Blackfish Page #3

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Whoo!

But the orcas had been caught before

and they knew what was going on

and they knew their young ones

would be taken from them.

So the adults without young

went east into a cul-de-sac

and the boats followed them,

thinking they were all going that way,

while the mothers with babies went north.

But the capture teams had aircraft.

And they have to come up for air eventually.

And when they did,

the capture teams alerted the boats

and said, "Oh, no, they're going north--

the ones with babies."

So the boats-- the speedboats

caught them there

and herded them in.

And then they had fishing boats with seine nets

that they would stretch across

so none could leave

and then they could just pick out

the young ones.

We were only after the little ones.

And a little one is, you know,

a big animal still.

But I was told because of shipping costs

that's why they only take the little ones.

They had the young ones

that they wanted in the corrals,

so they dropped the seine nets.

And all the others could have left,

but they stayed.

We're there, trying to get

the young orca into the stretcher,

and the whole famn damily is out here,

25 yards away maybe,

in a big line...

...and they're communicating

back and forth.

Well...

you understand then what you're doing, you know.

I-- I lost it.

I mean, I just started crying.

I didn't stop working,

but I...

you know, I just couldn't handle it.

Just like kidnapping a little kid

away from their mother.

Everybody's watching.

What can you do?

It's the worst thing I can think of, you know?

I can't think of anything worse than that.

Now, and this really sounds bad,

but when the whole hunt was over,

there were three dead whales in the net.

And...

so they had Peter and Brian and I...

cut the whales open, fill them with rocks,

put anchors on their tail, and sink them.

Well...

you know...

really, I didn't even think about it

being illegal at that point.

I thought it was a PR thing.

They were finally ejected

from the State of Washington

by a court order in 1976.

It was SeaWorld by name that was told,

"Do not come back to Washington

to capture whales."

Without missing a beat, they went

from Washington to Iceland

and began capturing there.

I've been part of a revolution

and two change of presidents

in Central and South America...

and seen some things that's hard to believe,

but this is the worst thing

that I've ever done--

is hunt that whale.

Sealand has been

a part of Victoria for over 20 years.

We specialize in the care

and display of killer whales.

By the time I started, when he was four,

he was up to 16 feet long

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