The following blog post was written with the assistance of ChatGPT
Today we visited Seaworld. I didn’t do much research about it, and as we arrived, I realized Seaworld wasn’t just an aquarium, but rather a full on amusement park with aquarium exhibits. We weren’t huge fans of amusement park rides in general, and spent our time walking exploring everything else.
While it’s cool to see dolphins, it’s too bad they’re kept in captivity and not able to freely roam the oceans.
Like most aquariums, there’s an underwater tunnel to get a close look at the different sharks and fish under the sea.
As usual, there’s cool shows showing how humans can train animals to do tricks. Here, the sea lions have been trained to follow their trainers around, jump up in the water, and even pose for selfies with people (though I wouldn’t trust them not to pull me in the water if given the chance…). They’ve also taught sea otters to do tricks too.
The orca show is probably the most controversial part of this show. In the past, an orca at Seaworld caused the deaths of three people, sparking a documentary discussing the ethics of keeping orcas in captivity. The main difference now is that the trainers no longer go in the water.
Several orcas in the show displayed droopy fins, which according to some are signs they’re suffering from physical or emotional stress. In some parts of the show, some of the orcas didn’t even participate. In the end, they gave a spiel about how they were contributing to marine conservation and so on, but it just seemed pretty hypocritical. Some people even walked out during it too.
We closed the day off with a penguin exhibit and fireworks. Overall, I feel Seaworld is more catered to people who like amusement park rides more so than people who want to see aquariums.
See more of Seaworld here