How Does SeaWorld Masturbate their Stud Killer Whales? Rocker Tommy Lee Says “Cow Vaginas” And He Is Almost Right.

Tommy Lee wasn’t totally wrong when he mentioned cow vagina use for SeaWorld’s artificial insemination program. His information was simply dated. In a letter he shot off to SeaWorld on December 7th, the Motley Crüe drummer has written to the president of Florida marine theme park, SeaWorld, to complain about the way they are treating one of their Killer Whales.

In the letter, published on TMZ.com, Lee complained that the Whale, named Tilikum, “is being kept away from people and in a tank that is much too small for him”, because he is their “chief sperm bank”.

Fred Jacobs, SeaWorld’s VP of Communications fired back at Lee the following day citing “The process of collecting semen for [artificial insemination] doesn’t differ in any meaningful way from the techniques employed in managing livestock or other species for zoological display.” Mr. Jacobs adds: “Whatever his views on SeaWorld, Mr. Lee would be wise to spend more time checking his facts.”

So what are the facts? The Orca Project consulted with some former SeaWorld killer whale trainers to learn about SeaWorld’s Artificial Insemination Program (AI) and to find out just how they obtain the prized samples, or “white gold” from their orcas.

– We all know that AI is a process in which male sperm is collected and inserted into the cervix of a female human or animal, for the purpose of impregnating the female by using means other than sex. In humans, it is used as assisted reproductive technology.

Artificial insemination is widely used for livestock breeding, as used by cattle breeders. The practice of AI was developed by SeaWorld for the purpose of increasing its captive stock of Killer Whales. This has allowed the company to avoid the unpopular and illegal practice of harvesting Orcas from the wild and purchasing them from the market, from countries like Japan. It also eliminates the costly need to transport orcas between parks for the pupose of breeding.

As far as killer whales are concerned, the semen is collected from an adult male trained to voluntarily ejaculate. The male, positioned belly up and adjacent to the edge of the pool, is trained to present his penis. After collected, it allows the sperm and ova of captive killer whales to be stored by a technique known as “genome resource banking.”

In the early years of Killer Whale Artificial Insemination (AI), SeaWorld DID use cow vaginas. That said, they may very well have been artificial cow vaginas. The first mention of cow vaginas and SeaWorld’s artificial insemination program seems to come in an article titled, “The Killer In The Pool,” by Tim Zimmermann of Outside magazine: http://outsideonline.com/outside/culture/201007/killer-whale-behavior-trainer-death-seaworld.html

“Early in the morning, the animal-care crew would take hot-water-filled cow vaginas and masturbate the males in the back tanks,” says John Hall, a former scientist at SeaWorld. “It was pretty interesting to walk by.”

Today, cow vaginas are no longer used, just good old latex gloves and KY Jelly. One former SeaWorld orca trainer who spoke with TOP on the condition of anonymity, shared their experiences:

“It was rustic, latex gloves and KY Jelly, as I recall. The animals already know how to roll over. It’s a basic requirement for accessing their tails and genital slits, and other husbandry. It’s a well rewarded behavior, and the whales are usually cooperative in rolling over. Once they are “over”, the initial approximations involve manually stimulating the genital area (applying pressure around the slit where the penis “lives”). When I was there, sometimes other whales were brought into the pool to stimulate the whale undergoing the AI session. Interestingly, it was usually another male orca. If a bulge, and later an erection occur, this is rewarded with food and manual stimulation. The whale eventually figures out you’re stimulating it in an erotic way. Through many many sessions, the male is eventually stimulated to ejaculate. The ejaculate is stored in a bag or Nalgene plastic bottle.”

Despite the distasteful imagery of trainers manually extracting sperm from the penis of a captive orca, the logistial problem with Tilikum and artificial insemination is the lack of diversity in the captive orca gene pool. SeaWorld has now used AI and regular breeding with Tilikum to produce 10 living calves. Tilikum is also the grandfather to 3 living juvenile whales. Currently, SeaWorld owns 19 captive born whales of which 13 are blood related to Tilikum. This means that the gene pool is dangerously lacking diversity.” (Note: 5 of the captive born are not living at SW USA parks.)