but apparently this stunt gave them more of a profit and popularity.

#6 Dolphin Bites Girl

In this picture we witness a dolphin biting a girl's hand. Though it is probably a stupid move to go so close to the dolphin, the girl probably thought of them to be friendly creatures as there was almost non-existent barriers from approaching the dolphin. The trainer probably had not trained the dolphin enough to not become violent around humans but it would've been all so much better if the animal was in it's natural habitat rather than being kept in captivity, always being asked to perform tricks for humans.

#7 Lions, Tigers, and Bears Don’t Need An Owner

Regardless of all the complaints against SeaWorld, they still have proper organisational structure to make sure animals needs are met. When it comes to zoos and more specifically privately owned smaller zoos there is sometimes only one person looking after the animals and if that person is not availabel the animals may suffer. Such was the case with Armenia's Guymeri Zoo when the owner got sick and was unable to look after the three lions, two bears and two guinea pigs. Soon they started to look like the starved bear that can be seen in the picture. Lucky for the animals, the animals rights group stepped in to save the animals.

#8 Animals Are Not Entertainment

The picture could not have been any more self explanatory, some member of the audience at SeaWorld were able to sneak in this banner reading, "ANIMALS ARE NOT ENTERTAINMENT". This can be called an often occurrence at SeasWorld but what is surprising is the fact no one from the crowd reacted to it, maybe they felt guilty for being party to such a thing or paying to watch it or maybe they did not care at all and wanted to get on with the show. SeaWorld does not care about such things either, they just tend to have these guy arrested for trespassing rather than going for the people behind who are sending these people.

#9 This Baboon Met A Ghastly Fate

No matter how much care is provided to the animals in the zoo, they are unfortunately dependent on humans for their food. For some reason if they cannot get to the zoo, they animals could face starvation. This happened at the Khan Younis zoo located in the middle of the Gaza strip. Twice, due to the excalating tension between Islarailis and Palestinians the workers of the zoo could not reach the place as a result the animals were not able to get any food and the first time this happened, several animals died of thirst and starvation. This happened again in 2014 for a longer period, resulting in the deaths of dozens of lions, crocodiles and also this ghost-like baboon. Many of them were found in this condition. If these animals were in their natural habitat they might have survived by hunting for food themselves.

#10 Fish Shouldn’t Need Dentists

The thing of importance in this picture is not the big fish eating the smaller one, rather it is the lack of certain front teeth in the lower jaw. It would have not been a big deal if this was due to some natural occurrence, according to researchers this has never happened to whales in the wild that they have looked at. Vets claim that this happened due to whales biting on the gates that confine them as well as the inside of the tanks. This cause damage to the teeth and may even lead to infections which is why they are looked at regularly by the SeaWorld staff to have them cleaned which is done without anesthesia which is very painful for the whales.

#11 No Food, No Water, No Chance

Regardless of how badly these animals are treated during their life in the zoos, it is expected that after such harsh treatment if some of those animals were to die, the authorities at the zoo would at least have the decency to give the animals some sort of burial rather than leave them in their cages where they died to rot for days. This is what happened at the Tweddle Farm Zoo, which left a wallaby carcass to rot in the vage foer two days after it had passed away. After the corpses was removed, the refused the animals right activist's demand to have a postmortem test conducted so that the cause of death could be discovered. Which raised doubts about the wallaby's natural death and indicated that the zoo in some way might have been responsible for the death.

#12 This Whale’s Dorsal Fin Is As Depressed As It Is

Having not seen many animals in their real habitat or in rare cases their videos in the natural environment, we tend to accept the looks of animals how they may seem in SeaWorld or Zoos. At first glance nothing may look wrong with this picture, even a detailed look might not reveal anything worng if you do not know how these whales look in their natural habitat. Most of the whales have perfectly rigid and straight dorsal fine while the one in hte picture is heavily curved. These whales cannot swim at high speeds or even normal speeds in the small tanks that they are kept and them swimming at normal speeds is what keeps these fins in their natural forms. Even now if these whales are allowed to go into deep waters, it may take weeks for the fins to gain perfect shape hindering them from swimming normally. We are altering their natural shape just for the sake of entertainment, what could be worse.

#13 Locked Up In Chains

We cannot even let the animals eat in peace, yes we know that people like feeding pets like cats and dogs like treat for them but some animals are not meant to be kept as pet or treated as one. Have a look at this girraffe, it has been chained down just so that visitors can feed it directly into it's mouth. It can be clearly seen that the giraffe has been made to sit in an uncomfortable positions. The fact that we will chain up animals just so that we can enjoy feeding them is very cruel of us.

#14 How An Aquarium Makes A Star

Most of the orca whales that are seen nowadays at SeaWorld or other such places have been specifically bred so that they can be part of an entertainment business. In 1070, whales hunters captured 7 orca whales of which only one survived, they were captured so that they can be laughed at by us humans in SeaWorld. Only one of those orca whales is alive today, for 40 years it has been inhuman captivity and never seen it natural habitat yet. It's like being abducted from your own home, just so that you can be entertainment for anther specie all you get is enough food that you keep living.

#15 This Lion Can’t Even See How Awful Its Life Is

These pictures only partly portray the torture that these animals go through on a daily basis, not all scars can be seen though. Some scars are not physical, the psychological torture leave scars that may never heal. Still this picture of the lion which performed in the circus lost its eye after being tortured for not being able to perform its tricks properly, this is how they are trained after all. The lion was part of a travelling circus based in Chichlayo, Peru. A lion may be called the "King of the jungle", but keep it in captivity under human supervision and they become helpless victims.

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