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Lunchi In reply to loveforRuka [2011-07-07 16:59:19 +0000 UTC]

hehe yeah but by now she lost her chubbyness.

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Lunchi In reply to AlexPhotograpy [2011-03-28 19:16:59 +0000 UTC]

Thank you, glad you like the idea

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Lunchi In reply to Mantrize [2011-03-26 15:02:45 +0000 UTC]

Thank you very much

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Lunchi In reply to albino-orca [2011-03-26 15:12:30 +0000 UTC]

Thank you! I am glad people actually read the describtion. I made a poll to find out if people would like to read more info about the animals and as most voted "yes" I now want to put a describtion under all my photos now.
I think with orcas the problem lies in the care - and that they did not capture as many orcas in the past as they did with bottlenose dolphins.
They started to capture bottlenoses around 1930 I believe and some countries stopped around 2000 or even continue capturing them now.
So a large basis was created with many healthy animals to breed and now there are so many bred in zoos that captures are not necessary anymore even if some stubborn countries continue to do it.
With orcas they started the capture much later around 1960 and stopped much earlier and they never captured many individuals. My guess is, they had bad luck in capturing often animals which were sick or weak or had a genetic defect, like for example Kandu7 at Marineland Canada who bred with 2 females but could only produce apparently sick babies, since none of them survived for long...
Or Ulises who is not accepted by the females he lives with, maybe due to genetic issues or whatever. So breeding orcas with only such a small basis of animals was of course more difficult.
Then I think the parks often made mistakes. Such as putting groups together that did not fit very good and parting female offsprings too early from their mothers so they could not witness how to take care of a calf and thus abandoned their own calves. This was the case in Kayla and Kohana I think.
Another health problem seems to come from the teeth, they often wear them down and then have cavities or infections in them, so they have to flush the teeth daily with antibiotic fluid so it does not infect and if it does, the animals can die like maybe in the case of Kalina I believe...
So for example now, SeaWorld builds platforms in all pools to lift the bottom up quickly. I think instead of doing this for the safety of trainers, which is not important, since it was not a waterwork animal who killed the trainer but the mistake of the trainer to disregard the safety-rules when handling Tilikum, I think it would be much better for the health of the orcas to reconstruct the gates between pools and remove the bars and put up constant smooth steel gates through which they cannot see each other anymore and especially not stick their jaws and teeth through so they can gnaw them down or break them off. Maybe it would prevent some infections and illnesses. But this is only my opinion on it, who knows if the teeth are really responsible for the infections and deaths of some animals and if a steelgate tha is flat without bars would really prevent the damage of teeth. Still I would be curious to find out if it was helpful..

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albino-orca In reply to Lunchi [2011-03-26 17:01:23 +0000 UTC]

I'm in agreement with you... especially about the gates. I think good dental health would greatly improve the lifespan of captive orcas. And can you imagine how inexpensive replacing the gates would be, compared to all the silly things SeaWorld keeps spending on? It just seems like common sense. Even if it didn't completely fix the dental problem, it would be "cheap" to them, and it would allow the orcas to be visually separated when aggravated (perhaps the gate could be interchangeable with one that isn't solid, in the event they want to introduce animals slowly). The other thing I've been told the orcas chew on is the corners of the stage- which I also believe could be fixed by putting a small barrier or cap on the ends of the stage that would be less damaging to the teeth.

Just my thoughts on it...

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Lunchi In reply to albino-orca [2011-03-28 19:19:13 +0000 UTC]

I agree, I also think this would be helpful.
I am not a vet or animal keeper so maybe it is stupid to write something like this, since actually the parks owners or keeper should know it better but then again sometimes people do not get an idea while others get it, so why not speak that idea out?

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Lunchi In reply to woxys [2011-03-26 00:21:27 +0000 UTC]

Thank you!
I hope so, too.

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