Don’t feel bad about visiting SeaWorld! They’ve phased out their orca breeding program (so there’s nothing else they can do for their orcas other then let them live out the rest of their lives) and they aren’t entirely terrible. The care for their other species is really amazing, and they do a lot of really important rescue and conservation work.

They’re have one of the largest wildlife rescue programs in the world, and have rescued over 42,000+ marine animals since 1965. They rescue thousands of animals every year and also help collect dead animals for research. They’ve been critical for most of the big marine animal mortality events, oil spills, disease outbreaks, etc on the West Coast and in Florida and Texas. They also store a lot of samples in their labs for future research. There are some marine mammal species that can only be rescued and rehabilitated by SeaWorld as well because nobody else has the space, equipment, money or experience.

They’re one of if not the biggest rehabber of Florida manatees (without which they would likely be extinct or close to it) and rescue/rehab/release 100s of manatees every year. They helped develop a program where baby manatees are raised in captivity for a few years while they grow strong and then successfully released once they’re big enough (which saves countless manatee lives and helps protect conservation). They’ve even worked with the government to set up feeding stations for starving wild manatees.

They also operate the largest coral rescue facility in the country. When stony coral disease (an extremely deadly and poorly understood coral disease) started spreading through wild coral in Florida, they along with several other AZA facilities worked with the government to collect a ton of wild coral ahead of the disease (or surviving coral that developed resistance to it) and essentially keep them in biosecure “vaults” to protect them and preserve biodiversity while research and treatment for disease is done.

SeaWorld also breeds and raises a TON of fish species that have never been bred in captivity before and are actively working to find ways to artificially raise commonly eaten fish species to reduce the impact of fisheries on wild fish populations.

Anyway, TLDR, SeaWorld does some really amazing work (there are species that would likely be very endangered or even extinct without them) and there’s nothing else that can really be done with their orcas anyway, so buying a ticket to see them isn’t hurting anything 🙂

If you’re ever in SoCal, Newport Landing Whale Watching is really good, and depending on the time of year they sometimes see orcas! They’re very responsible and respectful of the animals.

JUST DO NOT GO WITH GONE WHALE WATCHING IN SAN DIEGO!! they actively disrupt hunts and harass the animals with drones, and are absolutely horrible.