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Do you agree that Orca whales should not be taken from their natural habitat?

Also, should Sea World stop breeding their orca whales as well as any other places that are breeding orcas. I think they should stop breeding them and finish showing the orcas they have now and then stop with orcas. Orcas are huge animals that need alot of space which cannot be provided unless in the ocean. It costs alot of money to have really big, deep tanks. Just give opinions and any facts you might have. Thanks!

I completely and utterly agree. No cetacean, nor any other animal for that matter should be taken from their natural habitat, save if it is for rehabilitation purposes. I also completely agree that captive breeding of orcas and other non endangered cetacean species should be stopped. My opinion on some of the points brought up in captivity debates:

CONSERVATION
$eaWorld argue that they breed for conservation, but at the same time Brad Andrews has said that they will never release any of their animals which is hypocritical. Captive breeding can only have a positive effect on conservation if there is an input back into the depleted populations and in the case of orcas and bottlenose dolphins, there is few places that would even need that!

CAPTURES
SeaWorld no longer captures orcas from the wild that is true, however they hardly have a clean sheet when it comes acquiring animals in the past, they were involved in numerous captures in the 70s and even then refused to let their captures be filmed as they knew if people saw what was going on they would protest. just before the BA resident population was protected (because it had been so severley affected by the captive industry) they put in a request to capture no less than 100 (yes that is ONE HUNDRED) individuals from the already depleted population. They also had connections with the Taii drive hunts where hundreds of cetaceans are slaughtered every year, a practice that is mainly driven by the profit made by the few live animals sold to aquaria. SeaWorld owned several false killer whales in Japan that they could not get an import permit for (suggesting they were obtained from the hunts) which they instead shipped to the Netherlands to trade for Gudrun, a single female orca.
It did not end there though, recently, 2004 I believe, SeaWorld applied for import permits for reproductive tissue samples taken from animals slaughtered in the Taiji hunts, no doubt, they paid for these samples, hence further supporting this practice.
And there is still more. While they may no longer go out and hunt for orcas, they are not opposed to obtaining them from the wild in principle, as illustrated when a rescue operation was launched to reunite Springer, a young orca in British Columbia with her family who she seemed to have lost. she was caught to be transferred (human contact minimised, no human contact while feeding as to not get her used to people) and held in a seapen to assess her health and fatten her up a bit..
Immidiately after the capture Dr. Jim Bain, head vet for SW emphasized the seriousness of Springer's health problems;" her condition is of concern. This is not a robust killer whale. Her health is so poor right now there is no way she will be ready that quickly" He also doubted whether she could ever rejoin her family:" To me, this is a big question now-is she going to know she's a killer whale and go with those animals?"
A week later she got a nearly completely clean bill of health from another vet and was released, she is now successfully reunited with her family. Unless the SeaWorld vet is incompetent or Springer made a miracle recovery, it would in my eyes suggest that he was lying to get hold of a free whale....

CAPTIVE BORN ANIMALS
Captive born does not mean happier or healthier, they are still large bodied wide ranging predators, it is what they were build for, being born into captivity does not mean the instantly become domesticated. Domesticated animals have undergone various changes to thrive in a human environment. This is NOT the case in orcas and is exemplified by the fact that even captive born orcas die prematurely, for example Katerina dying at 10.5 years, Taku at 14, Kanuck at 4, Malik at 4, Halyn at 2.5..... Furthermore despite the alleged brilliant veterinary care, infant mortality is still as high and slightly higher than that in the wild, suggesting that the care is insufficient.

TRAINING
Sure, it's hard to imagine that you can force an aquatic animal of several tonnes to do anything. No, I don't think food deprivation is still actively used, however, the animals do a lot of shows every day, I do not doubt that a lot of food gets given during these shows.
Food deprival is also not the only punishment, ignoring an animal can be just as bad if you are that animals only source of some entertainment. Pods in captivity are artificial and in the past have been kept in a way that orcas that did not get along a hundred percent were often together, which meant the only focal person the animal may turn to is the trainer who then asks it to perform tricks and can punish it by walking away if it does not. If all of it is voluntary, why is there such a heightened level of aggression? Why do trainers get dragged under, bumped off walls, bitten.... Apart from that, looking at the appalling lack of adequate enrichment, training gives them something to do I suppose but how challenging do you think it is to do the same show over and over again.

Sorry, EDIT for some reason my answer got cut off prematurely!

A good example of the influence of food on the relationship is also given in Dolphin Chronicles, it's about a scientist bringing two bottlenose dolphins into captivity for research with the plan to release them again after a year or two.this is an excerpt of the bit where they are planning to release them, at that stage they are no longer being fed actively by people but rather sneakily so the people-food connection is cut. Important to note that while in captivity these animals were also not deprived of food but rewarded with a variety of food, rubs/touch and toys:
"Early on Echo and Misha would spend some time playing with people. Michelle didn't want to frustrate them by cutting of their interactions with humans abruptly, so occasionally she would sit in a small inflatable boat and let the boys come by to be rubbed. They seemed to like it at first . Then they started to get snippy about it, sometimes even slapping their tails on the water and making it perfectly clear "i don't need these rubs."
once after a feeding session, when the fish were gone, michelle gave Echo the 'retrieve' sign, thinking he might bring back a ring that was floating in the water. He left and returned with a fish in his mouth. he shook it and ate it in fron of her- as if to say, "i don't need your fish, either."
The boys also felt less need for human made toys as well. both occasionally pushed the buoy around but Echo didnt seem to have the same sexual fixation on it that he had had back in the lab."
She may be anthropomorphising a bit but I think it illustrates quite nicely that once the animals had no need for people any more, they were ignored and even became aggressive towards them...not much of a 'bond' left...

EDUCATION
Biggest scam and at the same time most quoted justification for keeping cetaceans ever. Marine parks keeping cetaceans like to brag with their great educational program, non of them actually mention that there has to be a minimum of education in any institution holding marine mammals for it to be legal under the Marine Mammal act. And a bare minimum it is, the educational value of the cetacean displays at SeaWorld have been put on the same level as a bad text book aimed at a third grader by people doing work on the park. Furthermore, education provided especially on the longevity of cetaceans is often falsified, providing wrong and flawed information to the public. SeaWorld and places like it are not about animals or conservation, it's about a fluffy Disney image they make of the animals and that they sell in large doses for outrageous prices.
The only thing that SeaWorld inspires is people wanting to become marine mammal trainers.
It does not stop at that, SeaWorld has made a lot of derisive comments about the work and effort of serious scientists that invested in freeing Keiko, hailing it as a failure but on the other hand, them taking in a grey whale calf and releasing it, with the transmitter coming off the first day after release and it never been seen again, that apparently was a roaring success....

And even if you look at the few positives, the minimal amount of conservation and educational awareness gleaned from it, ask at what cost it happened. All the orcas that died at SeaWorld in the last 10 years were under 22 years of age, all died of infections, probably due to an immune deficiency, vets noticed early on in cetacean captivity, that captive cetaceans were a lot more prone to infectious diseases than their wild counterparts. When animals die, the final result of the necropsy is not reveiled to the public. Why? Well maybe because the term that crops up most often in necropsy reports of captive cetaceans after stress is 'unknown', despite them allegedly having the best care and specialists, they keep dying at an early age.
Maybe its the stress, the confinement, the premature breeding, seperation, heightened aggression that is making them ill... in my opinion that is just not worth it.

Some more discussions:
http://planktonforums.org/viewtopic.php?p=53514&highlight=springer#53514
http://planktonforums.org/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=4522&p=41360&hilit=shamu+rocks+show#p41360
http://planktonforums.org/viewtopic.php?f=15&t=5938&hilit=seaworld+trainer+hurt
http://planktonforums.org/viewtopic.php?f=24&t=3443&hilit=seaworld+trainer+hurt
http://planktonforums.org/viewtopic.php?f=24&t=6666&hilit=loro+parque
http://planktonforums.org/viewtopic.php?t=4544&postdays=0&postorder=asc&highlight=orcas+captivity&start=0
http://planktonforums.org/viewtopic.php?t=2692&postdays=0&postorder=asc&highlight=orcas+captivity&start=0
http://planktonforums.org/viewtopic.php?t=3898&postdays=0&postorder=asc&highlight=orcas+captivity&start=0

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