Shamu just killed his trainer at Sea World!

as someone whos worked training and caring for WILD large exotic animals...

NO this orca should NOT be killed...
BUT he should also not be on display like this...after the first death he shoudl have been retired, keep him as a sire if nessicary (its incredibly hard to get orca to breed in captivity) but in a private breeding facility with very little hands on human interaction.

the man who snuck in and tried to swim with them, well his death isnt even considered in my eyes, the idiot got what he deserved...
the first death was a tradgedy...
and this one...after looking at the videos and reading the repots i personally feel was NOT on purpose, while feeding him her ponytail swung and hit him in the face, the movment of a fish and the ponytail are actually similar and it could have absolutly been that the orca felt it was a fish or more likley something FUN to play with.

when you work with these animals you KNOW your taking the risks, you learn to read the animals body language, this orca displays no typical agressive behaviour, his actiouns in the water are VERY typical "play" behaviour...
orcas attempting to kill take a body whole into their mouths and with a swift cinch of the jaws its dead (teeth filled or not) they then toss their prey to alighn it better before biting down again.
dragging and shaking is NOT kill behaviour its play behaviour...and to him that trainer became nothing more than a ragdoll.

as the trainers family has also said, she would not have wanted "tilly" put down for his actions...

trainers of these animals understand tradgedy can strike, your working with thousands and thousands of pounds of pure instinct...

ive personally never worked with orca...
i have however worked with elephant, tiger, hyena and gorilla...
you cant blame an animal for instinct...
had this been an "attack to kill" then id say private benefactor for reintroduction or pts HUMANELY and autposy...
but this doesnt seem like an agressive kill, and i feel he shoudl simply be retired.
i presonally dont belive in these kind of shows for any animals.

the animasls ive worked with are trained for husbandry purposes, lifting feet for toenails checked, opening mouth ect...

in my opinion climbing into the water with an orca is as insane as putting your head in a crocodiles mouth...
but thats not tillies fault.

good post

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He who thinks he knows, doesn't. He who knows he doesn't know, knows.~ Joseph Campbell

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aeMrK...AE7062ADE5A19C

Ok, COMPLETELY off topic, but here goes

"Eyewitness" reports of this incident I have read so far include "she was out of the water and he jumped out and grabbed her waist", "she was in the water with him and he grabbed her ponytail" and "he grabbed her leg"

We convict people of crimes every day based on 'eyewiness' testimony.

Scary.

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I saw something nasty in the woodshed

I saw him bite her head off and eat it then light up a cigar and popped open a bottle of champagne. :-)

I saw something a number of years ago (might have been 60 Minutes or some similar program) where they set up a classroom full of college students to test the so called eyewitness reports. They had a person rush into the classroom and take something-might have been the teachers purse.

Anyway the "eyewitness" reports were all over the place. Some said the guy was a short hispanic, others a tall white, some said he was 18-20, others said 30-40, etc. It really made you understand how people get wrongfully convicted based on this sort of stuff.

I think it would be more "humane" to put a bullet in ALL the whale's brains and STOP making them perform like that. I can't stand zoos and aquariums where large animals are kept in a cell(even if it's a few acre "cell" as well). (I think it's wrong to keep horses in stalls all the time too). They all go crazy nuts in some way and become a twisted cartoon of what they were.

The money that goes through things like Sea World would be better off going to support preserves for the animals in their wild natural habitat, or funding better understanding of environmental stuff and ecology. The animals are part of a whole, you isolate them it is bad both for the ecology of the land and for the animal itself.

I saw Keiko when he was at the Oregon aquarium. One of the saddest things ever(along with the nutball polar bears at the Portland zoo). I can't see any good of keeping an animal like that, so big and naturally needing to swim and hunt for miles each day, cooped in a straightjacket. that goes for dolphins too

I agree with the person who said the average person gets their animal sympathy from anthropomorphized zoo/Disney animals. That is just plain stupid and wrong and I can't think of any way it benefits the animals. It is cruel to coop up a wild thing. I know many people who are "wild" as well and would prefer a bullet to a cubicle.

I think it's also a waste of money to re-wild those animals as well--that is a sentimental human nicety that only benefits the human who "tried". The money would better be spent in preserving the wild as it is.

I think Tillicum means "friend"

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THE BEGINNING IS NEAR
5-star double-rated astronavagatrix earth girl

It is a kind of boat.

In a perfect world the whales would all be free and healthy, and cheetahs would still have a gene pool. this isn't a perfect world and never will be.

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He who thinks he knows, doesn't. He who knows he doesn't know, knows.~ Joseph Campbell

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aeMrK...AE7062ADE5A19C

Dunno what Tillicum means in SC, but up here it does mean friend, one's people etc.

Tillikum (also tillicum)
From the Chinook language of the lower Columbia River, meaning friends, relations, tribe, nation, common people. With a modifying word or two, tillicum is even broader in use. For example, ahnkuttie tillicums means ancestors, huloima tillicums means strangers or different people, and hiyu tillikums identifies a crowd.
http://www.canadiana.org/view/14272/0002

who said it was an issue of perfection, I'm just saying it's wrong to make things dance for our entertainment and profit. (and no, I'm not a PETA nut neither)

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