Posted on 02/26/2010 5:36:59 AM PST by JoeProBono
ORLANDO, Fla. (AP) -- The former boss of a trainer drowned by a killer whale in Orlando says he believes the attack was triggered by the trainer's mistake.
Thad Lacinak (lah-CIN'-ick), a former head trainer at SeaWorld, told ABC's "Good Morning America" on Friday that he has seen video of the moments preceding the fatal attack Wednesday. He said he believes trainer Dawn Brancheau (bran-CHOH') made a mistake by letting her ponytail drift in the water in front of the killer whale.
Lacinak says the killer whale grabbed the ponytail in his mouth and pulled her in the water.
Lacinak says Brancheau, if she were alive, would acknowledge it was her mistake......
(Excerpt) Read more at hosted.ap.org ...
I wonder when he was captured? If he had lived in the ocean for 10-12 years before capture I’d return him to the ocean. It used to be thought good to have animals in zoos because the public never got a chance to observe them. Today they are all over the TV (Nature, Public Broadcasting, animal planet, etc.) We don’t need them to be in zoos for the public to view or scientists to study. If they are endangered then programs in a truly natural environment should be used.
I think our “need,’ for zoos is over.
Captured near Iceland in November 1983, Tilikum “was housed in small tanks from the beginning,” said Blake. SeaWorld Orlando acquired the whale in January 1992, and put him in a breeding program shortly thereafter.
So, the question is, how old was he when captured? He has been in captivity a long time. But, was he in the wild long enough before capture to make it on his own?
Keiko was young when captured and never really acquired the total skill to survive in the wild. They tried and tried with some success.
So what’s in a name? They’re highly intelligent animals who are very capable killers....of their target prey. Look it up. Look at what they hunt in the wild.
Humans aren’t on the menu.
I wish more here would learn just a bit about these critters (I happen to be a huge “fan” of them) rather than spouting trite phrases based upon their unfortunate common name and likening them to lions, tigers, etc., and falling onto the tired bromide of “gee, he was just doing what God programmed him to do”.
This one’s just a mean sumbitch who has no business being around people.
I’ll be you and others would have a totally different tune here if the munched one in this case was some little girl from the audience petting the cute killer whale. How’d you feel then?
WHO RANG THE DINNER BELL......YUMMY WHITE GIRL TODAY.
So Tilly’s basically a big kid at heart. A very big, very strong kid.
THEY captured HIM. THEY brought HIM into the human world, rather than allowing him to live in his own environment, where killer whales do not attack people for food.
Perhaps he is pissed that he is living in a swimming pool, and he is attempting to get that point across. He is not JAWS, for crying out loud.
What makes it worse is that this whale has killed three people, and yet they will continue to keep him, rather than free him, because he is worth too much money to them as a breeder.
I agree. The trainers mistake was forgeting she weighed under 200 lbs. and the Critter weighed over 4000 lbs. and if it decided to thump the trainer then its game over before you can say "Free Willy"...
My opinion would be that the parent of that child is an idiot.
Kinda like a story a couple of years ago about a teenage girl getting her grad photos taken with a tiger. She squealed, he killed her. Good idea, mom!!!!
Tiger's fault? Nope.
Whale's fault? Nope.
Any human who interacts with any wild animal is knowingly putting themselves at risk, and apparently it is a risk they are willing to take. Hell, even an "adorable, harmless" kangaroo can kill a grown man.
People are stupid when it comes to this crap.
Yeah, well, great. That’d be one hell of a dose of solace to the parents.
The ratio was probably 140ish to over 12,000! When you are 1% the size of another creature, a bit of extra caution is in order!
Rumor has it Tilikum’s first name is, “Uralive”...
I would feel sorry for the kid, not the parents.
It wasn’t created by God to be stuck in a big bathtub for anyone’s amusement. As with all animals they eat, mate, kill, poop and eat some more. It’s our own arrogance that suggests they can be tamed. We can attach human emotions to them but at our own risk. This woman died “doing what she loved” but what she loved was a dangerous undertaking. I hope this woman’s family takes Sea World through the legal meat grinder for all they have just because they suck. I heard on the radio yesterday the mgr of Sea World stating that they would start the shows again and that “he (Tillikum) will remain part of the team”. I’m sure Tillikum is relieved.
Note to self:
Stop training Orca’s to immediately grab person and dive while thrashing upon command signal of ‘ponytail dangling on surface of water’,...very important.
“This one’s just a mean sumbitch who has no business being around people.”
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I don’t know that he’s mean because it happened in San Diego (circa 1970’s) with a Shamu whale also. Shamu didn’t kill the girl trainer but he did grab her by the leg and drag her down to the bottom of the pool. He was just “playing” with her.
I don’t believe for a minute these whales are trying to kill these trainers. I think they are just showing their natural dominance and superiority in the water.
If the whales wanted to kill, they would bite and eat their victims and that’s not what happened in ANY of these cases.
I have always thought a simple way to prevent these events from ending in tragedy was for the trainers to wear a scuba tank, just in case the whale took them down too long.
Where is OSHA?
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