Dawn Brancheau and Whale - AP
Sad story today (or yesterday now) of a trainer at an Orlando SeaWorld being killed by Tilikum, a 30 year old 12,300 lb killer whale, in front of an audience. While I think this is tremendously sad and by no means think she deserved it, it makes me wonder why we keep such animals for our amusement. This whale was probably doing what he would instinctively do in the wild. Whether she fell in or he grabbed her, he probably saw her as a toy and didn’t mean to kill her. Or maybe he did, I don’t know. But now this whale could possibly put down after it was forced into this life of smaller “aquariums” and a entertaining us as humans.
I have mixed emotions overall. When something like this happens I think how it wouldn’t if we didn’t treat animals (large animals especially) like this, but when I am at the zoo I do go and watch the dolphin shows (or I suppose being at the Zoo period supports it). Either way I do think this is horrible and I feel tremendously sorry for Dawn Brancheau’s family for what happened to her today.
