Harms for the whales
A killer whale is put into a tank that is not nearly large enough to sustain the conditions the whale is used to. A whale is used to having the entire ocean over its head to support its dorsal fin. In a forty eight foot tank, there isn't nearly enough pressure to help keep the fin upright. Killer whales are also very controlling creatures. Sometimes, when a new whale is put into a tank with other whales that have been there longer, the older whales will sometimes try to assert their dominance by bumping into the whale. Sometimes, though, the whale misses and runs into the wall of the tank, causing serious damage to the whale. After living in a tank for years, the tank will lose salinity due to poor maintenance. If the salinity of the water gets too low, the whale could catch a disease, causing them to die prematurely.
Restrictions
The average killer whale travels about one hundred miles in one day. While they are kept in such a small thank, they don't have chance to get to move around. A killer wale would be lucky to travel a mile in a day due to the restrictions of the tank. As I stated before with the dorsal fin collapsing, this can also restrict the whale from certain swimming methods. Such as sudden turns and also sudden rolls that the whale would usually do with ease in the wild.
Scientists Interaction
Scientists continue to interfere with the whales environment to learn more about these creatures. Some of these changes can be harmless, but some can be deadly for the whale. For example, the Canadian War Games allowed sonar training exercises. There was dead killer whale found on the coast of Washington a few days after the training had started. There were signs of significant trauma to the head and chest area. Scientists believed that the trauma was cause by the sonar training. After this incident occurred, scientists stopped the research and there were no more killer whales found dead.