Posted on 02/24/2010 4:18:50 PM PST by JoeProBono
Experienced whale trainer Dawn Brancheau died in an incident at SeaWorld Orlando on Wednesday afternoon while working with a killer whale. Facts about killer whales such as those found at the Orlando theme park include:
•Tillikum (nicknamed Tilly), the whale involved in Wednesday's death at SeaWorld Orlando, is considered the largest orca in captivity, weighing in at nearly 12,000 pounds. He has lived at the Orlando theme park since 1992.
•" Shamu" is merely a stage name that SeaWorld parks use for any adult whale — male or female — in a park show.
•Adult killer whales at SeaWorld parks eat from 140 to 240 pounds of food — mostly fish — per day.
•Newborn calves are about 8 feet long and weigh between 265 and 350 pounds.
•When SeaWorld's "Believe" show had its Orlando debut in 2007, trainers were said to have incorporated 60 separate behaviors from subtle maneuvers to the trainers launching from atop the surging whales' beaks.
•Killer whales are found in both the Atlantic and Pacific oceans.
•Life expectancy for a male killer whale in the wild is about 30 years. For females, it's 50 years.
(Excerpt) Read more at orlandosentinel.com ...
I KNEW they were dolphins....they look NOTHING like whales.
That’s because Polar Bears are WHITE!
I believe the ‘’whale’’ moniker is misnamed because they’re usually seen in the company of real whales, like the Grey Whale, the Blue Whale and Humpbacks and early sea explorers and sailors assumed that’s what they were. “”Killer Whales’’ are following these real whales because the “Killers’’ are hunting them. Actually they’re after the calves.
It is well known that Orca attacks on humans (at least, known attacks) are so rare as to be practically non-existent, though Orcas could very, very easily sink a boat and chow-down on its occupants any time they damn well please. But they don't, not even the "rogue" Orcas that eat seals instead of fish -- at least, they don't attack in a way that any witnesses are around to report it. A 3rd generation diver told me once of an incident in which he connected the mysterious disappearance of two kayakers with odd behavior of a couple of Orcas that he and a friend witnessed the same day, and in the same area, as the kayakers' disappearnce; Fish N Game blamed the deaths on Great Whites, but to his dying day, the diver never bought it for an instant. And he would know -- he, his father, and his grandfather had all made their livings daily in close proximity to both Orcas and Great Whites; they didn't have any illusions about the animals because if they did, they'd have been DEAD.
And Orcas, to my knowledge, haven't ever attacked commercial fishermen in a way that any Mayday calls of being attacked by Orcas get out to fellow fishermen. It simply doesn't happen, and WHY it doesn't happen is food for thought.
There is ZERO WAY IN HELL that this was misguided play. It was deliberate.
Good post
Most don’t understand an Apex predator.
Very few out there
Killer Whales
Some Wolves
Some Felines
Bears Polar, maybe Griz
Humans
He seems like a nice guy, kind of playful and harmless. The minute you forget what he is, Obama puts his teeth into you and pulls you under the water.
That may be true, but has nothing to do with keeping mammals in captivity.
I hope you are not making a case for keeping wild animals in captivity with that comment.
They are whales and they KILL... what more do we need to know?
They are whales and they KILL... what more do we need to know?
the attractions pay for the work to save all those other animals.
They have used that trick to virtually eradicate seal populations worldwide.
Sorry, when I read the first sentence of your post, I thought you were referring to the half-white, half-black aspect.
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/whales/debate/trainers.html
On February 20, 1991, University of Victoria marine biology student and part-time trainer Keltie Byrne, 20, slipped and fell into the orca pool at Sealand of the Pacific. She had just finished a show with the three orcas. Since Sealand trainers stay out of the water, she was not wearing a wetsuit. One whale took her in its mouth and began dragging her around the pool, mostly underwater. A champion swimmer who had competed at the international level, she was no match for three huge orcas determined to keep her in the pool. At one point she reached the side and tried to climb out but, as horrified visitors watched from the sidelines, the whales pulled her screaming back into the pool.
“I just heard her scream my name,” said trainer Karen McGee, 25, and then I saw she was in the pool with the whales. “I threw the life-ring out to her. She was trying to grab the ring, but the whale, basically, wouldn’t let her. To them it was a play session, and she was in the water.” McGee and other Sealand staff tried to distract the whales by throwing them fish, banging on the water with steel buckets and giving them hand and voice commands. Nothing worked. Byrne came up screaming one more time and then, as the whale swam round and round the pool with Byrne in its mouth, she finally drowned. It was several hours before her body could be recovered.
She had ten tooth marks on her body, the largest on her left thigh, but was otherwise untouched. The whales had stripped her clothes off. “It was just a tragic accident,” Sealand manager Alejandro Bolz told newspaper reporters. “I just cannot explain it.”
The broad spectrum vegetarian diet is probably what gives the rest of us Type II. It's clear that if all we ate were animals we'd not have any problems. Modern Sa'ami, for example, still stick to a meat (fish/reindeer) and lingon berry diet, and the further they get from Western vegetarianism the healthier they are. Same with Eskimos, and Chugchi.
Died doing what she loved? That is rediculous, this KILLER WHALE pulled her into the water and thrashed her about like in the begining of JAWS and killed her dead. She is in eternity because men thought they could turn KILLER whales into entertainment.
Headline: “Top of the Food Chain Predator Eats; Clueless are Shocked!”
Wow, not a fun way to go.
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