Video Taped Of Trainer Minutes Before Her Death
Posted on 25 February 2010 by LynThomas in Society
CBS News reported that 40 year old Dawn Brancheau had to be removed from the jaws of Tillikum, a 30 year-old, 12,000 pound male orca whale, after having drowned the female trainer.
Other park employees at SeaWorld, Orlando, had to coax the animal onto a platform and pry its mouth open, in order to release Branchaeu’s body, which too two hours to recover the body. Brancheau was the most experienced trainer at the Shamu Stadium.
Accounts of the incident are varied and wildly different. A video taken only minutes prior to the incident, show Branchaeu playing with the giant mammal.
Tilly The Killer Whale
There are a total of eight killer whales currently housed at the theme park. Tillikum, (‘friend’ in Chinook) has lived at the Orlando theme park for the past 18 years.
It is reported that Tillikum (Tilly) has been involved in other deaths in the past and was among the three whales that accidentally killed a female trainer at Sealand of the Pacific, in Canada in 1991.It appeared the trainer had fallen into the tank and the whales treated her as a new toy.
Tilly was then purchased and shipped to SeaWorld Orlando, to be used in a breeding program.
In 1999 a man eluded security and stayed in the theme park after it closed. Next morning he was found dead, draped across Tilly’s back, in the breeding tank behind Shamu Stadium.
Orca Whales In The Wild
Tilly was captured in Iceland in 1983, and is said to be one of the largest orcas currently in captivity. He was kept in a separate holding tank. Trainers were not permitted to swim with him, because of his past history.
SeaWorld has cancelled the highly ambitious ‘Believe’ shows in both Orlando and San Diego, pending further investigation. During the show trainers swam with the animals, r0de on their backs, were balanced, or tossed from the whale’s nose. A member of the audience was chosen to ‘become personal’ with the giant mammals.
Peter Hamilton of Vancouver-based Lifeforce, an animal rights group dedicated to saving whales, said they had warned SeaWorld that Tilly should not be kept in an aquarium. Hamilton believes keeping Tilly segregated from other whales, in order to breed from time to time, only exacerbated the problem.
SeaWorld is undecided as to Tilly’s fate.
Trackbacks/Pingbacks
[...] Just minutes before her death the trainer was filmed playing with Tillikam, (Tilly). This is the third death Tillikam (friend in Chanook) has been involved in… [...]