Follow the money trail on why trainer’s lives are worth less than killer whales

- A SeaWorld killer whale snatched a trainer from a poolside platform Wednesday in its jaws and thrashed the woman around underwater, killing her in front of a horrified audience. It marked the third time the animal had been involved in a human death.

Dawn Brancheau, 40 years old, was killed by a killer whale at the Orlando Sea World on Wednesday February 25th, 2010.

Around noon, a small crowd was watching the show Tilikum, the largest male at the tourist site, grabbed Brancheau’s hair braid and dragged her underwater.

The whale had been edgy all day, according to reports. “Tilikum had been involved in two previous deaths, including a Canadian trainer dragged under water by him and two others whales in 1991,” said the Washington Post.

SeaWorld is a big company that needs people to believe that killer whales were given the first part of their name for no good reason. They defend the whale. “We have every intention of continuing to interact with this animal, though the procedures for working with him will change,” SeaWorld said in a post on its blog

Makes sense to us if you want an audience to keep paying the ticket price. Tell them the animals are safe, well almost safe.

Brancheau was on a platform above the 22,000 pound whale when it grabbed her and dragged her under. The whale held Brancheau in its jaws swimming back and forth across the pool. A horrified audience watched. Several people must have filmed it. Has Sea World confiscated their cameras so videos won’t be posted? SeaWorld is like the IOC: money beats human life in the rocks and paper game.

Trainers said the whales “were having an off day, that they were being ornery,” which is put a mild spin on killer instinct.

Victoria Biniak in the the audience, told WKMG-TV the whale “took off really fast in the tank, and then he came back, shot up in the air, grabbed the trainer by the waist and started thrashing around, and one of her shoes flew off.” The whale had to be coaxed into a shallow pool to extract Brancheau who was dead by then from multiple injuries and drowning.

In the Nov 30, 2006 video “a trainer at Sea World was hospitalized after being attacked by a killer whale. The whale and the trainer were about to perform a stunt in Shamu Stadium when the whale grabbed the trainer’s foot and pulled him underwater. The animal then resurfaced and swam around the tank with the trainer’s foot still in his mouth before diving again. The whale eventually released its grip on the man and he swam to safety. The trainer remained hospitalized Thursday in good condition.” LiveLeak

Tilikum had already killed a Canadian trainer before the whale was moved to Orlando. The same whale killed a trespasser who got into Sea World at night. In December, another killer whale killed a trainer in Tenerife.

In a promotional video, Sea World tries to heighten the obvious danger from these massive whales.

We can expect quite a few stories telling us it was an accident, she was careless, and that killer whales are not dangerous.

Quotes and story from Washington Post.