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Suicidal Killer Whale? Orca ‘Morgan’ Filmed Beaching Herself After Sea World Performance [Video]

By Jacintha Webster
Published on: 13:00 PST, Jun 7, 2016

Animal rights groups are up in arms again about animals kept in captivity just over a week after the death of Harambe the gorilla. This time, the online firestorm was brought on by a suicidal killer whale.

The killer whale, also known as an orca, named Morgan has been recorded trying to commit suicide after performing at Sea World’s Loro Parque in Tenerife. The killer whale jumped out of the small pool she is made to perform in and beached herself on a concrete slab where she stayed for at least 10 minutes.

https://youtu.be/JgTrIcN8BHA

The footage was taken anonymously by a concerned tourist who submitted the clip to the Dolphin Project, a nonprofit animal advocacy organization. The charity uploaded two minutes of footage showing the killer whale laying motionless by the water in what is being called a suicide attempt. The film clip is just two minutes long, but the animal was said to have been beached for 10 minutes before the videographer had to leave, according to ITV.

The footage has sparked an online #FreeMorgan campaign on social media, but this is not the first time the animal has attempted self-harm. Footage taken in April, also uploaded to the Dolphin Project, shows Morgan repeatedly banging her head onto the tank’s metal grate.

The Dolphin Project said while it could not explain the reason for her behavior, “the juxtaposition of a previously-wild orca against the stark backdrop of the park’s performance area is unsettling” they said in a statement.

Ric and Helene Hesselager O’Barry, activists for the Dolphin Project, have both investigated Sea World’s Loro Parque and say it is not up to standard.

“We were shocked at the poor living conditions and commercial exploitation of the orcas and bottle-nose dolphins there,” they said.

Sea World has tried to defend the actions of the suicidal killer whale and released a statement saying that beaching was “normal” and that the footage was “a new attempt at manipulation through exaggeration and dramatization of a completely normal situation in which there is no problem for the animals.”

The statement continued.

“Voluntary stranding is a natural behavior in wild orcas. The orcas at Loro Parque are trained to leave the water on their own accord. This behavior is used for manifold purposes, for example, for presenting the animals to the public, for conducting corporal check-ups, for inspecting their blowholes, as well as for testing hearing abilities of the orcas.”

“During their free time, sometimes animals get on stage, even go sliding from side to side. This is done quite naturally, often associated with game dynamics.”

“Pretending that’s a stress test shows an enormous ignorance about the behavior of these animals.”

“It is absolutely illogical and absurd to assume that the length and the quality of such video would be sufficient to make a conclusion and declaration of such nature,” the statement read.

Despite the park trying to play-down the killer whale’s apparent suicide attempt, animal activists have hit back saying whales are known to beach themselves temporarily while hunting, but they remain constantly in motion, even swimming while asleep and that the motionless display is more than play.

Richard O’Barry, Dolphin Project founder and an animal activist who once trained dolphins for the TV show Flipper, said this is not a normal way for happy killer whales to act.

“One would never see this bizarre behavior in nature.”

Rob Deaville, manager of the Cetacean Strandings Investigation Program in the United Kingdom, said that marine life such as killer whales come ashore after becoming disoriented by marine noise or pollution; for individual stranding, disease, injury and old age have been implicated and it is generally not a sign of good health and “beachings” are often fatal.

A 2013 study of North Pacific found that just 12 percent of killer whales survive being beached, according to National Post, prompting the call that it was a suicide attempt.

Whether it was a suicide attempt or not, the footage is unsettling to watch. Animal rights groups and Twitter are demanding that Morgan goes free and that people watch the documentary Blackfish to get a better understanding of the suffering performing killer whales, orcas, and dolphins go through and to stop supporting such establishments.

Morgan is one of five killer whales owned by Sea World. She was captured in shallow waters in the Netherlands in 2010, as seen in the main photo, and was taken to Loro Parque in 2011 where she has been staying for the past six years. Killer whales can live up to 90 years in the wild, but only up to nine in captivity, and swim up to 30 miles per hour. Killer whales are social creatures and are part of the dolphin family.

To sign the petition to #freemorgan follow this link.

[Photo by Koen van Weel/Getty Images]

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