Whale Attack Renews Captive Animal Debate

In an election to fill former Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, D-Ariz., congressional seat, Democratic candidate Ron Barber, right, celebrates a victory with Giffords, left, as he gives her a hug prior to speaking to supporters at a post election event, Tuesday, June 12, 2012, in Tucson, Ariz. Gabrielle Giffords' former district director, in a special election for the seat Giffords left in January to focus on her recovery from a gunshot wound to her head during a gunman's shooting spree a year earlier.(AP Photo/Ross D. Franklin, pool) / Ross D. Franklin

Rocky, a 700-pound grizzly considered one of the most gentle animals of all Hollywood's performing beasts, bites down on the neck of a veteran trainer. Illusionist Roy Horn is severely mauled by a show tiger during a Las Vegas performance. An elephant at an Indonesian tourist resort tramples its longtime handler to death.

And now the latest - a 40-year-old trainer at SeaWorld Orlando is drowned by a killer whale named Tilikum, an incident that raises anew the question of whether some beasts, especially the biggest ones, have any business being tamed to entertain.

Descriptions of Tilikum, the 22-foot orca which has now killed two trainers, inevitably come around to his intimidating size.

WKMG: Watch Trainer with Tilikum Before Attack

At nearly six tons, the bull bought for breeding is a giant among killer whales, the largest in captivity.

"Humans trying to incarcerate orcas or elephants or any type of large brain or large society species, it's proven it doesn't work," said Mark Berman, associate director at the environmental group Earth Island Institute in Berkeley, California. "They're just too big."

No animals were meant to entertain humans, he said.

In fact, an investigation by California's workplace safety office into a 2006 attack by an orca on a trainer at SeaWorld's San Diego park initially reported that it was only a matter of time before a trainer was killed. That trainer escaped with a broken foot.

However, after objections from SeaWorld that the office had no place offering opinions that a trainer's death was inevitable, the workplace safety officials rescinded the report and apologized. They noted its investigation required expertise it didn't have.

Former SeaWorld head trainer Thad Lacinak says captive killer whales serve as ambassadors of the species to educate the public and help protect them in the wild.

"These animals are invaluable in terms of what we can learn from them. And you cannot learn about killer whales through a pair of binoculars," Lacinak said.

Using killer whales to perform, or displaying animals at zoos, brings them to life for the public, he said, something that watching the Discovery Channel just can't do.

"We know for a fact that people do not learn in static conditions. They learn from these animals when they are entertained by them," Lacinak said. "That's just how people learn. They don't learn when they're bored ... They have a greater appreciation of the animals when they walk out." Lacinak also stated the obvious - that trainers know their jobs are inherently dangerous but take the risks because they believe they're outweighed by the rewards.

Orlando SeaWorld trainer Dawn Brancheau was rubbing Tilikum from a poolside platform on Wednesday when the whale reached up, grabbed her ponytail and dragged her underwater. She died from multiple traumatic injuries and drowning.

Killer whales are the largest of the dolphin species. They are extremely intelligent and the most efficient predators in the sea. Some say killer whales are just too smart to be penned in pools that can bore them and possibly lead to trouble.

"Orcas are simply too big, too complex, too intelligent to be adequately accommodated in captivity," said Naomi Rose, a marine mammal scientist with the Humane Society of the United States. "The tanks are always going to be too featureless, too small. ... The number of incidents where trainers have been injured is much greater than most people know. They aren't all reported."

Orcas in the wild can travel up to 100 miles (160 kilometers) in a day and thousands of miles in a lifetime in the ocean, where they are generally harmless to humans, said Howard Garrett, co-founder and director of the Washington-based nonprofit Orca Network.

"In their natural habitat, there is no record of any harm to a human anywhere," Garrett said. "You cannot say that about elephants or wolves or any other highly evolved social mammal, and that really is extraordinary."

Even in captivity, orcas rarely attack out of aggression, Lacinak said, adding that they are usually cases of a killer whale trying to play with a trainer.

"It was not a bloodthirsty attack," Lacinak said of the recent incident at SeaWorld.

He said the whale likely saw the trainer's ponytail as a toy, then dragged the woman into the water and turned it into a game.

Gary Wilson, a professor at Moorpark College in California, the country's only school where students can learn to train marine mammals, believes that interacting with animals in the wild would be better, but that's not possible for most people.

"If it was a perfect world we wouldn't need to have any animals in captivity, but the reality is in order to learn about these animals and to actually ensure their survival in the wild, we need to have them in captivity so we can study them and people can learn to appreciate them," Wilson said. "If SeaWorld didn't have dolphins and whales in captivity, there would be many fewer people in the world that even cared about them at all."

More on SeaWorld Tragedy:
Tears Flow as Whale Shows Resume
Whale, Trainer Play on Film Before Attack
SeaWorld Defends Killer Whale
SeaWorld: The Show Must Go On
Ex-SeaWorld Official: Trainer Made Mistake
Dawn Brancheau's Last Moments Alive
SeaWorld Trainer Embraced Risks of Job
SeaWorld Dives into Damage Control
Trainer Has "No Fear" of Killer Whales
Tilikum Trainer Had to be Pulled From Jaws
Does Killer Whale Need a Lawyer?
SeaWorld Staff Saw Tilikum as Dangerous
What Caused Killer Whale to Attack?

[rwsmith29456]

"Former SeaWorld head trainer Thad Lacinak says captive killer whales serve as ambassadors of the species to educate the public and help protect them in the wild." Although this sounds good, I don't think it's a valid reason for protecting anything. It's like saying, "I'm going to throw this hand grenade to educate the public that they shouldn't handle hand grenades." Everybody knows it's the explosion they want to see and will pay to see it. At shows like Sea World they throw in a few facts to call it education. The real reason for capturing and making orcas or other big animal perform is that people will pay to see them.

[newsterl]

Geez put perspective on this!!! this country has over 305 MILLION mouths in it, the story lists exactly FOUR incidents in this country in a number of years and Horn is alive.

More people probably die from infections from cuts caused by dirty can openers in that many years.
32,000 die on the freeways and highways a year, what? 3 people die from wild animal attacks, which is a real serious issue that needs legislation??

[displeased]

"We know for a fact that people do not learn in static conditions. They learn from these animals when they are entertained by them," Lacinak said.


I disagree. When observing animals in a zoo or aquarium, people learn how the animals behave while in confinement. When observing animals doing tricks, people learn those animals are capable of doing tricks. We are talking entertainment here, not quality education.

[helloall34]

I agree. The claim is that if I see something in a zoo I am more likely to empathize. Very wrong...

It is why on any day of the week you can find people chasing after bears in the wild in order to take pictures of them (this is very common at national parks). The parks are around to entertain and profit, claims of "research" at zoos are BS. There is research, but it BS research.

[jchenn]

Gotta agree here that most animals are totally unsuitable for entertaining humans. Most dogs, small cats, birds, sure. Tigers, bears and killer whales? C'mon. Sooner or later someone is going to get hurt. But no matter what you say, or what happens, these animal shows sell tickets and there is always a steady stream of biologist and handlers that feel that "special bond". And sooner or later these individuals pay dearly for forgetting the animals are indeed wild.

[Empire-George-]

by countrycuz1 March 1, 2010 1:32 PM EST

I tell ya....I couldn't believe how many time a journalist began the news last week with the opening line-"Authorities are still puzzled as to what caused the killer whale to attack its trainer!"
_____________

why are you surprised they would open their stories with that headline ? after all, most Orcas are not a threat to humans whatsoever, either in captivity or in the wild, so it is puzzling what caused the whale to attack.

[Empire-George-]

by thadius5 March 1, 2010 11:53 AM EST

What do people not understand about the word "Killer" next to the word "Whale?!?!
_____________________

Apparently, YOU DON'T understand.....the application of the word killer, in front of whales, doesn't describe the whale as a killer, or more likely to kill people, fish, etc.....the term is used because of their place in the food chain, they are an apex predator and top of the food chain....it isn't because they kill, kill often and are named because of it...no

[myeyedea]

I disagree with the trainer that animals, in particular the orcas, are needed in captivity because that's where humans learn best about them. Orcas have been in captive, entertainment venues for dozens of years and they are still threatened in the wild - that is to say, over dozens of years, literally MILLIONS of people have seen these animals and then gone on to the next show, or the next ride, and lived their lives without another thought about saving the orcas. Humans do learn best by interacting, but experiences that have an highly emotional charge, like fear, make the most potent impressions on human beings - and when people get all that's holy scared out of them, they're not inclined to support or appreciate what scared them that badly. An animal attack reaches out and infiltrates the human psyche unlike any amount of entertaining, educational demonstration, and each time an attack happens, the damage control needed to revitalize a comfort and interest in that animal might be too great.

I've never liked zoos, and have always thought the only reason an animal should be in captivity is if it cannot survive in the wild. Giving an animal a fractional percentage of the terrirtory that it would normally roam in the wild, confining it with multiple others of its kind when it's usually a solitary creature, making it experience weather and temperatures it hasn't evolved to endure, is just setting that creature up for some kind of reactionary behavior. And out of those millions of people that have come and gone to see Shamu and all the others trapped in these entertainment facilities, what impacts people the most are animal attacks. Sometimes, not bringing an animal indoors to make a pet out of it, is the best thing that can be done to help protect it.

[6591Hou]

Making wild animals do stunts for our amusement has no scientific value and is a throwback to the Roman Games. In an aquarium or zoo you can see the animal go about it's business a lot closer to a natural environment than making it balance beach balls on it's nose.

[lmartink]

I couldn't agree with you more. As the human-generated mass extinction sweeps the planet, training these apex predators to perform tricks is horribly sick. It begs the question, how messed up are we?

Zoos and other facilities may provide a reservior of species to re-populate the wild -- if we ever gat that far. But that's a lot different than training predators to perform.

I liked your reference to the Romans. That was 2,000 years ago, and our civilization has obviously made very little progress.

[thadius5]

What do people not understand about the word "Killer" next to the word "Whale?!?!

[lilbear925]

Wild animals are being exploited strictly for financial gain by their captors. Wild animals have no place in the entertainment business, as they would have come up with it on their own if they were meant to be there. It is way past time to release all performing wild animals back into the wild, or put them in zoos if they are incapable of making a living in the wild. The ONLY people who would be adversely affected are the people who are currently making money by forcing these wild animals to perform. The animals don't get the money. People get the money in the name of entertainment. You never see a performing animal in the wild. It is all contrived by people, but note that these animals are intelligent enough to do tricks, which proves they don't need to be incaptivity.

[myopinionpal]

Remember the movie planet of the apes, humans were the one in cages and the apes were the ones with the key to the cage.