As the son of two adventurous photographers, my adolescent years consisted of much traveling. While we moved from place to place, I found myself latching to worldly concerns, concepts and ideas, as opposed to people and activities as most children do.

It was when we lived in Laguna Beach, Calif., that my interest in whales, specifically orcas, sparked. My curiosity in cetaceans grew each summer at the Ocean Institute kid’s camp in Dana Point and I have since followed marine issues concerning overfishing, polluting and whaling just to name a few.

But I had never considered captivity to be one of these major problems.

The new documentary, “Blackfish,” opened my eyes to orca imprisonment. The film unveils the life and history of SeaWorld’s largest performer, and biggest whale in captivity today, Tilikum. It is directed by Gabriela Cowperthwaite and premiered in the annual 2013 Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah.

It exposes the death of SeaWorld trainer Dawn Brancheau, who Tilikum drowned in February 2010. She was the third trainer killed by the 32-year-old, 12,000-pound male bull orca, who was captured off the coast of Iceland in 1983.

As stated in the film, SeaWorld blamed Brancheau and her ponytail. SeaWorld executive said Brancheau’s hair had accidentally caught in the whale’s teeth, yet her autopsy stated blunt force trauma and drowning caused her death, along with a fractured jawbone and ribs.

After an ongoing law suit, Tilikum began performing again in March 2011.

Howard Garrett, an orca researcher featured in “Blackfish,” said behavior like this is not natural.

“To this day, there is no report of an orca doing any harm to any human in the wild,” Garrett said in the documentary.

He said orcas live closely in family pods, and have lifespans very similar to humans.

Lori Marino, a neuroscientist who is also featured in “Blackfish,” said orcas are tremendously intelligent and may have more emotional parts of the brain than humans.

“The safest inference would be these are animals that have highly elaborated emotional lives,” Marino said. “It’s becoming clear that dolphins and whales have a sense of self, a sense of social bonding that they’ve taken to another level much stronger, much more complex than in other mammals, including humans.”

Why keep a creature that could be more intellectual than humans locked in a tiny tank?

“Blackfish” has enlightened many people such as myself, who now believe this is wrong.

California State Assemblyman Richard Bloom is one of those people. Bloom continues to push Assembly Bill 2140, which would ban orca captivity for entertainment reasons but allow captivity for rehabilitation and research purposes.

SeaWorld released a statement in response to the bill that states the company participates in “business practices that are responsible, sustainable and reflective of the balanced values all Americans share.”

Blackfish has even inspired Disney-owned studio, Pixar, to change the plot to their upcoming Finding Nemo sequel, “Finding Dory.”

According to the New York Times, the ending of “Finding Dory” was to feature a scene in a marine park similar to SeaWorld. Once executive producers viewed “Blackfish,” they decided to alter the ending so the characters of the film have the option to stay in captivity or return to the wild where they belong.

Marine scientists in “Blackfish” said orcas in the wild can travel nearly 100 miles each day, and the tank Tilikum lives in Orlando is nearly not large enough. Some claim this causes much mental stress.

“If you were in a bathtub for 25 years, don’t you think you’d get a little psychotic?” Jane Velez-Mitchell, a CNN anchor said.

The flopped fin whale has been a mass breeder to the multimillion-dollar business and has 21 offspring, 11 of which are still alive.

SeaWorld has set themselves up for failure for years, and continue to do so.

Luke Nozicka can be reached at 

[email protected], 

@lukenozicka,