Orca kills keeper in Seaworld, Florida - cover up in progress

[bmd]

messy divorce, drinking problems, that sort of dubious past?

Crack smoking woman hating child beating motherfucker by all accounts.

 

[Treacle Toes]

Park guest Victoria Biniak told a local TV channel that the trainer had just finished explaining to the audience what they were about to see.

At that point, she said, the whale "took off really fast, and then he came back around to the glass, jumped up, grabbed the trainer by the waist and started shaking her violently. The last thing we saw was her shoe floating."

A man who saw the tragedy unfold gave CNN a similar version of events.

The Whale it seems had his own idea of what the show would be....

The killer whale, known as Tilikum, was reportedly involved in several incidents in the past, the BBC's Andy Gallacher reports from Florida.

BBC's Andy Gallacher: Reports say this whale has a dubious past

One involved the death of another trainer in 1991 while Tilikum was performing in British Columbia, Canada.

After the whale - nicknamed Telly - was sold to SeaWorld Orlando it was involved in a second incident when authorities discovered the body of a naked man lying across his back in 1999.

2 other incidents involving the same whale?

 

[Pickman's model]

biniak's not a million miles from willziak, the whale off south park, which ends up on the moon

 

[Jonti]

There's no evidence that in either case the human was regarded as prey.

The trespasser was found dead, draped over the orca's back, as if the whale had tried to support him. It appeared he died of hypothermia after entering the water to swim with the orcas.

I'm reserving judgement on the trainer's death. Eye witness accounts can be (and usually are) contradictory, but the no-one is saying she was taken like a food item either.

 

[Me76]

I can't believe that no one in the audience was filming it and has managed to get a copy out to the media. This is what suggests cover up to me. In this day and age you would have at least ONE person with their camera phone on when watching a show like that.

 

[Giles]

I can't believe that no one in the audience was filming it and has managed to get a copy out to the media. This is what suggests cover up to me. In this day and age you would have at least ONE person with their camera phone on when watching a show like that.

The thing is, how would "they" have been able to cover it up? If someone had filmed it, they could just post it to Youtube / Google video / half a dozen others. They couldn't confiscate everyone's phones and cameras, could they?

Giles..

 

[Jonti]

I expect filming is not allowed, not without specific permission. And I think if the management tried to search folks leaving the event to confiscate footage, we'd've heard all about it!

As Giles has pointed out, if such footage exists, we'd've seen it by now.

 

[Treacle Toes]

Daily Fail claim to have video of just before the attack...

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1253564/Trainer-dies-attack-killer-whale-SeaWorld.html

 

[Lo Siento.]

I am not surprised this has happened. We have seen that show twice and it's really wrong that these huge things are being kept to perform like this.
They are beautiful creatures but they should not be used for entertainment IMO. When we were there in 2003 one of them went a bit nuts and they had to isolate him in a tank at the side of the arena.

Why did you go and see it then? Twice.

 

[Jonti]

It's a nasty and ignorant article from the Fail, but the CNN piece right at the bottom is worth watching

 

[Me76]

I expect filming is not allowed, not without specific permission. And I think if the management tried to search folks leaving the event to confiscate footage, we'd've heard all about it!

As Giles has pointed out, if such footage exists, we'd've seen it by now.

That seems fair enough.

Daily Fail claim to have video of just before the attack...

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1253564/Trainer-dies-attack-killer-whale-SeaWorld.html

That video at the end has a couple who were at the show before and said it had to be stopped early because the whales weren't behaving which is interesting.

 

[Lemon Eddy]

Good on the whale.

Is that what you honestly think? Because it's pretty fucking cold and cynical really.

 

[Idris2002]

Victory to the Free Whales Army!

 

[Louloubelle]

Thanks for that JC2.

Watched a programme about another, free orca last night. A very moving story. It's clear these animals are friendly to people and have no wish to hurt them. On the contrary they make repeated attempts to get humans to join a pod.

I guess you know all about Luna, but here's how the documentary was billed here.

I didn't see that documentary, however the orca in this video
appears to be trying to kill the trainer by drowning

As for a cover up, PR spin, I think you have to expect that

The trade in these animals is a highly lucrative industry covered in a veneer of lies.

Anyone who knows about the history of the industry will know that one of the key players in the 1970s was a Mr Terry Nutkin, who supplied countless dolphins to amusement parks and made a fortune doing so. Their life expectancy in captivity at the time was approx 6 months.

The fact that Nutkins went on to be represented as some kind of an authority on sea mammals and their welfare when the whale was stuck in the Thames really upset a lot of people who knew about his business dealings over the years.

 

[frogwoman]

that's not exactly a great surprise, seaworld is pretty disgusting tbh.

 

[Jonti]

There may be a comprehension failure here. One would surely expect there to be bloodshed, if the orca was intending to kill? Yet there is no blood visible in any of the pictures, or mentioned in any of the eyewitness accounts.

You can watch last night's documentary about Luna (a wild Orca that lived closely with humans for years) ... on iplayer here

 

[Boris Sprinkler]

http://vidamarina.org/pdfs/may2004.pdf

 

[girasol]

There may be a comprehension failure here. One would surely expect there to be bloodshed, if the orca was intending to kill? Yet there is no blood visible in any of the pictures, or mentioned in any of the eyewitness accounts.

You can watch last night's documentary about Luna (a wild Orca that lived closely with humans for years) ... on iplayer here

Is it a coincidence they showed that last night?? (I think it was on BBC1?)

That had me in tears, it's been a long time since I cried while watching anything!

Hopefully something will come out of this, and they will stop keeping whales like this (well, dolphins, as it goes, Orcas are dolphins not whales)

I was actually going to post a thread on this, but just as well I learned how to use the search function )

 

[Jonti]

Yeah, I know the feeling!

(dolphins are a type of whale, what biologists call cetaceans)

 

[ymu]

I expect filming is not allowed, not without specific permission. And I think if the management tried to search folks leaving the event to confiscate footage, we'd've heard all about it!

As Giles has pointed out, if such footage exists, we'd've seen it by now.

There's loads of amateur footage of SeaWorld on youtube - including lots of attack incidents.

It takes time for this stuff to get disseminated. Someone died - people with footage are either handing it over to "the authorities" first, or are busy contacting PR agents to represent them.

 

[Clair De Lune]

I am guessing my scorpion petting zoo might not go down too well on urban either

 

[girasol]

Yeah, I know the feeling!

(dolphins are a type of whale, what biologists call cetaceans)

Ok, so they are the same order, but not the same family...

i.e. dolphins are Delphinidae, whales are Physeteroidea (according to wikipedia, I don't actually know this off by heart )

Killer whales are also in the Delphinidae family

 

[Louloubelle]

There may be a comprehension failure here. One would surely expect there to be bloodshed, if the orca was intending to kill? Yet there is no blood visible in any of the pictures, or mentioned in any of the eyewitness accounts.

You can watch last night's documentary about Luna (a wild Orca that lived closely with humans for years) ... on iplayer here

Thanks for the link to the documentary

Orcas often kill larger prey by drowning them, as they did to the whale here


Incredible, and I mean really amazing, footage of orcas vs sperm whale

 

[zenie]

These type of amusement parks are disgusting in my opinion. Have read some studies on captivity of such mammals in these places and attacks aren't rare. Neither are suicide attempts by the mammals themselves and the training regime the animals are subjected to is actually a process designed to "break" the animal so it performs it's circus repertoire for the morons that visit.

What training regimes are you specifically talking about? They use clicker training at Seaworld Florida, nothing about 'breaking' IME.

Poor whale, poor trainer, these things happen.

 

[Jonti]

It's worth having a read of the pdf that Boris posted.

It is misconceived to paint this incident as showing that orcas present a danger to humans. It really is the other way round

 

[UnderOpenSky]

So when's it being shipped of the Japanese then?

 

[zenie]

Have a read of the pdf that Boris posted.

It is misconceived to paint this incident as showing that orcas present a danger to humans. It really is the other way round

They certainly deserve a lot more respect than they're given.

 

[ymu]

Incredible, and I mean really amazing, footage of orcas vs sperm whale

You know that's CGI, right?

 

[ymu]

It's worth having a read of the pdf that Boris posted.

It is misconceived to paint this incident as showing that orcas present a danger to humans. It really is the other way round

I don't think anyone's suggesting otherwise. Captive animals get aggressive - pointing this out isn't assigning blame to the animals for being captive.

 

[girasol]

I don't think anyone's suggesting otherwise. Captive animals get aggressive - pointing this out isn't assigning blame to the animals for being captive.

captive, more intelligent animals also go insane