2010-02-24

Trainer Dies At Sea World Orlando

Initial reports coming out of the USA suggest that the myth of Shamu has been shattered for one individual and their family when a trainer was killed by a captive orca.

The LA Times is reporting that a Sea World guest Victoria Biniak told Local 6 that the trainer was a veteran of SeaWorld and had just finished explaining to the audience what they would see during the performance.

At that point, Biniak said, the whale came up from the water and grabbed the woman.

Orange County Fire Rescue personnel arrived on scene within five minutes of receiving a 911 call for an unknown medical condition just prior to 2 p.m., a spokesman said. The woman was dead when rescue officials arrived.

WDCSs thoughts go out to the family of the trainer concerned.

CBS notes that The fatal attack is not the first time that a killer whale at a SeaWorld park has turned on a trainer.

In Nov. 2006, trainer Kenneth Peters, 39, was bitten and held underwater several times by a 7,000-pound killer whale during a show at SeaWorlds San Diego park. He escaped with a broken foot. The 17-foot-long orca who attacked him was the dominant female of SeaWorld San Diegos seven killer whales. She had attacked Peters on two prior occasions, in 1993 and 1999.

Initial suggestions are that the whale involved in Orlando today was Tillikum who in 1999 was involved in the death of a homeless man.
Eight years previously he was blamed for the death of a trainer in Canada.

WDCS reported in its publication Captive Orcas Dying to Entertain You that in 1991, at Sealand of the Pacific in Canada, a young female trainer called Keltie Byrne was drowned by Sealand's three resident orcas after she accidentally fell into their tank.

In July 1999, a 29 year-old man, Daniel Dukes, was found dead, draped over the back of male orca, Tillikum, at Sea World’s Florida facility.  We will probably never know the full story behind his death.  Whilst undeniably the most tragic, these incidents were by no means isolated. Aggression between captive orcas and, equally disturbingly, aggression towards trainers, has increased in recent years.

This is the second trainer to die this year. A whale trainer at Loro Parque on Tenerife in the Spanish Canary Islands, was reported to have died during a training session for the zoo's Christmas orca show. 29 year-old Alexis Martínez from Puerto de la Cruz is thought to have drowned when he was hit by a 14 year-old captive male orca and remained underwater for several minutes.

WDCS notes that captive orcas are not domesticated animals and indeed are strong, wild animals that are constrained in an environment that places them under considerable stress.

More on orcas in their natural environment