On February 24th, Dawn Brancheau, an Orca trainer at Sea World in Orlando, was dragged into the whale pool during a show by her braid by a killer whale named, Tilikum. Brancheau is the third trainer this whale has killed, and people are begining to wonder if the whale had intended to kill her, and his two other trainers, because it does not want to be kept in captivity.
Tilikum swam up to his trainer and bit down on her braided hair and pulled her underneath the water and swam around with her aggressively, making it impossible for other trainers to come in and help her. The whale was originally from a Sea World park in Canada and was transferred to Orlando only temporarily to recieve medical treatment that was unavailable in Canada. The medical condition Tilikum was in need of treatment for remains unknown.
According to Billy Hurley, cheif of animals at the world's largest aquarium, the Georgia Aquarium, if a killer whale wants your attention it will try to get it by any means neccessary, and this is why he believes he dragged Brancheau into the tank. His theory is that she was not looking or focusing directly on him, but rather on the audience, and when he wanted her attention he dragged her in.
Unfortunatly we may never know if this Orca is really capable of premeditated murder; however, I don't believe it was a coincidence that he's already killed twice before.
I can understand where you and others are coming from about the fact that he has killed twice before.. but I just don't think he did it intentionally. If he wanted to intentionally kill then he would have just done it right away, and I feel there would have been many others killed as well. It is just an animal so he wouldn't be thinking that he should wait awhile before attacking. I think that Billy Hurley could have been right in saying that the animal just wanted attention, because being so big he may have not known he was drowning her or killing her. I guess no one will ever know though...
ReplyDeleteI watched this on the news, but had missed the part where he had already killed twice before. I want to know if his other killings were before or after he was diagnosed with some kind of medical problem. On the news, they said that they thought the trainer's braid may have looked like something else to the whale. But, I wonder if his medical condition has something to do with his dangerous behavior. This truly is a sad story, but I don't fully understand why anyone would want to work with KILLER whales!!
ReplyDeleteThis is why we shouldn't keep these intelligent wild animals in captivity!
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