Killer Whales Need The Paleo Diet

When I was a child I went to "marine biology" camp at a marine animal theme park. I remember being very enthusiastic about working with dolphins and seals. That enthusiasm was promptly crushed when I got to see the tiny concrete cages where they spent most of their lives. The were painted that garnish teal color that swimming pools tend to be painted and reeked of disinfectants. They fed them the cheapest rancid throw-away fish, a world away from their rich and diverse diets in the wild.

I thought about that when I heard about the killer whale at Sea World that drowned a trainer. Killer whales in captivity live in environments completely inappropriate for their species' evolutionary heritage. At least most zoos try to make things like in the wild, but marine parks are all about concrete. Instead of eating seals and salmon, they eat whatever fish is cheapest on the market. Instead of living in pods, they are sometimes kept alone. Of course they suffer from reduced lifespan and bizarre pathologies like dorsal fin collapse.

Author Erich Hoyt said: 

As I reported in The Performing Orca and also in some detail in Orca: The Whale Called Killer, trainers have noted that orcas start to get bored and go a bit crazy after a few years in captivity. You must imagine a highly intelligent social mammal and a big predator normally traveling 100 kms or more a day, then taken from its family, stripped of its ability to socialize normally, to hunt and to travel. What it has left is its relationship to the trainer, but how long can that really keep them interested?

Substitute a few words and that could be about Homo Sapiens. It's interesting that despite the immense power and predatory nature of killer whales, they don't prey on us in the wild. They have even been known to cooperate with humans in the hunt. The killer whales of Eden that were documented to cooperate with humans might be the tip of the iceberg in that relationship, as it might have been present in other cultures and died out before it was documented. Perhaps killer whales recognize us as kin: high intelligent seafaring top level predators.

Some of you might think "Why is a woman who has eaten whale talking about this?" Hunting is part of our evolutionary heritage and benefits us physically and emotionally. Keeping animals in concrete tanks is not. We can and should provide evolutionarily appropriate environments for both animals and humans. It benefits the health of all involved.

If Sea World provided larger more natural tanks for its animals and a diet of penguins, seals, shark livers, whale tongues, and other nutritious traditional orca foods...I might go there, but I doubt that will happen anytime soon.