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| Poster of Blackfish documentary |
The Gabriela Cowperthwaite-directed film is about a bull orca whale named Tilikum that it claims to be responsible for the deaths of three individuals, including the whale's trainer, Dawn Brancheau, at SeaWorld Orlando, Florida in 2010.
"To promote its bias that killer whales should not be maintained in a zoological setting, the film paints a distorted picture that withholds from viewers key facts about SeaWorld – among them, that SeaWorld is one of the world's most respected zoological institutions, that SeaWorld rescues, rehabilitates and returns to the wild hundreds of wild animals every year, and that SeaWorld commits millions of dollars annually to conservation and scientific research. Perhaps most important, the film fails to mention SeaWorld's commitment to the safety of its team members and guests and to the care and welfare of its animals, as demonstrated by the company's continual refinement and improvement to its killer whale facilities, equipment and procedures both before and after the death of Dawn Brancheau," SeaWorld added.
Cowperthwaite has responded to SeaWorld's statement, saying the marine park "is just looking to sow a seed of doubt because they have to."
"There were so many things I didn’t include because they took us away from Tilikum, but they were very disturbing and could have easily loaded the film and turned it into a piece of activism — which was never my intent," she told Canada.com. "I never started out thinking I wanted to shut SeaWorld down. I’m not an activist. I am a storyteller. And to me, this was a classic narrative with a 12,000-pound protagonist swimming right at the center."
First screened at the Sundance film festival in January, the controversial film opened in Los Angeles and New York Friday.
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