When younger and still going to zoos and oceanriums I recall a conversation with a dolphin trainer at a Sea World. She said something to the effect that the international community of trainers was very close-knit and, "you would always have a couch to crash on travelling at other trainer's homes." So I think the trainers are good-intentioned, but the fact remains holding sentient animals in captivity as orcas are (for being able to recognize their own reflections among other things,) is immoral. And because it's all about making money, even if some science is being done that doesn't justify the base immorality of imprisoning animals like an orca that in the wild travels continuously.
An experiment on Mythbusters involving goldfish to see if their memory really is just minutes long, thus keeping them in tiny aquariums wasn't cruel, disproved the myth as they remembered mazes past 24 hours.
An orca's memory and mind is equal to our own. So you have to ask if your entire world was just the big tank at Sea World, how long before you went nuts and starting killing your captors?
