Capture and Breeding
Orcas are large, active and intelligent. Males range from 6 to 9.7 m (20 to 32 ft) and weigh over 8 tonnes (8.8 tons), while females range from 5 to 7 m (16 to 23 ft) and weigh 3 to 5 tonnes (3.3 to 5.5 tons). It is extremely difficult to capture orcas and to provide a healthy environment for the captives. Early attempts in the 1960s caused many injuries and deaths. However, with experience the teams who specialized in the business became more adept and post-capture survival rates improved. Live captures peaked in the early 1970s, but have become increasingly rare as the marine parks have learned how to maintain theme park populations through captive breeding and artificial insemination.
Read more about this topic: Captive Killer Whales
Famous quotes containing the words capture and/or breeding:
“No place is so strongly fortified that money could not capture it.”
—Marcus Tullius Cicero (106–43 B.C.)
“Good breeding and good nature do incline us rather to help and raise people up to ourselves, than to mortify and depress them, and, in truth, our own private interest concurs in it, as it is making ourselves so many friends, instead of so many enemies.”
—Philip Dormer Stanhope, 4th Earl Chesterfield (1694–1773)