The capture and control of a breathtaking and majestic creature such as a killer whale is a very boring subject. Most audiences would appreciate seeing a show where these giant mammals leap out of the water and perform amazing stunts to the viewer's satisfaction. But what the public doesn't see, or realize, is that these animals may be severely depressed and may lack mandatory stimulation through social bonds and other factors that the ocean might offer them rather than an oversized bathtub. The ethics of keeping an animal as intelligent as a killer whale in captivity has been scrutinized for years in the marine biology community. Despite controlled environments for orcas, these environments cause psychological and social problems for the animals and are worse than nature. There is a distinctive feature of captive orcas that does not appear in whales in the wild: the dorsal fin of the captive animal almost always bends to one side or the other, and less than 1% of all wild captive whales have been registered with this feature. This could be directly related to the depressing life a captive orca faces in a closed world with limited animal stimulation and incredibly profound social attributes. Today there are no laws prohibiting the capture and display of orcas, but there are national laws regulating the care, custody and research of whales. Some California lawmakers have attempted to make it against the law to exhibit and incarcerate animals in captivity, which would immediately resolve any question of whether or not it is right to keep them locked up. "It is time to embrace the long-accepted practice of breeding orcas... middle of paper... be thrown away in this country. This fact is sad but true, and the sooner people will realize it. If the money is what funds the advancement of the marine entertainment industry, the sooner hope can be built to keep these animals in their place Despite controlled environments for killer whales, these environments cause psychological and social problems for the animals and are worse The ethical option is clearly to let nature take its course and let an equally intelligent species go about its business as it always has. The business side of this dilemma will continue to grow until the public refuses to be part of it without funding from general taxpayers to keep the programs and parks alive, the outside world may become a little closer to an extraterrestrial from a world inside our own..