Group Urges Sea World to Set Shamu Free

A group of advocates for animals on Friday urged children and their parents to press for release of a killer whale that has been in captivity at Sea World here for 23 years.

The full-page advertisement in The New York Times, paid for by the San Rafael, Calif.-based animal advocacy group, In Defense Of Animals, said the performing female whale likely would die soon “unless she goes home.”

The 28-year-old orca, who is named Corky but called Shamu during Sea World shows, was captured in December, 1969, near Vancouver Island, Canada. Corky is the oldest captive orca in the world.

“Let Corky go home to her family,” the advertisement says. “For 23 . . . years, Corky has been jumping on command, ridden on by trainers, fed dead fish and then been sent back to a holding tank, where she swims in circles, around and around, because there’s no way out.”

The advertisement targets the world’s largest brewer, St. Louis-based Anheuser-Busch Companies Inc., which produces Budweiser, Busch and Michelob beers. The company also owns nine theme parks, including four Sea World parks.

Sea World veterinarian James McBain said Corky would never survive in the wild.

“She looks to humans for her food and a lot of her activity even though she lives with other killer whales,” McBain said. “To take her at this stage of her life and put her out in the ocean is ridiculous. The risk to her is immense. She wouldn’t survive.”

According to Paul Spong, director of the whale research station in British Columbia, Corky’s pod, or group of whales that travel together, still roves the Pacific coast between Alaska and Vancouver.

Spong said he has devised a controlled-release program that he says would allow the orca to be freed into her original pod slowly and help her to adjust to having to capture her own food.

McBain called Spong’s plan “a fantasy.”

“We know the harsh realities of animal release. I think she could catch fish,” he said. “The problem is she doesn’t know where to catch them. She doesn’t have the knowledge that comes with years of experience.

“There’s nothing to suggest that her pod would know who she is or accept her. There’s no scientific evidence that this fantasy could be a reality. She would likely starve to death,” McBain said.

Spong said the whale is so old, she probably would die soon in captivity anyway. He noted that she has lost some of her teeth and has had other health problems. Corky has had seven pregnancies, but none of the calves lived.

Life expectancy is 70 years in the ocean, Spong said, but he said captive whales live much shorter lives.