Tillikum the slave whale deserves his day in court
There was a time when animals did have rights – they even came to court dressed in human clothes
REMEMBER Tillikum? Back in 2010 I likened this proud mammal, at six tons and 22ft long the largest orca whale in captivity, to Spartacus.
Tillikum was kidnapped by whale-slavers off Iceland at the age of two in 1983. Deliberately starved as part of his “training” in a Sealand tank in Victoria, Canada, Tillikum has spent the past 19 years at the SeaWorld marine park in Orlando, Florida.
The whale has been involved in three lethal onslaughts on his captors, the most recent being an attack on Dawn Brancheau, a trainer he dragged into his tank and drowned in February 2010.
Why was Tillikum spared? Big whale, big money.
There's a lot riding on the slave orcas toiling away, giving as many as eight performances per day, 365 days a year, as the star attractions in these marine parks. Tillikum's asset value is enhanced by his duties as a sperm donor. He's a breeding "stud" often kept in solitary, away from the other orcas, and has fathered 13 killer whales.
The Occupy Wall Street movement should hoist placards in support of Tillikum and his fellow orca slaves: SeaWorld got its start in the mid-1960s, and after various ups and downs, in the late 1980s the three SeaWorlds, in San Diego, Orlando and San Antonio passed into the hands of the vast brewing conglomerate Anheuser-Busch which pumped millions into upgrades, finally selling the parks to the Blackstone Group, a merger and acquisitions outfit co-founded by the odious Pete Peterson and Stephen Schwarzman, formerly of Lehman and Kuhn-Loeb, for $2.7 billion in 2009.
Blackstone, one of the world's largest private equity investment firms, is at the crossroads of crony capitalism, where the political and financial elites engorge and devour. It has been one of the largest investors in leveraged buyout transactions over the last decade, with huge operations in commercial real estate.
Earlier this week, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (Peta) filed a lawsuit against SeaWorld for “enslaving” five orcas. Tillikum is one of the plaintiffs.
Peta’s suit invokes the 13th Amendment, abolishing and prohibiting slavery, and demands the orcas’ release under the Amendment’s terms. "All five of these orcas were violently seized from the ocean and taken from their families as babies," says Peta’s president Ingrid Newkirk, echoed by Peta’s lawyer, Jeff Kerr, who told AP: "By any definition, these orcas are slaves - kidnapped from their homes, kept confined, denied everything that's natural to them and forced to perform tricks for SeaWorld's profit.”
Kerr added that the 13th Amendment does not refer to a specific species. SeaWorld denies the charges.
For those like the African-American author Earl Ofari Hutchinson who think the references to slavery are excessive, remember the words of Frederick Douglass, the great abolitionist and former slave.
Douglass often made direct comparisons between the treatment and use of other animals and that of himself. "When purchased, my old master probably thought as little of my advent as he would have thought of the addition of a single pig to his stock!
“Like a wild young working animal, I am to be broken to the yoke of a bitter and life-long bondage. Indeed, I now saw, in my situation, several points of similarity with that of the oxen. They were property, so was I; they were to be broken, so was I; Covey was to break me, I was to break them; break and be broken - such is life."
Will the orcas get legal standing?
Animals currently have no rights recognized in US law, but many groups of lawyers are working to strengthen laws that protect animals and many individuals have successfully brought lawsuits to protect the welfare of animals. Animal rights, or animal liberation, are one of the oldest forms of Animal Law.
Three years ago the DC Law Journal ran a very useful survey by Kathryn Alfisi who pointed out that it was the Michael Vick case “that allowed for just the right atmosphere to push for state and federal legislation that would strengthen dog-fighting and animal cruelty laws”.
Vick was the Atlanta Falcons quarterback who pulled a 23-month sentence after pleading guilty to conspiring to run a dog-fighting ring on his property in Surry County, Virginia.
Some animal lawyers flee the term “animal rights” while others question the whole concept of legal boundaries between animals and humans. Several state bars have animal law sections or committees. In 2005 the American Bar Association’s (ABA) Tort Trial and Insurance ·
