If she wore a red dress and a white hat, would the world have more empathy for a captive, pregnant killer whale?
Graphic: Black Cove. Images used with permission from Free Morgan Foundation & Brian Snyder, Thomson Reuters
Unlike Offred, an imaginary female trapped in an imaginary city, enslaved to an abusive household and cheered on to escape by viewers the world over, Morgan is a real captive killer whale held in a real tank, within an animal entertainment-themed park. Her very existence epitomises “The Handmaid’s Tale.” She is likely silently screaming to her audience— “ME TOO!”
When watching the hugely popular Hulu adaptation of Margaret Atwood’s book, we are disturbed by the scenes of subservience and ritualised rape, and are empathetic to Offred’s plight in the show. But in the real world, our anthropocentric society commits similar abuses against captive marine mammals and we, the audience, sit in the stadiums with our children and cheer the spectacle on.
Whatever is silenced will clamor to be heard, though silently.
The Handmaid’s Tale is set in a dystopian society where fertile women, ‘Handmaids,’ are forced into child-bearing servitude. Quoting Laura Hudson, in her review – A Beginners Guide to The Handmaids Tale Universe: “Women are considered the property of men and are not permitted to vote, possess money of their own or read…all the women we encounter in The Handmaid’s Tale — including Offred—grew up in an America like our own, and thus have to be brutally indoctrinated into their new status as possessions, servants and walking baby incubators.”
In the real world, killer whales (or orca) like Morgan are captured for display. They too are then considered ‘property,’ and in captivity can no longer live a free and natural life. They can no longer swim great distances, dive to any real depth, hunt or feed of their own accord and they certainly can’t choose with whom they will live or breed. Their entire existence is managed by trainers in accordance with their owners’ business requirements. They become an object, a commodity, and literally die a social death.
Better never means better for everyone. It always means worse, for some.
Morgan lived in the world she knew—the ocean—free and with her family. She somehow became separated, was ‘rescued,’ and then opportunistically indoctrinated into her new status of possession; servant to the captivity industry and its patrons, and just like Offred, she too now exists as a (swimming) performing baby incubator.
Morgan – A Stolen Life In the real world, the deliberate capture of wild born killer whales is increasingly considered an unacceptable practice, and the breeding of this species is being phased out by some in the theme park industry who are listening to the public. However, when a young female orca was found alone and unwell, but well enough to keep alive for breeding purposes, Morgan became the most valuable find; a gene pool ‘bonanza’ for the captive entertainment industry.
In 2010 Morgan was taken from the wild in Netherland waters. Although underweight, Morgan was still free-swimming and she never stranded. The Dutch Government had previously issued a cetacean-wide ‘rescue, rehabilitation and release’ permit to Dolfinarium Harderwijk, which allowed the theme park to take Morgan from her ocean home.
Despite belonging to a species which is protected by EU law and prohibited to be used for primarily commercial purposes Morgan was put on public display only weeks after her rescue. Photo Free Morgan Foundation
From that moment, Morgan’s life was no longer her own; she was never rehabilitated nor released—instead she was kept in a pen that was barely large enough for her to swim, forced into training and taught how to behave in order to accommodate her keepers’ demands. She was conditioned to perform undignified tricks, providing customers more ‘bang for their buck’ when encouraged to pay for the novelty of seeing a wild killer whale up-close in a tank.
The moment of betrayal is the worst, the moment when you know beyond any doubt that you’ve been betrayed: that some other human being has wished you that much evil.
In a travesty of justice resulting from a tangled web of governmental and regulatory loopholes along with theme park industry subterfuge, Morgan, some 18 months later, was shipped out of the Netherlands with the help of SeaWorld (a USA based company), into the hands of Loro Parque, an amusement park in Tenerife, Spain.
At Loro Parque, Morgan was put in another tank and forced to integrate with 5 captive-born SeaWorld-owned orca who were completely foreign to her. For over four years now Morgan has suffered an unnatural life; she has been made to perform demeaning behaviours in never ending theatrical shows, fed frozen fish and endured sexual pressure and continuous bullying from the male orca in the theme park pens.
Morgan ‘performing’ at Loro Parque, Spain. Photo Free Morgan Foundation
A New Baby for Morgan… Praise Be! The public who patronise Loro Parque seem, for the most part, oblivious to Morgan’s suffering, her barren tank, her unnatural existence, her clown like performances—her real purpose. Families crave a day’s entertainment, promoted by an industry that presents its animals as just that. To see a killer whale up close is a bucket list item that we should all tick; families don’t see the torture.
Perhaps the public is not dissimilar to the brainwashed citizens of the imaginary Gilead. They seem convinced by ‘the authority,’ the industry, that these handmaids, these orca, are ‘happy’ to be used, happy to be bred. These ‘ambassadors’ will somehow help to conserve their species in the wild. Yet strangely, the public absorbing this information doesn’t ever seem to question …why then are these animals never released?
The handmaid’s purpose, Morgan’s purpose, despite her torture in order to achieve it, is to perform when required and to bear fruit. Morgan, in her Handmaid’s Tale, has now been successfully inseminated. She is pregnant and due to give birth at any time. Some say the birth should be celebrated; her keepers say reproduction is a right of each animal, “it’s a natural behaviour,” and on the face of it this may appear true. But what of Morgan’s right to choose, what of her right to Freedom?
There is more than one kind of freedom, freedom to and freedom from.
Loro Parque admits to not knowing which of the two male orca at the park impregnated Morgan, yet it is known that one of them is aggressive towards humans and the other is a documented killer. What this will mean for Morgan’s calf will become evident in time, but there’s one certainty—it will be a hybrid and despite the conservation claims, her offspring can never be released into the wild.
Morgan’s baby too will have no right to be free.
A Handmaid’s Fruit – What of Morgan’s Calf? In captivity, orca pregnancies are rare and even when births do occur, calves often die; the result of Morgan’s pregnancy is yet to be seen. Like Offred, Morgan’s subservient, and sometimes comatose existence, combined with her constant public display, presents an abnormal situation, an unnatural environment within which she must bond with her first baby; she may even reject her own calf if it does survive.
Her calf will be a commodity too, a new attraction to be exploited, and if female—a future handmaid in turn. Morgan, now proven to be fertile, will likely be bred again—the ultimate money-spinner for an industry driven by the business of bottom lines.
Morgan’s calf might remain with her, or her keepers may well take her away, assign her to a new ‘household,’ a new facility, another breeding program, or of course her baby may simply die.
In Morgan’s captive, amusement park world, where the illusion of ‘happy families’ is key, there will be no time for her to grieve should her calf not survive; her baby will be taken from her immediately — the show must go on regardless of grief.
Ignoring isn’t the same as ignorance, you have to work at it.
Empathy Lost In A Killer Whale Show? Our ability as humans to empathise with these animals does exist and was overwhelmingly demonstrated recently when a wild killer whale refused to let go of her dead baby for 17 torturous days. Undeniably going through a grieving process, Tahlequah’s anguish captured the attention of the world. We recognised her grief; we empathised with this orca, and our outpouring of sympathy to her plight was unprecedented.
An outpouring of public empathy as wild orca J35 carries her decease calf for 17 days. Photo by Michael Weiss, Centre for Whale Research
Yet inexplicably, we seem to detach when we put these sentient animals in tanks, when we use them for our entertainment, when we make them breed to ensure the longevity of the industry, when their captive-bred babies die or we remove their children from them. Our empathy, our sympathy, seems to vanish along with the money we leave at the theme park gates. We accept and enjoy the abhorrent way these incarcerated animals are treated, even though we know that this same behaviour, towards humans, would be a perversion-an injustice. We somehow disconnect from the fact that these ‘handmaids with tails,’ like Morgan, don’t sign up for this ‘role.’ They are forcefully conscripted to act as our entertainment, our ‘educational, conservational, inspirational,’ breeding tools.
Despite industry assertions that orca ‘enjoy’ performing and people believing what they are told is the truth, the reality is that these animals are not willingly working to entertain us; they are conditioned with rewards such as food to perform. Their bodies are not their own; they are made to breed and their babies will never be theirs. Their lives, their entire existence, will always be controlled by the industry, their ‘authority,’ their very real ‘Gilead’— Under His Eye.
This is Gilead. No one gets out – Moira
Author: S. Taylor Concept: S. Rogers
Further Information and References
Further information about Morgan’s story and ways to help please visit Free Morgan Foundation Further information about orca in captivity please visit Sea World Fact Check Further reading about Marine Mammals in Captivity Further information about Human Behaviour Change
References: All block quotes contained in this opinion piece unless otherwise noted are from Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale, sourced from Good Reads, The Handmaids Tale Quotes. https://www.goodreads.com/work/quotes/1119185-the-handmaid-s-tale?page=1 Laura Hudson, A Beginner’s Guide to The Handmaid’s Tale Universe http://www.vulture.com/2017/04/the-handmaids-tale-beginners-guide.html Telegraph UK https://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/news/loro-parque-ends-killer-whale-orca-breeding/ The Handmaids Tale – Hulu https://www.hulu.com/press/show/the-handmaids-tale/ The Handmaids Tale – Margaret Atwood https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/38447.The_Handmaid_s_Tale Free Morgan Foundation, Morgans Story http://www.freemorgan.org/morgan-2/ Keto: Frustrated and Dangerous https://whalesanctuaryproject.org/whales/keto-frustrated-dangerous/ The Trials Of Tekoa https://timzimmermann.com/2011/09/26/the-trials-of-tekoa/ Centre For Whale Research – J35 https://www.whaleresearch.com/j35
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