A veteran SeaWorld trainer was leisurely rubbing Tilikum the killer whale from a poolside platform when the 12,000-pound creature shot up, grabbed her ponytail in its mouth and dragged her down underwater.
Horrified visitors who had stuck around after a noontime show watched the animal charge through the pool with the trainer in its jaws. Workers used nets and an alarm sounded, but it was too late. Dawn Brancheau had drowned. She was 40 years old.
It was the third time that the animal had been involved in a human death.
I guess that’s why they call it the killer whale.
Because of his size and the previous deaths, trainers were not supposed to get into the water with Tilikum, and just a dozen of the park’s 29 trainers worked with him.
Brancheau had more experience with the 30-year-old whale than most. She was actually one of the park’s most experienced trainers overall.
A SeaWorld spokesman said that Tilikum was one of three orcas blamed for killing a trainer in 1991 after the woman lost her balance and fell in the pool at Sealand of the Pacific near Victoria, British Columbia.
Tilikum was also involved in a 1999 incident, when the lifeless body of a man who had sneaked by SeaWorld security was found draped over him. The man either jumped, fell or was pulled into the frigid water and died of hypothermia, though he was also severely bruised and scratched by Tilikum.
So what to do with the murderous mammal? Sea Jail? Capital Punishment? Therapy?
Brancheau’s older sister, Diane Gross, said that the trainer would not want anything done to the whale because she loved the animals like children. The trainer was married but didn’t have children.
Billy Hurley, chief animal officer at the Georgia Aquarium, the world’s largest — said there are inherent dangers to working with orcas, just like driving race cars or piloting jets.
“In the case of a killer whale, if they want your attention or if they’re frustrated by something or if they’re confused by something, there’s only a few ways of handling that…If you’re right near pool’s edge and they decide they want a closer interaction during this, certainly they can grab you…At 12,000 pounds there’s not a lot of resisting you’re going to do.”
Wednesday’s attack was the second time in two months that an orca trainer was killed at a marine park. On Dec. 24, 29-year-old Alexis Martinez Hernandez fell from a whale and crushed his ribcage at Loro Parque on the Spanish island of Tenerife. Park officials said the whale, a 14-year-old named Keto, made an unusual move while the two were practicing a trick in which the whale was supposed to lift the trainer and leap up into the air.
