seaworld trainer killed

Tousi said:
I am sure it is a safety thing. Nevertheless, I say ship 'em back to Borneo or wherever.......
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Yup. Borneo elephants are tolerant of immigration.
 
Tousi said:
You responding to me? Oh, so they only kill people in pools? :P
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Did you see the news tonight? It turn out the trainer should not had been in the pool with the whale! She was not following rules! And did you see how small the pool is! The whale does not belong in a damn pool! It is the fools fault that took this poor whale and stuck it in a swimming pool! People have no business trying to keep a animal the huge for a pet! I wish PETA would try to free the poor thing! The whale can only take so much stress of being kept in a small pool and not flip out! He did NOT get in the pool with the people, they got in the pool with the whale! The people were fools! Like the fool of a woman that tried to get into the polar bears pools! The bears thought , wow how cool we're getting a live meal and tried to eat the woman! That fool is lucky to still be alive and the polar bears would had done nothing wrong if they did eat the woman! She jumed in during feeding time! Don't you think there something with this picture! A Whale in a pool! It like putting a lion in a cat box!
 
whatdidyousay! said:
Did you see the news tonight? It turn out the trainer should not had been in the pool with the whale! She was not following rules! And did you see how small the pool is! The whale does not belong in a damn pool! It is the fools fault that took this poor whale and stuck it in a swimming pool! People have no business trying to keep a animal the huge for a pet! I wish PETA would try to free the poor thing! The whale can only take so much stress of being kept in a small pool and not flip out! He did NOT get in the pool with the people, they got in the pool with the whale! The people were fools! Like the fool of a woman that tried to get into the polar bears pools! The bears thought , wow how cool we're getting a live meal and tried to eat the woman! That fool is lucky to still be alive and the polar bears would had done nothing wrong if they did eat the woman! She jumed in during feeding time! Don't you think there something with this picture! A Whale in a pool! It like putting a lion in a cat box!
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No. Not PETA. If PETA got their way, no one would be allowed to have a cat or dog.

Let the animal welfare advocates handle this... not some extremists.
 
Beowulf said:
This is off-topic a bit, but what about zoos? I saw a miserable-looking elephant with a foot shackled to the cement floor and it made me feel so sad...
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I hate zoos too! They're jails for animals! I hate seeing animals in cages and at Ringling Brothers Circus ! The elephants are treated horrible and so are all the other animals! Petting farms are really horrible!
 
souggy said:
No. Not PETA. If PETA got their way, no one would be allowed to have a cat or dog.

Let the animal welfare advocates handle this... not some extremists.
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Yeah you might be right about PETA . then I wish someone try to free the poor thing! It was horrible seeing that disgusting small pool, the pool was almost the same size of the whale , sdo it had no way to move around! That is animal abuse! Sea World need to be shut down! The name is disgusting , it should be called what is really is and that is a jail for sea animals!
 
sequoias said:
Nope....they can become stressed enough to kill anyone. I know how THEY feel. Seaworld still should be banned!
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I agree with you! Seawolrd should be ban! I will never go there! and I will never go on a whale watch! I read it bad for the whale as the ships like to go were the whales are having their babies and this is very stressful for the whale to have a damn huge ship on top of her when she is giving birth!
 
whatdidyousay! said:
I hate zoos too! They're jails for animals! I hate seeing animals in cages and at Ringling Brothers Circus ! The elephants are treated horrible and so are all the other animals! Petting farms are really horrible!
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You are forgetting that many Zoos rescue animals that are in danger. Sadly once rescued, some can not be released to the wild.

Seen this winter. In Florida alone several marine animals were taken in due to the freezing weather. Some are considered endangered.

some will be released if able to. Some will be kept in zoos for breeding reasons.
 
It's all about the money:

Shows to go on at SeaWorld, king of orca business

The Associated Press
Shamu is big business at SeaWorld, which owns more killer whales than anyone else in the world and builds the orca image into its multimillion-dollar brand, and the killing of a trainer this week won't change that.

Shamu shows will resume Saturday, three days after a six-ton bull orca dragged Dawn Brancheau underwater to her death at the end of a show in Orlando, SeaWorld Parks and Entertainment President Jim Atchison said Friday. But staff at the for-profit parks in Orlando, San Antonio and San Diego won't get back in the water with the hulking ocean predators until SeaWorld and a panel of outside experts complete a top-to-bottom review of how the company handles orcas.

"We have created an extraordinary opportunity for people to get an up-close, personal experience and be inspired and connect with marine life in a way they cannot do anywhere else in the world," Atchison said as orcas swam behind him on the other side of an underwater window, "and for that we will make no apologies."

Public relations and marketing experts say SeaWorld will need to review every safety precaution to reassure the public and preserve its image.

Larry L. Smith, president of the Institute for Crisis Management, in Louisville, Ky., defended SeaWorld's response so far and said the attack could actually drive up attendance of at least one demographic — teens and young adults.

"It's not going to draw families necessarily or older people who would typically visit there, but there is an age group that gets excited about the risks and the potential for drama and it may attract some of those folks," he said.

The timing of the killer whales' return to performances reflects just what the sleek black-and-white mammals mean to SeaWorld, which the private equity firm The Blackstone Group bought last fall for around $2.7 billion from Anheuser-Busch InBev in a deal that included two Busch Gardens theme parks and several other attractions.

"SeaWorld operations are built around Shamu and the orca. So quantitatively they mean literally hundreds of millions of dollars to that company," said Dennis Speigel, president of International Theme Park Services, a consulting firm.

No animal is more valuable to that operation than Tilikum, the largest orca in captivity, which now has been involved in the deaths of two trainers and requires a special set of handling rules, which Atchison wouldn't specify. Captured nearly 30 years ago off Iceland, Tilikum has grown into the alpha male of captive killer whales, his value as a stud impossible to pin down.

Killer whales — actually part of the porpoise family — aren't endangered; estimates of their worldwide population range from 50,000 to more than 100,000.

But it is illegal to capture killer whales in the U.S. and several other countries, and while a few have been caught in recent years in Russia and Japan, U.S. import laws make it difficult to acquire an orca caught in the wild.

"Really, you can't buy them," said Speigel, who put the market value of an individual whale at up to $10 million.

That makes breeding the best way to build a collection of killer whales to draw in visitors at up to $78.95 apiece to sit in the splash zone or take pictures of their kids petting Shamu, the stage name SeaWorld gives all of its adult orcas in shows.

And no one is better at breeding killer whales than SeaWorld.

The company owns 25 of the 42 orcas in captivity, and other theme parks sometimes come to SeaWorld to get theirs.

At the heart of it all is Tilikum, bought in 1992 from a now-defunct Canadian park where he was one of three orcas that battered and submerged a fallen trainer until she died. After the woman slipped into the water, she became like a plaything to the three whales, said Adam Hellicar, a former diver at Sealand of the Pacific near Victoria, British Columbia.

"They were towing her around by her clothing," said Hellicar, who helped recover the woman's body.
SeaWorld got an emergency permit to buy Tilikum and the other two whales less than a year after that attack, and he became the company's go-to sire. Of the 20 calves born at SeaWorld parks, Tilikum has fathered 13, the company said. SeaWorld has only one other breeding male at the moment.

Before SeaWorld improved its artificial insemination methods, males were more commonly crated, put on planes and lent to various theme parks for breeding, part of the reason that only a handful of parks worldwide have successfully birthed calves. The practice continues despite outcry from animal rights groups.

After decades of cultivating a corporate image around one of the ocean's greatest predators, SeaWorld now managers must preserve its image with public relations and marketing. Experts say they need to review every safety precaution and make sure it doesn't happen again to reassure the public.

Keeping a whale is an expensive proposition. When Keiko, the orca that starred in the movie "Free Willy," came to the Oregon Coast Aquarium in the 1990s, it cost $7.8 million to construct his habitat.

Maintaining an aquarium for killer whales can cost $10,000 to $12,000 a month in electric bills, including keeping the water at 50 to 55 degrees.

Some parks have mortality insurance on the animals and can use them as collateral.

Feeding is the cheapest part, requiring about $35,000 a year for roughly 100 pounds of fish a day.

Like many amusement parks, privately held SeaWorld doesn't release attendance figures or say whether it charges other facilities stud fees or other fees for the right to buy or borrow orcas. Nor does it disclose what chunk of its revenue comes from killer whales.

But that's what everyone goes to see.

The Oregon Coast Aquarium saw its largest crowds during the few years that Keiko lived there before he was released into the wild.

"He was a superstar," said Judy Tuttle, curator of marine mammals at the aquarium, who worked extensively with Keiko. "Some people think he's still here. A woman came up to me recently and asked where Keiko was."

Mitchel Kalmanson, a marine mammal appraiser in central Florida who has brokered the sale of two killer whales, agreed that parks such as SeaWorld aren't the same without Shamu.

"Without killer whales, the rest are ancillary shows," he said.
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Shows to go on at SeaWorld, king of orca business
 
Reba
Tilikum was involved in another death. In. :hmm: I think it was in 1997. When a man hid and eluded the closing staff of Sea World.

Jumped in the tank and was found the next day in the tank with the said orca. They said he died of hypothermia and bite marks.

He was found nude and basically dead.

So Tilikum has killed three people not two.
 
Babyblue said:
Reba
Tilikum was involved in another death. In. :hmm: I think it was in 1997. When a man hid and eluded the closing staff of Sea World.

Jumped in the tank and was found the next day in the tank with the said orca. They said he died of hypothermia and bite marks.

He was found nude and basically dead.

So Tilikum has killed three people not two.
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I know that. I never said he killed only two people. I said two trainers, in addition to the first death. That's three total.
 
No surprise to me that it's all about the money. Gives this parodist a parody idea. They can give him a bigger tank and keep him for breeding purposes if that's what they want to do. No excuse for the crammed tanks.
 
whatdidyousay! said:
I agree with you! Seawolrd should be ban! I will never go there! and I will never go on a whale watch! I read it bad for the whale as the ships like to go were the whales are having their babies and this is very stressful for the whale to have a damn huge ship on top of her when she is giving birth!
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Si, you see...many animals that take care of babies will become stressed out if you get too close to them and they will end up eating their babies or whatever. It usually happens when they're really young. Some other animals will become VERY protective and do anything to kill you no matter what like the famed elephants.
 
Reba said:
I know that. I never said he killed only two people. I said two trainers, in addition to the first death. That's three total.
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I did not say that you said that only two was killed. Just adding to your post about another person that was killed. I was simply adding to the subject, making a discussion.

Geez Louise!!

People think so much of the topic and debate that some do not understand that some people are not in a debate mode. But in a discussion mode.

Tilikum is the subject.

Sadly! Not the trainers or the man that lost his life.

Makes me wonder. About how people discuss about the orcas than the true victims. The families and love ones of Dawn and the others.
 
As sad as the human deaths are, it is a human endeavor, this whole thing, including the money. The animals are innocent.
 
Tousi said:
As sad as the human deaths are, it is a human endeavor, this whole thing, including the money. The animals are innocent.
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I agree, and people and trainers are naïve to a certain point. They are aware of the dangers. They know the risk! Sad it ends the way it does.

But it is the truth.

Just like when a soldier puts his/her life on the line.


Blame the war. But in all honesty. The risk is made well known.
 
Tousi said:
I'm not sure about killing such a creature but I also don't think it can now survive in the wild on its own.....maybe. Killing it for something that is not its fault, I don't think is right. Its Man's fault. But what to do?
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Free Willie!

I feel sorry for the family of the victim.....It's a shame the whale get's more attention. I would turn it loose I think
 
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Babyblue said:
You are forgetting that many Zoos rescue animals that are in danger. Sadly once rescued, some can not be released to the wild.

Seen this winter. In Florida alone several marine animals were taken in due to the freezing weather. Some are considered endangered.

some will be released if able to. Some will be kept in zoos for breeding reasons.
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And many zoos are having a hard time feeding their aniimals and have to kill them! My niece worked a zoo in Boston. Ma. and the zoo is having a hard time feeding all their animals and were thinking of killing some of the older one! People are not going to zoos as much my niece said and she had to work longers hour , as the zoo was hoping more people would show up! And my niece people feeding the animals food that is very harmful to them and people were told not to bring glass bottles or straws as some animals will get them and choke to death. But people were doing this anyway! My niece said people were horrible when it came to following the rules to keep the animals safe! Some people are fools and should not be allowed in zoos if they will not follow the rules! Animals do not belong behind bars!
 
Babyblue said:
I do.. Since while be held in captivity, they are not exposed to certain diseases. Therefore they do not build a good immune system.

They are also given all kinds of medications and such while in captivity. Which is another reason why it possibly did not have a strong immune system.
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Good point. I amend my pevious post . I did not see this before posting.
 
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