Corky - 40 Years Imprisoned. We Owe Her A Way Out!

Friday 11th December marked the 40th anniversary of a young female orca being taken from her family in the waters off British Columbia, Canada,to become a captive orca performing tricks to amuse people around the world. She was given the name CORKY. Today, Corky is the longest surviving orca in captivity. Fifty-four of the 56 orcas captured alive for the aquarium industry from the Northeast Pacific have already passed away, but Corky, along with Lolita at the Miami Seaquarium,continues circling a concrete tank at Sea World in San Diego far awayfrom the waters that were once her home.

View a video about CORKY, her life, but also options for her future.

 

Dr. Paul Spong and Helena Symonds, orca experts and directors of ORCALAB which is the research institute co-funded and supported by the WDCS orca adoption programme, have been studying Corkys true orca family in the wild for more than three decades. Orcas live in close-knit families and in that area hunt salmon and travel the waters of Johnstone Strait, Blackfish Sound and the rest of the Inside Passage in British Columbia, Canada.

Orcas, like elephants, have long memories. Corky visibly shook and vocalised poignantly when she was played a tape recording of her family pod, the A5s, whose dialect she still uses. In the mid-1990s hope to convince her owners to return Corky to her natural environment arose when more than 15,000 children from all over the world painted the worlds longest banner to FREE CORKY. And yet still she lives on at Sea World.

Get engaged!

Join Dr. Paul Spong, Helena Symonds and WDCS together with many other activists and orca researchers around the world to help CORKY retire and to call for an end to the captive display of whales and dolphins.

- Visit our Facebook page and spread the word about Corky to your Facebook friends.
- Dont go to see orcas or other whales and dolphins in captivity, the money your ticket buys only helps to continue the incarceration of these magnificent animals.
- adopt an orca and help Orcalab and WDCS continue its efforts to protect these magnificent mammals.

Corky deserves a chance to swim in her natural home waters and we owe that to her. Please help make this dream a reality.

For more Information: Orcalab

  
  

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