25 Quotes by John Hargrove

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.

Among the calves born in SeaWorld who survived more than ten days, the average life span is only 8.8 years.

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.

The original Shamu was the first killer whale to be intentionally captured from the wild and made part of a show.

Males have no status apart from their mothers or an equivalent female.

Since its founding in 1965, the theme park has provided Americans and the rest of the world with a compelling model of a particular kind of modern mythology: that of apparent harmony between animals and human beings.

I didn’t want to grow old and live with regret that I did not speak out.