By Dan Wilson
Who’s to blame?
An orca - amusement parks like Marineland and SeaWorld choose to write them off as "killer whales" - in the ocean where it belongs. Photo courtesy of Web Free Pictures at www.webfreepictures.com
Last week’s death of SeaWorld trainer Dawn Brancheau was both tragic and preventable, and should come as no surprise. This isn’t the first time a captive orca has attacked or killed a trainer, nor is it the first time Tilikum has killed a human being.
In 1991, he and two other orcas – Nootka IV and Haida II – participated in the drowning death of Keltie Byrne, a 20-year-old University of Victoria marine biology student and part-time trainer at Victoria’s Sealand of the Pacific marine park. Byrne had slipped and fallen into the orca pool. Tilikum grabbed her with his teeth and dragged her around the pool, holding her underwater for some time.
At one point Keltie, a champion swimmer, broke free and tried to climb out of the tank but all three whales took turns pulling her back in. The girl died as Tilikum held her underwater in his mouth. Sealand closed the next year and the whales were sold off to other marine parks.
Over the years, SeaWorld trainers in the United States have sustained numerous injuries while performing with orcas, including bites during feedings, ruptured kidneys, lacerated livers, fractured bones, and near drowning. People have even been injured at our own Marineland of Canada in Niagara Falls. In 1986, an orca dragged a trainer around the pool by his leg after he fell into the water during a stunt and an 11-year-old girl required four stitches to close a wound on her thumb after a beluga bit her during a petting session in 2000.
In a 2004 report to the United States Marine Mammal Commission (MMC), the University of California found that captive animals had injured more than half (52%) of marine mammal workers.
So why are people still permitted to interact with large, wild, potentially dangerous animals? Continue reading
