Breaking Shamu

The U-Haul rental guy tilted his head, “You need a truck big enough for what?”

“Shamu,” I leaned in and whispered.  No need to draw attention. We’d have plenty of that soon enough.

“It’s an Orca .. a killer whale. About 20 feet long, 11,000 pounds.”  The look in his eyes told me I’d gone too far. This could blow the whole operation. I had to recover fast.

“I’m kidding,” I chuckled. “Just give me your biggest truck. Err, with a ramp.” And so began the greatest jailbreak in history.

But make no mistake: I’m no PETA maniac. I bask in my position atop the earth’s food chain. I eat chicken, wear leather, and have no problem with animal testing that saves human lives. So why this sudden drive to free a killer whale?

It all started on a recent trip to SeaWorld. I was just hoping to see a few dolphin tricks, and in no way prepared for a jolting spiritual connection. But it happened. In one of Shamu’s grand leaps, his eye—then his mind—locked with mine. He told me he was going stir crazy, and “couldn’t spend another day circling this shot glass.” I had to bust Shamu out of this joint.

The moment when Shamu made obvious eye contact with me. Our destinies were locked.

Since childhood, zoos and aquaria have evoked both fascination and revulsion within me.  Yes, I love to gawk at the planet’s most amazing creatures. Who among us has not had a “Three’s Company opening montage” experience near the lions’ den?  And getting splashed by Shamu, for many, is akin to holy baptism.

Yet, the sight of a caged animal pacing or gnawing on a cage (called “stereotypy”)  fills me with horrified sympathy. These magnificent creatures were meant to be free. According to WSPA (World Society for the Protection of Animals), “In the wild, killer whales…travel as much as 99 miles in a day. But in captivity they have access to less than one ten-thousandth of 1% of the space available to them in their natural ocean environment.” Wow. That’s like you or me living out our days in the living room … which some of us actually do, but that’s by choice.

But zoos and aquariums can’t be totally evil, right? Don’t they do some good in the world?

According to WAZA (the World Association of Zoos & Aquariums) the world’s 1,300 zoos and aquariums attract over 700 million visitors per year, with about $350 million annually going to conservation efforts.

In fact, the SeaWorld & Busch Gardens Conservation Fund “supports wildlife research, habitat protection, animal rescue, and conservation education in more than 60 countries. … and has granted $7 million to conservation projects.”

Think it’s all PR fluff? The respected journal Science recently concluded that “conservation breeding in zoos and aquariums played a role in the recovery of 19 of the 68 species (28%) whose threat status was reduced according to the IUCN (International Union for Conservation of Nature) Red List.

Shamu and I taking final measurements. We pretended not to know each other to avoid tipping off security.

And so, with mixed emotions, I pulled up to the SeaWorld security gate just before 8:00am. A stolen SeaWorld employee pass got me through to the back loading dock, only minutes before Shamu’s morning feeding. I used a chloroform-soaked handkerchief to dispose of Shamu’s handlers, but getting the big guy into the truck was going to be more difficult.

I backed up the truck to the edge of Shamu’s tank, and his massive nose bobbed approvingly from the water. As I lowered the ramp into the tank, Shamu dove down and circled a few times as if to gauge the physics of this stunt.  I heaved a couple buckets of mackerel into the truckbed to get him in the mood, and stood back. Suddenly, in a splash of atomic proportions, his gargantuan frame rocketed out of the water and into the truck, causing it to shudder and creak.  A couple wriggles of the tail, and he was in.  I revved the engine and made a beeline for the gate. A right turn onto Mission Bay Ave., an ironic fishtail, and I started the 10-minute sprint to the Pacific Ocean.

Of course, would saving one Orca really make a difference? Wouldn’t they just capture more? My friend Tina sent me this video that seems to document the brutal methods of aquariums in capturing dolphins and whales.  However, in 1995, SeaWorld announced that it would no longer capture dolphins and whales from the wild. They say the animals are now only obtained through captive breeding, loans, and purchases from other marine parks around the world.

Despite all this, I feel that captivity is just not what God/The Universe had in mind when he created these spectacular beasts – a point made more salient by Shamu’s old friend, Tilikum. This 12,000-pound goliath expressed his opinion by killing three people at SeaWorld (admittedly, one was a crazy homeless guy who jumped into the tank after hours). Most recently, he killed trainer Dawn Brancheau (you can actually find video of the horrific scene, but I won’t post it here). OSHA fined SeaWorld $75,000 for that little incident, and the park instituted numerous new safety measures. But believe it or not, Tilikum recently returned to performing. Surely Shamu knew that even killing his trainers would not relieve him from his duties.

Police in hot pursuit of me and Shamu.

I jammed my foot on the accelerator, but could only lumber toward the beach at 40mph.  Shamu’s massive size strained the pathetically outmatched U-Haul engine. A quick glance in my side mirrors revealed a cavalcade of police cars, and a loud-thuk-thuk-thuk meant a police copter above. The U-Haul grunted and groaned under the heavy load as I rounded the last curve before the coastline.  There would be no time for a 3-point turn to back up to the water. I would have to go Kamikaze, sacrifice the truck, and hope that Shamu could wriggle his way out into the surf.

Ignoring the commands from the police bullhorns, I aimed the U-Haul like a giant missile toward the blue-green waters, and the truck vaulted over the curb onto beach.  SHOOOOSH! We came to a sickeningly abrupt halt as the truck smashed into the fine, soft sand of the San Diego beachfront. The sand! What was I thinking? Why didn’t I choose a boat launching dock?

But it was too late. Man, beast, and machine lay wrecked only yards from our goal. From here, the memories are foggy … a stretcher … a giant crane lifting Shamu … a grateful wave of a massive black fin … and then jail. For both of us.