A Roller Coaster Ride Of Life Behind The Scenes At Marine Parks

Get your queue-jumper pass, and let John Hargrove take you on a roller coaster ride of life behind the scenes at marine parks.

Book Review: Beneath The Surface By John Hargrove

John’s first book is an eye-opening autobiographical account of his life as a killer whale trainer. It’s a New York Times Bestseller, and a Goodreads Choice Award winner, which is testament to the fact that this personal story has huge impact. The kind of impact that leaves the reader questioning everything they’ve ever believed. In this case, everything they’ve ever believed about shiny, family-friendly marine parks.

In writing Beneath The Surface, John Hargrove has demonstrated to the world that he’s not afraid to tell his story of life behind closed doors at marine parks, despite campaigns against him. In the aptly named Beneath The Surface, John exposes the animal welfare issues that he encountered during his 14 years experience of training killer whales at marine parks in both the USA and France. He also shares the journey of his climb to senior trainer at Shamu Stadium, SeaWorld, before his resignation in 2012.

Beneath The Surface takes the reader on a roller coaster of emotions from the thrill of fulfilling a childhood dream to train killer whales, through to a gradual awakening to the dark side of killer whale captivity.

It’s a behind the scenes pass that gives the reader access to the human joys of communicating with and caring for killer whales, combined with the sad existence that captive killer whales endure. John’s descriptions of how the trainers and whales communicate to perform complex acrobatic tricks leaves the reader in no doubt that killer whales are intelligent and emotional beings.

Using the research of Dr. Naomi Rose, John effectively illustrates how the controlled existence of captive killer whales doesn’t compare to the natural lives of their free relatives. With stories from his first-hand experience, he gives the reader exclusive insights into how killer whale behaviour and health is compromised by captivity.

John describes his often good relationship with the SeaWorld corporate machine. But he also exposes the poor treatment of staff and the corporate spin that contributed to his resignation.

He gives an account, from the inside, of how SeaWorld has dealt with serious injuries inflicted on trainers by killer whales, including trainer deaths. There’s a strong theme of the working environment being damaging to the physical wellbeing of trainers, as well as damaging the wellbeing of killer whales.

Beneath The Surface is a story of personal discovery, ambition, broken dreams, and hope for a better future for animals that are complex beyond our understanding, YET like humans in many ways.

Throughout the story of John’s life and career, it’s evident that the strongest influence on all of his decisions, whether in hindsight they were right or wrong, has been his unwavering love for the killer whales in his care. It’s this lasting connection that appears to continue to drive him in his new role as a killer whale advocate.

Without a doubt Beneath The Surface leaves the reader questioning the ethics of a multi-million dollar industry that sells killer whale captivity as entertainment.

If you’ve already had your beliefs about marine parks rocked by the acclaimed documentary Blackfish (the BAFTA nominated, and Satellite Award-winning, documentary about the captive killer whale Tilikum, in which John Hargrove is interviewed), Beneath The Surface adds to the Blackfish landslide of “this must change” moments.

To quote Morpheus, in the film The Matrix, during his pivotal conversation with Neo (stay with me on this!):

“This is your last chance. After this, there is no turning back. You take the blue pill — the story ends, you wake up in your bed and believe whatever you want to believe. You take the red pill — you stay in Wonderland and I show you how deep the rabbit-hole goes.”

I strongly recommend that you make the same decision as Neo; take the red pill — let John Hargrove show you how deep the marine park rabbit hole goes.

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