Seaworld Killer Whale
 

Was just interested on everyone's opinion on the sad accident in Seaworld, Florida, when a trainer got killed by a whale. Sad though it is, am I the only person thinking they could have been more careful? I mean, "killer" whale? Wonder how it happened...

budump tch.

I think the whale deserves capital punishment. That'll teach him to perform better.

N ofuck yuoui Pilot you copck.

I thin whales should live free! It's whjt nature is all about!

Yp the whales buitch

The trainer was standing in a pool of knee high water when the killerwhale grabbed her by the hair/arm [I've seen two versions by two news sites], thrashed her about and then pulled her under the water, eventually drowning her.

The killer whale [Tillikum] who killed the trainer has also killed/been linked to the deaths of two other people.

One guy sneaked in past security and was found in Tillikum's pool, but they couldn't figure out if he'd fallen, jumped or been pulled. And Tillikum and two other killerwhales pulled another trainer under the water during a show.

Eventhough it's been aggressive in the past, Seaworld have/are keeping him because he wouldn't survive in the wild. Although now, they probably won't use him in shows.

It sounds awful, but I think that horrific as it is, these things happen. If you work with large, captive animals, you work with the risk that sometimes things go wrong. If I was a lion tamer, I may trust the lion not to maul me to death. But I wouldn't expect that accidents may not happen.

- Rexy

I wonder if anybody filmed it.

Apparantly it was at the beginning of a Shamu show. So it'll probably be up on youtube soon enough.

- Rexy

I love how they'll refer to these animals as "orcas" until they kill someone, then it's back to "killer whales."

These cetaceans are predators. They have conical teeth, used for shredding flesh and hooking prey. Have you SEEN the way orcas kill sea lions? Brutally.

Maybe it thought her hair was a sea lion. Heh.

Or maybe it was pissed off at being treated like an animal.

This reminds me of the Carl Hiaasen novel Native Tongue, in which a subplot is a vicious orca (sold from theme park to theme park, covering up the truth and changing the whale's identity each time) who is the process by which the bad guy disposes of a few undesirables.

One of the bad guys ends up drowned whilst raped by horny dolphins. It's a much better book than it sounds.

Uh.. raped by dolphins?




Raped by dolphins?

It's a known problem with captive dolphins. I have been told by my marine biologist friends that male dolphins will attempt to have sex with anything in their tank; toys, food, male and female humans, even other male dolphins.

Like that?

The name comes fom "killer of whales", since that is what they are known to do.

Intelligent animals are almost always active predators, usually because it is required of them to be so (the only exceptions I can think of are parrots, corvids and baleen whales). As a result, species capable of high intelligence and socialibility (with humans or not) are also capable of some of the most horrific cruelties (not always with an intended meal at the end of it). But we still think it safe to leave our childen with other humans.

We've noticed that in wild dolphins too. Well, not so much food and toys.

Sounds like it could have made a good basis for a James Bond movie.

You must not have seen many Bond movies.

I'm mainly remembering License to Kill, which had sharks eating the legs off Bond's friend early on. So having an entire movie's worth of that kind of stuff would be interesting.

Stick a plot about flash cloning in there, and you could call it "20,000 Bonds under the Sea".

If there's a man-whore in it, you could call it "Free Willy".

The new script of Free Willy 6;

"Yay, Go Willy go! You're Free! You're Fr---"
(sound of an orca screaming in rage, followed by crunching sounds and blood everywhere) (cut to the orca which is now laughing)

Also, I guess people will go back to using "Killer Whale" again. Anyone want to french kiss a Black Mamba snake?

Edit: I think it was awful that this happened in the first place. Nature is very unpredictable however. One day, a dog can be nice to you... another day it might bite you without provocation. Animals are first and foremost, opportunists.

I'm getting sick of people saying that the woman deserved it. Would they say the same if it was somebody they knew, or if they knew the woman was a devoted mother?

I don't think she deserved it, often these people are very very dedicated to these animals and would never harm them. However people often forget that Orca's can be considered the tigers of marine animals when it comes to show animals.

And by that I mean that yes, they are very smart and yes they can be very affectionate but they remain wild animals who can turn on you in a split second. Yet for some reason land based animals are considered a lot more dangerous then their marine counterparts.

I'm no marine mammal expert but in my opinion any trainer should be able to see a change in mood with their animal so they are warned about such behavior in advance. For example, I would never get into a cage with a tiger, no matter how well trained he is, if I see he's having a bad day. If such behavioral changes are not present in marine mammals to begin with it makes for a very very dangerous situation because each time you get in the tank with them you take a leap of faith.

So no, she didn't deserve it, but it might have been her own fault for not paying enough attention before the show. Or it might have been the fault of her superiors who want the show to go on despite her warnings. Doing so would go without problems 9 times but the 10th time would be the fatal one.

I see where you're coming from, but you've got to bear in mind that very few people live in the ocean. Being killed by land mammal is more likely because they're on land. Higher death rates mean more reports, and a more bloody reputation for the species.

Yeah but you're talking about the chance of it happening in nature. Like a bear wandering in someones backyard.

When you work with these animals in captivity you should know the risks that come with that particular animal. What happens in nature has nothing to do with that.

It's been known for a long time that Orca's are potentially very dangerous. This isn't the first incident with an orca, nor will it be the last. Hell, even in the movie Free Willy the danger of being such close friends with the orca was a big part of the story. In the 'making of' they even explained that extreme caution was taken to insure nothing would happen and that the trainers had the final word in everything.

So not knowing they are dangerous isn't really an excuse. It's just that somehow people tend to forget certain animals can be dangerous because they haven't seen them violent in their natural surroundings. You see lions shred zebras to pieces on National Geographic all the time. How many times do you see an orca shredding up a dolphin?

A lot of times, and seals. I agree with you, that just wasn't the best example.

I think that MeechMunchie was just talking about the animal's general reputation, not about the specialist's view.

EDIT: MeechMunchie's too quick for me.

That's correct.

And I was trying to point out that the specialist's view is what counts when performing shows with these animals, since it's not the average Joe swimming with them in that basin. :p

Orcas have never killed anyone in the wild (at least according to existing records). One tried briefly to flush a film cew from an ice flow, possibly because the barking sled dogs sounded like seals, and another bumped a child splashing in the shallows off Alaska (probably the safest part of such an activity), realising it wasn't prey at the last minute.

The thing is, dolphin shows are pretty vile, but their exposure there is probably responsible for the orca not being a threatened species today.

However, orcas that survive infancy live on average 50 years in the wild (one was known from 1840 to 1930), but usually survive only to their twenties in captivity. It's the health equivalent of sending a person to the gulag.

The dolphin sex Nate was talking about is really disturbing to me, but about the 'killer whale' I think the woman most likely didn't deserve it but it's likely that something like that would happen with an orca.