Whale Trainer dies during performance at SeaWorld. - Comments

Wow. I see how some people said that it's just like, naturally behavior for an orca whale..but if it's been in captivaty for THAT long...it shouldn't have acted that way..."Who wants to go to SeaWorld?" haha I liked that :)

Haha great ending. You make a good point.

Look, I totally love that you wrote this article. I live in the greater Orlando area, so I'm constantly hearing stories about how trainers at SeaWorld get killed by "Shamu". Though what you don't know is that some of the whales they capture are nearly dead or without mothers. My uncle works with the theme parks, and always tells us that they help the animals by presenting them with a home and nursing them back to health. I don't think it's right that they make them do flips, but the trainers know what they're getting into when they sign up for the job. Plus, without those shows, people would have less jobs. Orlando is known for its attractions, and I do not really support the fact that these animals are forced to do these things. I'd rather they put them in the big whale aquarium than do flips once caught, but hey. We don't all get what we want, do we?

Well that's what you get for take an animal out the wild and trying to domesticate it into doing backflips 12hours a day for an audience who will leave and not remember it after 2 days.

The whale can do whatever the hell it wants to those who capture it and exploit it.

Damn humans today think they can control everything and everyone and when they get bitten back in the ass then it's time to kill the innocent they tortured all its life.

I'd like four round trip tickets, please.

But no, seriously; I think it is wrong to keep these kinds of animals held up in some makeshift home, but if that were the case, there would be no such things as pets. I mean yeah, it's not the same concepts, but some animals are meant to be domesticated and some aren't. I've been bitten by a German Shepard, it wasn't severe, but when certain animals feel threatened, they kick in with natural instinct. Maybe the whale was just wanting to play, but animals don't know their own strength versus a humans, especially whales/apes/other large zoo animals.

I've never seen one of these whale shows, but I always used to convince my mom and dad to take me to one. It is entertaining, but when people see things like this happening before them, especially little kids, it can be a bit traumatizing.

I've been to this show.
Although I enjoyed it, as did the other hundreds of people that showed up to watch, I was a little sad by how such a magnificant creature in the wild, had been domisticated to performing tricks for amusement.

Whales are creatures that belong in the [i]wild[/i] and even though a large tank with windows may seem like a good substitution, it's not.

Wild animals are meant to be admired from a distance, and I think that they should put this whale away from human contact so it doesn't murder anybody else. Putting it back in the ocean would be a death sentence.

The most important thing about captive whales and other animals is- we can NEVER give them enough room to live. Yeah, big, huge, fancy tanks look wonderful. But these animals are used to traveling from coast to coast annually. We can't provide them with enough room, hence their fin being curved.
It's all just an accident waiting to happen. More people are going to be killed because of entertainment involving wild animals.
It's like taking a feral dog or cat and putting it in a crib with a baby. Maybe it won't kill the baby to day, but maybe it will tomorrow.
As for the wolf/dog comparison, even some dogs are hard to train. Animals that have been domesticated for years and years and are now our loyal pets can sometimes turn on us (mostly due to lack of good breeding or neglect/mistreatment), but the fact remains that we are humans, and they are animals. It's nice to own a dog or a cat or a fish, but those animals that run the woods or navigate the skies, or swim in the oceans... they're meant to be looked at from afar and admired and respected.
Captivity is not respect.

I was actually at the show two days before it happened and a week or so after. I love Seaworld, don't get me wrong. But I believe the whale should be put in a place where he isn't up for show, but more like a rescue refugee or something. I know that if he was taken back to the wild, he wouldn't survive. But any animal that is taken from there environment and kept in a smaller capacity to live in, doing the same thing every day in the first place, probably would get them a little irritated.

Because I'm sure if it were us, taken from our home and put up for show, doing the same routine every single day, you would get sick of it. I'm on nobody's side on this, but it leaves you thinking, right?

The Amazing Ninja, I disagree.

Its morraly wrong to kill the whale? Sorry, but not in this case.

Would you rather it feel a brief sting if anything? Or would you prefer it to be put into the wild, dieing of an infection or starving to death...Slowely...Painfully...

The fact that THEY brought it into the enviroment is the reason of why they should end the creature of its life.

That was my point: Either kill the creature and stop capturing whales, or STFU and keep feeding it people.

Illegal contact, eh? Sorry to tell you that money is about the only thing close to legality in this world, and those whales are making a lot of it. Lady Gaga has the right idea, though its not that they can't, its more of a..won't.

Human lives are a lot less important than money, and we are looking at billions of USDs because of these whales. No fallback comes on the company, 'cause the whale just had a "savage" freak-out, and they assure the public that it is extremely abnormal.

They continue raking in the cash...

Skies are blue also has the right idea..

I actualy read somewhere that wolves are harder to train than dogs, even if you take each of them from birth and train them.

If there is such a difference between two creatures that are related, I can't imagine the difference in a totaly different creature.

Just a few points...

Where i do agree that we cannot capture animals and then expect things to go smoothly all the time, i don't think that it's so sick we've captured them for entertainment. if you want to look at things that way, all animals would have to be released into the wild and people wouldn't be able to have pets or anything. Dogs are animals too and we have them in unnatural environments for dogs do we not? So when a dog attacks a person it's killed because it's vicious. That is just what dogs to. Or we wouldn't be able to have Zoos anymore, because a tiger killed a young man a while back. The fact that he was provocking the tiger means nothing. But zoos are educational for children, and they are a place full of captivated animals in "fake" habitats.

I like SeaWorld...i haven't been for quite some time but i like it.

So you believe we shouldn't have SeaWorld because a person was killed. Yes, i agree that it is sad she lost her life and everything, but up until the moment she died she was doing something she loved. Now it might just be me, but i'd rather die from something that made me happy to something that didn't. So where you did do a good job on your artical, it is really well written and everything, i don't say that i completely agree with your point.

*multi-million/billion [i]dollar[/i] business.
xP

vvv As far as them stopping from capturing them, they can't. It's a business, a mutli-million probably billion business. And it brings in the tourists, which are important to Florida's economy. Yes, we have other theme parks. Yes, we have the keys and the beaches. But it's pretty important; it's a service that people have traveled across the world for.

They've lost people before; they'll probably lose more. It's kinda like being struck by lightning. It happens, but it doesn't happen everyday or enough for scientists to try to figure out how to stop lightning from hitting people.

Personally I think that entertainment can only go so far. I believe that it's completely expected - we're bringing a wild animal into captivity and in all honesty [i]how is it not[/i] expected that one day they could act up. An animal is an animal.
What we're doing though, is taking them from their natural habitat and using them for our own joy. Whales are not dogs - they're whales.
I agree with the comments below me.
I doubt that they're going to stop capturing them though, which confuses me, considering we just lost a woman to it.

I agree with a few people here. And to be honest, capturing animals and teaching them all these fancy tricks and placing them in these fancy, fake environments is not something that is right. It's wrong and it'd be like placing a human being in a cage and letting it live that way.

They are animals. They may be domesticated to a [i]certain[/i] point, but they'll never be fully trust worthy. I don't think what happened was something the trainer had coming, and it is still really sad that she lost her life that way.

But it is a killer whale, what do you expect - it is an animal, they kill to feed and survive in their environment, let alone to protect themselves. Animals [b]do[/b] kill people.


Nice job on the article by the way. ;)

I honestly believe that this whale and all the other ones that have been captured for stupid entertainment reasons should at least get the chance of being released into the wild. It is morally wrong to kill this whale because of the soul fact that they are the ones who have brought it into such an environment.
Humans are not meant to be a part of a whale's world. Such forced contact should be illegal, I mean what do you expect, for something like this not to happen?
At least dolphins are lucky, they're able to commit suicide to escape such a life. And that is a very, very sad end to such a beautiful creature.

I've been to Seaworld on my holidays to America and I feel sorry for the whales. That music is loud, even for my ears but since the whales can hear things from miles away. But yeah, it's a massive shame that she died, but these are wild animals.

I'm scared to watch The Cove. :(

I personally love SeaWorld; I live some 45 minutes away from it, and I've had so many good memories as a child there. But that doesn't mean I don't think all these animals should be performing tricks their entire lives.

But at the same time, I don't believe they should let Tilly go. I've known about the whale for a while. He is literally like a puppy. They all are.

The incident of the night swimmer was the own man's fault; he got past guards at night, and the whales 'played' with him until he drowned. Note, they're like puppies - but they're HUGE. Trainers at SeaWorld know the consequences. They know that they're animals. They know that they can be... a tad, oh, I don't know... animal-like?

I'm not going to say that the Trainer had it coming; it was unfortunate that she lost her life in a misunderstanding. I honestly wish that Tilikum wasn't in that show since he was agitated.

I think SeaWorld needs to do something, other than letting him go. It's their responsibility. I hate to point fingers, but yes, it's their fault.

Quick fact: orca are actually part of the dolphin family. It is the largest dolphin known to man. Although, technically speaking, it is also a whale because all dolphins are a sub-species under the category whale.

I agree with Hell_raiser about this article/situation though. I don't think we should be capturing wild animals and teaching them to perform. Dolphins are the second most intelligent animals on this planet, after us. They are smart: very smart, and for us to just train them and expect them to live the rest of their healthy lives doing tricks is just absurd. Eventually, something's going to happen. Maybe not with every dolphin or whale, but it's going to. They had to see this coming.

As for SeaWorld, I personally hate it after watching The Cove. And to think, I used to want to work there. -_-

An Orca or more commonly known as the Killer Whale named Keiko, who played Free Willy, was released to the while being in captivity for awhile. Keiko did not exactly died from starvation but from bacterial infection that his immune system did not fend off. If other whales like this one is released going from a pretty much sterile environment to the ocean. They will get sick and probably die. Of course from what I also read this particular Orca was upset before the show and has been known to have killed three or two before this. One was up north and then sent the killer whale to Sea world where he killed one because of a night swimmer went into his pool. But the trainers knew that he was upset and let him do the show anyway where they should have let him not do the show or even do the show at all that day.

"I don't really understand why you would capture a killer whale and expect it to not kill."

The only word that has anything to do with it is "Animal." Not killer, not whale, not anything else...ANIMAL!

We take creatures from their enviroment and try to tame them, then we are completely suprised when something bad happens.

You can take a new-born baby, and tell it an apple is an orange. Just 'cause it believes you as it grows up, doesn't make the kid correct.

A domesticated animal is still an animal...I don't care how trained, how well nurtured, its still an animal and it still has killing in its genetics. When the switch gets flipped, they will kill.

Humans are a perfect example.

We are animals

Most humans are trained animals, domesticated and relitively "safe".

Yet some trained animals still act up when the switch is flipped...

Serial Killers, passion murders.

Violence is litterely in our genetics, we are animals.

And it comes as a suprise when one trained animal acts up..

The whale did nothing wrong, nothing at all. The creature was just acting quite natural.

Don't think I'm just complaining, I have salutions to fix this problem!

1. Stop domesticating animals and assuming them safe.

2. Put a bullet in this poor f'ers brain...-Remembers it a whale- I recommend a big bullet. .50, perhaps?

Or, you could just keep the whale locked up and send some more people in for the whale can continue to play 'Jaws'...