Whale Trainer dies during performance at SeaWorld.

Whale Trainer dies during performance at SeaWorld. Every month our Social Studies teacher assigns us packages to do with current events and/or news. I never took interest in any of them until last Thursday when the article ended up being about the death of a whale trainer at SeaWorld Orlando.

February 24Th held a noontime orca performance like no other. It ended with the death of whale trainer, Dawn Brancheau, a woman that has been working there for 12 years. As she was lying on the submerged platform, and petting the whale it grabbed her ponytail and began to smack her around violently. The audience was quickly removed from the scene as sirens went off. Dawn died from multiple traumatic injuries and drowning.

The whale's name was Tilikum, given the nickname "Tilly." He was captured off of Iceland almost 30 years ago and was the star attraction - being the largest orca in captivity. This though, was not the first time Tilikum has killed a trainer. In 1991, the whale drowned a part time trainer during a performance when she slipped into the water and it would not let her escape.

Experts are saying that in each of the cases Tilikum might not have meant to hurt anyone. Orcas naturally hunt in the wild and take seals right off of rocks. They also play by tossing prey around. Others say that it's from whale being held in captivity.

The crazy thing though, is that this isn't the first killer whale to attack a trainer. I'm sure that it's happened many times and for some reason, we are still putting whales under captivity for entertainment purposes. There are many ways for entertainment - keeping whales in fake environments and putting people at risk doesn't have to be one of them.

Another downside to this is that it's almost near impossible to put an animal back into the wild after they've been imprisoned in fake environments. For whales it's extremely difficult; their muscles aren't used to swimming long distances after being in smaller bodies of water which would make it extremely hard to survive in the ocean without the ability to swim well. With this being said, they are keeping the whale! There is even a possibility that the whale will return to it's normal show times.

So folks, who wants to go to SeaWorld?

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