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Killer whale will stay on despite trainer’s death

ORLANDO (Florida): Despite calls to free or destroy the animal, SeaWorld said on Thursday it would keep the killer whale that drowned its trainer, but would suspend all orca shows while it decides whether to change the way handlers work with the behemoths.

Also, visitors who occasionally were invited to pet the killer whales would no longer be allowed to do so.

“We’re going to make any changes we have to make sure this doesn’t happen again,” Chuck Tompkins, chief of animal training at SeaWorld parks, said a day after a 5,440-kg killer whale named Tilikum dragged a trainer into its pool and thrashed the woman to death as audience members watched in horror.

Talk-radio callers, bloggers and animal activists said Tilikum — which was involved in the deaths of two other people over the past two decades — should be released into the ocean or put to death.

Mr. Tompkins said Tilikum would not survive in the wild because it had been captive for so long, and that destroying the animal was not an option either, because it was an important part of the breeding programme at SeaWorld and a companion to the seven other whales there.

Dawn Brancheau, a 40-year-old veteran trainer who adored whales, was rubbing Tilikum from a poolside platform when the 22-foot creature grabbed the woman’s ponytail in its jaws and pulled her in. “He kept pushing her and poking her with his nose,” said Paula Gillespie of Delaware, who saw the attack from an underwater observation point. “It looked like she was just totally caught off guard and looked like she was struggling.” The killer whale shows have been put on hold at SeaWorld’s three parks in Orlando, San Antonio and San Diego.

Mr. Tompkins said they would not resume until trainers understood what happened to Ms. Brancheau. He said trainers would review safety procedures and change them as needed.

Mr. Tompkins defended SeaWorld’s use of a whale that had already been blamed in the deaths of two other people.

“We didn’t ignore those incidents,” Mr. Tompkins said. “We work with him very, very carefully. We did not get in the water with this animal like we do with other killer whales because we recognised his potential.”

Tilikum was one of three orcas blamed for killing a trainer in 1991 after the woman lost her balance and fell into a pool at a Sealand theme park near Victoria, British Columbia.

In 1999, the body of a naked man was found draped over Tilikum at SeaWorld in Orlando. Officials said the man had stayed in the park after closing and apparently fell into the whale tank. An autopsy found he died of hypothermia. Officials also said it appeared Tilikum bit the man.

Ms. Brancheau was hired at SeaWorld in Orlando in 1994. — AP

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