I grew up a close 2.5 hours from Sea World Orlando most of my life. So it would seem unheard of to have never gone to Sea World as a child or an adult for that matter. So this past summer while making the road trip up to NY we stopped in Orlando to visit my sister and use the free passes Sea World was offering to the Military and their families. I was excited to finally see the killer whales and ride the Manta coaster. Immediately after we sat in the stoned Shamu Stadium for the show I did feel the sense of being a small fish in a big pond. I was not only proved right…it was magnified when the show began and my first sighting of the orcas took my breath away. They are magnificent…beautiful, social, smart and being grand in size is an understatement.
I took several pictures and some video of these amazing creatures like the rest of the crowd. I watched as each whale was gated in and out of the main arena pool. I felt overwhelmed by what all the orcas had to offer, jumps, flips, poses, perfectly timed waving splash downs, and the responsive behavior so witty and sweet.
The majority of what they were displaying was due to the line of trainers standing along the stage. I could see the relationships that each had with “their” whale was heartfelt and seemed like they had trained these whales all their life. But somehow, it still felt wrong to see think how these whales day in and day out perform for free while being gawked at with no say…just as in the circus, or even in worst case scenarios such as dog fighting. All in all, animal trafficking if you will….
My friend Christie had passed on how she watched CNN’s Blackfish, a documentary based mostly on Tilikum, the largest orca held in captivity and held at Sea World Orlando, and the overall disgrace of holding orcas in captivity. I immediately wanted to see it, so I searched for it on cable and DVR’d it. From the second it started, my eyes were glued to the screen. The first part was spent talking about how orcas were hunted in the 70’s. Grown men were sobbing recalling the “job” they were hired to do and how they quickly realized what they were actually doing…ripping these emotional, intelligent, families of orcas apart. Taking the babies, tricking the mothers, hearing the cries as they lifted them out of the water to ship off to Canada’s Sealand. Tilikum was one of these whales as well as Keiko (the Free Willy whale). Sealand closed because most say it did not have the know how to handle these orcas or their unpredictable attacks. Tilikum was shipped off to Sea World Orlando. Now, as a child and adult I had heard about trainers being injured and some killed by the whales. The reaction from these marine parks were always the same, the trainer had a misstep or the routine slipped causing the orca to lash out….AKA, trainer error.
As the documentary flows, prior trainers of Sea World recall their relationships with their orca; genuine, loving, a true kinship. They loved the orcas, but they also learned their relationship was not what was important, it was getting them to performance ready. No questions, no answers, no real intel on whale/trainer incidents that were continuing on other sister parks.
‘A lack of detailed information was the norm whenever accidents happened at other parks,’ said a former trainer, John Jett. ‘I remember one incident when all of us were pulled from water work for a short time. To this day, I don’t know what happened.’
The big scandal involving Tilly was when he had his third encounter with the death of a trainer…Dawn Brancheau.
Dawn was a senior trainer and respected by all in the marine community. In 2010, her beloved orca Tilikum dragged her into the water, scalped and dismembered her during a small dinner show. It’s chilling to watch parts of the video during the documentary and commentating are the prior trainers, all of who knew and loved Dawn and the orcas. Play by play, they explain how Tilikum did not hear a whistle command, therefore he proceeded to perform a strenuous and lengthy waving behavior again with no positive reinforcement in between. Being incredibly intelligent, Tilly also knew the fish bucket in which rewards him was running low. This is when things turn unpredictable for any orca. It seems as if Dawn knows the break in routine coupled with the hard work of the day, is cause for concern. The video then shows Dawn having a comforting moment with Tilly, when the unthinkable happens.
This shocked the public yet again causing legal action against Sea World once more. Sea World’s response…
“Only once in history has a killer whale killed a human,” I wrote. “That incident, in which Tillikum, a captive whale in British Columbia, pinned his trainer to the pool bottom, drowning her, is generally deemed to have been horseplay, just a misunderstanding, a simple failure of the whale to appreciate the difference between human breath-hold capacity and his own.” (National Geograohic)
So why not release Tilikum? Why continue to take the risk? Tilly came back to the shows in 2011, stepping in to make a very brief appearance and then back to the confining pool for the rest of the 20 or so hours left in a day. The trainers seem to know why…Tilikum was too important to the Sea World execs. After all, Tilikum’s sperm is worth more than any performance. It all comes down to money and breeding. No matter the cost. What’s equally tragic is the fact that these animals cannot thrive in the menial conditions in which they live. They cannot socialize with their families, they cannot avoid the emotional stress and they cannot sustain predictable behavior as clearly seen with the previous attacks and in Blackfish. I encourage everyone to see this documentary and stop fueling the executives that only care about getting rich off of selling Shamu to the public…a Shamu that does not exist and does not want to be exploited.
The orcas are amazing…and happy in their natural habitat.
We saw Tilly this summer, before we knew what kind of life he had lived, before we knew the blood on his fins, and before we knew how truly sad he must have been.
Needless to say, we won’t be funneling any time or money into Sea World in our future. Please see Blackfish….check your local listings on CNN. The trailer breaks it down so well.
Save Tilly….Save the Whales!
XOXO, Di
Di on Display 