Tuesday, March 2, 2010
Shamu Whale Kills Trainer
Dawn Brancheau, a whale trainer at Sea World Orlando, was killed by a whale on February 24th, 2010. Tilikum, the whale who killed her, has killed two other times. Once when a man got into the park after hours, and another trainer years ago. The incident happened after an afternoon show with about twenty people who stayed behind after the show to take pictures, watching. She was apparently standing on the front stage when the whale turned around and went at her with full speed. Tilikum grabbed her waist by his mouth and dragged her into the pool. She was thrashed around both above and under water. The other trainers sounded the horn and netted the animal. Once the animal was lifted out of the water, Dawn was still in his mouth. The whale's jaw had to be preyed open to get the body of Dawn Brancheau out of the whale's mouth, she was then covered by a sheet, said an eye wittiness. According to msnbc.com.
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This is such a sad story! I had been following this story a little, but I missed the part where it talked about how the whale had killed before. Why on earth was she still working with this whale if he had killed two other people? That just doesn’t seem right to me. I watched a video that talked about how she was laying on the approach and she was almost taunting the whale by moving her head back and forth causing her ponytail to move about from side to side. No matter what the of the accident was it is an extremely sad story and I hope that Sea World changes its’ policies to prevent incidences like this from happening.
ReplyDeleteI did my blog on this exact story. I agree with Stephanie. Why would a trainer want to be so daring to work with an animal who has killed before? At the same time, why are any marine parks allowing an animal with that kind of violent background to be in the park in the first place? But then you think that Brancheau was a top trainer at the marine park and those are the kind of risks you take with that kind of job - not saying it was her fault. All in the same though - it is a very sad story and I think that something needs to be done about Tilikum.
ReplyDeleteI was just at Sea World in Orlando my senior year of high school. I actually went to the killer whale show. I remember during the show that the whales swam to the bottom of the tank, and the trainers said that they were not cooperating that day. I think that they should be very cautious putting human lives at stake for a show. The media will be all over this story for a long time, because there will be many valuable questions answered in the future about this tragic event.
ReplyDeleteWith kills under Tilikum's record already, the chances of this happening again is likely to me. The whales naturaly instinct is to attack and the is evidance that not matter how much taining a person can do to a wild animal, it still will have its natually instincts to attack. It must have been a horrific thing to watch.
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