http://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-newkirk-seaworld-orca-breeding-20170223-story.html
Takara, a 25-year-old orca living at SeaWorld San Antonio, has already delivered four calves in four different cramped tanks across the country, and is about to deliver her fifth. Due any day now, the calf will be the last killer whale born at a SeaWorld. Last March, the park announced it would stop its orca breeding program following years of protests.
Takara’s story makes clear why the captive breeding of orcas needed to end. She was born in captivity, in what is basically a cement box, at SeaWorld San Diego to parents who were captured rodeo-style off the coast of Iceland in 1978. Her mother, Kasatka, is still being held in a tank at the San Diego park. Her father, Kotar, died at SeaWorld San Antonio two decades ago after a pool gate closed on his head, fracturing his skull.
Research shows that female orcas in the wild typically don’t reproduce until they are 15, but SeaWorld artificially inseminated Takara, and she gave birth for the first time when she was 10, to a female named Kohana. The sperm SeaWorld used was taken from Tilikum, the killer whale whose harrowing story was told in the award-winning documentary “Blackfish.”
more at
http://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-newkirk-seaworld-orca-breeding-20170223-story.html 
