Several days ago, Dawn Brancheau, a trainer at SeaWorld in Florida died while working with Tilikum, an Orca (a 6 ton killer whale). It was a tragic accident. The impetus for the whale attacking Dawn is said to have started because she was close enough to the whale that her long ponytail brushed against his snout. As a whale, he probably interpreted this a number of ways, i.e., a toy, aggression who knows. Sadly, he grabbed her by the ponytail into the water and thrashed her body about. The other handlers were unable to rescue her because he was too aggressive. Finally, they coaxed the whale into a smaller pool and retrieved Dawn’s body.

This is not the first time Tilikum has killed. He has killed two other people. The whale for all intents and purposes is in a swimming pool. When he should be in the ocean swimming thousands of miles a day, playing and mating with others and eating as he pleases. There have been reports that Tilikum is bored, depressed and angry. Well wouldn’t anyone be if they were ripped from their natural habitat, put into a water prison and required to perform twice daily for a bucket of fish? Orca’s in the wild are not known to attack and kill man. However, there are more instances of death by whale in water parks.

Can we really blame Tilikum for being who he is? I think not. What we are doing is animal cruelty and we really cannot feign outrage about what is natural to the whale. Even Dawn’s sister spoke out and said, her sister would not want Tilikum to be killed. I wish she would have gone one step further and said, I’d like to see Tilikum free.

Free Tilikum, Free Tilikum