Shamu at Sea world Kills his trainer...

[davo]

Feel real sorry for her family. There's no way she didn't love what she did though. Guess it can seem a bit selfish working with dangerous animals to the ones you leave behind when things go wrong. Her mother sounds understanding though at least.

 

[megalops///]

This is what happens when humans think that they can train and humanize some of natures most powerful creatures. I don't consider this sad the trainers have weighed the risks and chose to work with an animal that could easily take their life.its part of it and one of the down sides to working with natures creatures.if that's what they loved doing atleast they died doing what they love and my prayers go out to their family but again tey are working with wild and powerful animals these things are bound to happen

+1. It's nice to hear what people with logic and reason have to say.

 

[SumoNinja]

I will say what my thoughts really are. I could care less if they kill the whale or not. To me having whales in captivity is really really stupid no matter the size of the pool, their range in nature is much more than you could ever replicate in a man made environment.

I would be willing to bet dollars to donuts that this whale killed the person on purpose and made it look like they were playing with them. Why do I say this, because the whale grabbed the person and took them in the water that was no accident.

I would also not blame the whale captured from the wild I am pretty sure it is totally peeeeeeved about it! And so far as I know their intellilgence and memory is very great and very long.

These whales in the wild will specifically search out and take out great white sharks so that they can then rip the shark open all so they can eat the liver. How is that for precision of thought.

It would not suprize me to find that they take the whale out and cull it, after all it has been involved in three fatalities. Now it would have been so interesting to see the pod take out the one person as for that death there was more than one whale involved.

Really, I would think the danger goes with the job and tough boobies if you happen to get offed by the very dangerous, very powerful animal you foolishly thought you could control and train to do cheap parlour tricks to amuze the monkeys in the stands.

I OFFER A CHALLENGE TO ANY OF YOU WITH ACCESS TO A SEAWORLD OR SIMILAR PARK.

It is this. With an open mind go ask the park if you could see the animal up close and then look in the eyes and tell me if you do not see an immense sadness there. As anyone knows sadness of heart will lead to desperation and desperation leads to funny things that are totally out of supposed character of the person under its weight.

Think why does the dorsal fin of the orca fall to the side only in captivity? Why. They may give some reason to it, but, I really think that the reason is because they somewhat loose a bit of their will to live and simply expend their energy existing. Imagine if this whale remembered it's freedom, it's family that it was seperated from, perhaps it's mate and maybe just maybe it has a really bad day when this happens and takes it out on the first human being it sees.

I give aquatic life much more credit for a level of intelligence that is supposed to be possessed. How much more with an killer whale.

well said sir

i think 1 of 2 things should happen. put it down, or let it go.

i think it's clear that this animal should no longer be kept in captivity.

it killed 3 times and it's stupid if you think the guy died from hypothermia. don't forget to mention that the guy had a lot of bruising and bite marks. and i believe the witnesses. they say the trainer was grabbed and pulled in. of course the people of sea world will say it was an accident and it was playing with the trainer,............ don't think so, i think they are smart enough to know that people need air to live

 

[Otolith]

Seaworlds PR person must be subsisting entirely upon a diet of rolaids.

I'm kind of on the fence about wild animals in general being held in captivity. Yeah, they are ambassadors for their species, contribute scientific data (but how much of that is really applicable to the wild counterparts?) and spark public interest in conservation and education.
However the mental and physical stressors they endure cut their lives significantly shorter and become a cheapened commodity meant to sell tickets, merch and splash fat little tourist kids.

In my opinion it might be best to "release him" but provide food for him for the rest of his life. Perhaps an offshore feeding station or something. He probably will not be able to interject into a wild pod and will have trouble hunting. Its the least the company could do given how much revenue he's provide them over the years.

 

[Dreamsing]

well said sir

i think 1 of 2 things should happen. put it down, or let it go.

i think it's clear that this animal should no longer be kept in captivity.

it killed 3 times and it's stupid if you think the guy died from hypothermia. don't forget to mention that the guy had a lot of bruising and bite marks. and i believe the witnesses. they say the trainer was grabbed and pulled in. of course the people of sea world will say it was an accident and it was playing with the trainer,............ don't think so, i think they are smart enough to know that people need air to live

I figure that if this animal has gotten so good at snatching, drowning, and mauling humans, maybe it is well suited to hunt seals out in the wild. Some members of a species just don't work well in a captive environment. Maybe the other wales are happy with their human trainers, but this one obviously doesn't feel the same about them.

 

[Zoodiver]

I didn't take the time to read the whole thread, but anyone who knows me knows that my opinion of animal trainers is the 99.999% of them FAIL to respect the predatory nature of the animals they work with. I work every day of my life with animals that can kill me. I'm aware of it and treat them with the respect they deserve. When that doesn't happen, people die. This is a great example of that.

There were several things that happend wrong for yesterday's event to transpire. Fixing any one of them may have saved a life.


Putting the animal down or letting it go are bad ideas. Very rarely can captive trained show animals be released. They have no need to use this animal for shows (in water work). Let it be an educational display and keep the animal in situations where it can't kill anymore. This particular animal has a record of killing trainers.

 

[TTTT]

I agree that it shouldn't be used for shows, neither should other orca.. I think we can all agree on that.

 

[paintballingajs]

i dont' know why there are so few people that are not surprized by this. the killer whales, the grizzly guy, sigried and roy, steve irwin,.............

sadly, i think the whale should be put down. you can't keep it,............ i read it has killed before. and you can't set it free. what you gonna do? bottom line is, whale loses in the end. i read the guy fell in but then witnesses say the victim got grabbed and pulled in

if i was gonna go into the animal training bizniz, i'd train something like sloths, or hamsters or goldfish or chickens. i'd set them straight if they got outta line or tried to get wild on me. screw training gizzlies or lions or killer whales

I agree especially when the first letter of the animals name is "KILLER". I can see how people would get away with grizzlies or lions but this has KILLER as a first name..... What happened to common sense?

 

[mgk]

I have heard the trainers with tilikum are never supposed to go in the water with him because of his past incidents(killing people lol). I don't know if this changed as it was the dine with shamu show.
That said the trainer had 40 years of experience, I don't think he didn't respect the whale considering its history and his experience. I just think you don't expect any sea animal to jump out of the water and pull you into it(which is what happened, I repeat the person was not in the water with the animal when the attack started).

If you say he didn't respect the animal because of that, you may as well say this women didn't respect the stingray that jumped into the boat and killed her.
http://www.cnn.com/2008/US/03/20/eagleray/index.html

 

[jcardona1]

I agree especially when the first letter of the animals name is "KILLER". I can see how people would get away with grizzlies or lions but this has KILLER as a first name..... What happened to common sense?

LOL come on man it's just a common name. ill use an example we can relate to, the Green Terror cichlid. but dont let the name fool you, it's one of the biggest pansies in the cichlid world