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Is Tilikum the first serial killer whale?
The headline seems flippant, but the question is worth asking.
Tilikum, the biggest orca in captivity, has been linked to three human deaths.
The first occurred in 1991 at Sealand of the Pacific in the Victoria suburb of Oak Bay. A trainer, Keltie Byrne, drowned after ending up in the pool with Tilikum and two other whales.
Tilikum was sent to SeaWorld in Orlando over the objection of B.C. animal-rights activists. In 1999, a man who somehow got into Tilikum's pool never got out alive.
And yesterday, an experienced trainer died after ending up in the same pool as Tilikum.
If a human being was put in solitary confinement for nearly 20 years, he or she might feel a little homicidal toward the guards. We don't know if Tilikum has experienced a similar emotion toward his trainers.
But three deaths in 19 years raises some serious questions about the effect of keeping these enormous creatures in relatively small pools.
We phased out keeping orcas in captivity in B.C. several years ago.
SeaWorld Orlando, however, states that it has "every intention of continuing to interact with this animal [Tilikum], though the procedures for working with him will change."
Perhaps this latest tragedy will be the catalyst for campaigns to bring a legislative ban on the practice of keeping orcas in captivity--on both sides of the U.S.-Canada border.
Follow Charlie Smith on Twitter at twitter.com/csmithstraight.
The whale is lashing out at its traumatizers in revenge for its being jailed and traumatized on a daily basis. Tilikum deliberately killed these people, read the detailed reports on the death of Dawn Branchau--a dozen patrons watched in horror as the whale yanked her underwater by the pony tail, then grabbed her torso and shook her like a rag doll underwater, viciously from side to side. (read more here: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100224/ap_on_re_us/us_seaworld_death ).
The whales should all be released back into the ocean, they are being traumatized clearly by these "circus animal" corporate show SeaWorld Oralando is.
These are "wild" animals, and should be allowed to live as they are supposed to.
Time to send the captive Orcas back to their natural enviroments and shut down the seaparks.
Orca whales can swim up to 400 miles per day in the wild. No wonder they snap and go mad when forced to spend their lives swimming around a tiny pool their entire lives.
Orcas are highly intelligent, highly social animals that usually swim about 100km a day in the wild. I don't think that Tillikum meant to kill the trainer, but to play with her and assert his dominance, as orcas do naturally. How is a whale supposed to know that his natural instincts are irrelevant when living in captivity?
Although the headline is flippant, the question is certainly not worth asking. I'm particularly disgusted with how far Tilikum is being personified.
I'm certainly not against anthropomorphism, I'm just as guilty as the next for treating cats and dogs as family members, but In this case, it's dangerous. Putting what should be a wild mammal in captivity and giving it a 'death sentence' (as it is now being suggested by some) because it hasn't followed captivity protocol is unethical.
If you ask me, what Tilikum and other captive orcas have gone through is not all that different to what victims of the African slave trade endured. Kidnapping, bondage, alienation, forced labor. Also, capturing these whales and selling them to Marine parks help to bring them closer to extinction.