Originally Posted By trekkeruss More details: <a href="http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/blogs/abraham/detail?entry_id=57918" target="_blank">http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/...id=57918</a>
Originally Posted By DAR You can train them all you want, in the end it's still a wild animal and therefore unpredictable.
Originally Posted By danyoung CNN just finished an interview with the curator of the park. The female trainer was NOT in the water with the whale. They had just finished a training session, and the whale had responded beautifully. She was on the shore, patting him on the head, when her ponytail flipped around and tickled him in the face. This freaked him out, and the rest followed. The curator said that trainers never got in the water with this animal, mostly due to his size - 12 THOUSAND pounds. Very sad.
Originally Posted By trekkeruss <<Cars kill people. Time for everyone to get a bicycle.>> Cars aren't captured and taken from their natural habitat to spend their life swimming in circles in a tiny pool for our amusement.
Originally Posted By DAR Since this whale has killed before(thus living up to its name) isn't time to put it down.
Originally Posted By danyoung The staff at Sea World are incredibly careful about the way they handle this large animal (according to the interview I saw). They never get in the water with him, always look to his moods and try to understand what he wants, never try to force him to do anything he doesn't want to do. That said, he is still a wild animal, and mistakes can happen. The trainer who was killed was the most experienced at handling this whale, yet she still made an error that cost her her life. Sad, but is it the animal's fault for doing what is natural to him? It'll be interesting to follow this situation and see how the staff at Sea World respond and perhaps change their procedures.
Originally Posted By smedley This is really sad indeed. Something that hasn't been mentioned (as sad as it is) is that the second person that was killed actually hid in the park and made his own way into the tank with this whale he had no knowledge of or training to deal with? Still a terrible thing to happen, but solely the fault of the whale? I read somewhere else that her ponytail had hit the whale in his face and that's what triggered the behaviour? I will watch with interest for the official line as much as it may be.
Originally Posted By Mr X ***Since this whale has killed before(thus living up to its name) isn't time to put it down.*** Are you sure, DAR? Maybe we should torture it first. <---thinks it sucks that people keep such creatures in captivity in TOTALLY less than adequate tanks...also thinks they should release that poor creature into the wild where it belongs...successful release programs for long term captives have happened in the past.
Originally Posted By dshyates With what we now know about this attack, I don't really think that you can chalk it up to instinctual behavior. He got irritated with the trainer, swam around in a big circle obviously aggitated and came up on the platform. He then grabbed the trainer shook her violent (so hard it shook off one of her neoprene booties) then dragged her into the water and drowned her. It was an intentional violent attack. Not a simple mistake of thinking she was a seal. Sorry to say, but I think it may be time to euthanize this particular animal.
Originally Posted By Mr X ***Sad, but is it the animal's fault for doing what is natural to him?*** Of course not. Did that Killer Whale go crazy? Hardly. That Killer Whale went Killer Whale.
Originally Posted By trekkeruss <<The staff at Sea World are incredibly careful about the way they handle this large animal (according to the interview I saw). They never get in the water with him>> The trainers were instructed to not get into the water because of the previous deaths. Regardless of that, they are treating these animals as pets...what was the point of her hugging or rubbing Tilikum's belly? There is none, except because they think that if they love them enough, everything will be fine and dandy. The shows merely help to perpetuate this cycle of "love." Indeed, the sister of the trainer has said that the reason the trainer pursued that career is because she saw a whale show as a child and it became her dream to do the same thing.
Originally Posted By bloona Very very sad... Ive seen eye whitness interviews on the Tv today...must have been terrifying for all watching, my heart goes out to everyone involved, especially her family. She was doing a job she loved and was passionate about, I guess thats one small ray of light here
Originally Posted By Mr X “the vast majority of the orca whales in captivity would be far better off to be returned to the wild. Orcas are unbelievably ill-suited to life in theme parks and can be successfully returned to the wild. We know, because we have done it,” says David Phillips, director of the International Marine Mammal Project for the Earth Island Institute, who led the effort to rescue, rehabilitate, and release the killer whale Keiko, made famous in the movie “Free Willy.” “Orcas deserve a better fate than living in cramped pools. Mr. Phillips recalls that Keiko went from languishing in small pool in Mexico City all the way to swimming with wild whales in his native waters in Iceland. He ended up swimming to Norway and living there in a bay with some human care until he died. Phillips says the public would be better served by seeing orcas in the wild and ensuring their protection there. “This isn’t the first time that stressed-out orca whales have injured or killed people, and unfortunately, it is not likely to be the last,” says Phillips. “It is high time that the marine park industry get out of the captive orca business.”
Originally Posted By Mr X "While some reports have been portraying Tilikum as a particularly aggressive orca, a nearly identical incident involving another killer whale male named Ky occurred in July 2004 at the San Antonio SeaWorld. Trainer Steve Aibel, like Brancheau, was pulled underwater by the whale, which also attempted to bite, but Aibel walked away uninjured. He later blamed Ky's "adolescent hormones" for the episode."
Originally Posted By bloona Im still unsure..I see it says that this was the largest killer whale at Sea World...is this the one they bring out at the end of the shows and introduce as Shamu?..the one with the very floppy dorsal fin?
Originally Posted By Mr X No. This was not a "show" animal at all. It was purchased after its' first kill only as a stud. SeaWorld used the animal to sire 13 or so offspring. In the meantime, it killed another human being who hid in the park and climbed into the tank after hours (there's a Darwin award for ya!). Why the trainers or anyone else was anywhere near it is beyond comprehension. It was a known killer, and yeah...that's what they do.
Originally Posted By Mr X A floppy dorsal fin, by the way, is a sign of stress...it means they are constantly swimming around in circles. <---I vow, right here and right now, to never patronize another marine mammal theme park. Honestly and truly, they should all be closed down!
