Movie Review
ales, were night guards and night trainers surveying the area as well as countless cameras stationed all over Shamu Stadium in the front and back pools for security purposes. The third death was that of Brancheau, a well-known and loved trainer who was dragged into the water by Tilikum during a performance. The autopsy concluded that she died from drowning and blunt-force trauma. While at least a dozen patrons were there while Brancheau was killed, there have been disputes over how she was brought into the water. Some say that the orca confused her ponytail for a toy or food as she had been feeding the orca before and may have touched her hair after, while others claim that she was dragged in by her arm.
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t is Brancheau’s death that spurred not only Cowperthwaite to start investigating but also David Kirby, former journalist for The New York Times, to write a book called Death at SeaWorld. Kirby found that after Brancheau’s death, former employees filed sworn affidavits that alleged SeaWorld “hid or destroyed documents sought by federal agents in the investigation of Brancheau’s death, and tried to impede other parts of the investigation.” However, they withdrew their allegations.
THE CAPTIVE ORCAS “We’re deeply transformed by them ...” says Dr. Christopher Dold, SeaWorld’s vice president of veterinary services. “SeaWorld executives say that without access to the whales — which are now bred at the parks, rather than captured wild — humans would be denied a connection to large, intelligent animals with which many feel a bond.” Besides, says Dold, only one trainer has been killed at SeaWorld’s parks. He did not mention Dukes, the civilian who was also killed by Tilikum in 1999 at SeaWorld or the trainer who was killed by Tilikum and his tank mates in Magnolia Pictures
SeaLand of the Pacific in 1991. “One too many,” points out Bekoff who adds that 43 orcas have died in captivity. An orca’s lifespan in the wild can be up to 90, or more years, while in SeaWorld and related parks, most orcas die in their teens and twenties, “sometimes under abnormal circumstances,” according to Kirby. SeaWorld however claims that orcas die in the wild earlier than in captivity.
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ic O’Barry, world-renowned activist and trainer says that “there is no record of an orca harming a human in the wild. How ironic that SeaWorld, Miami Seaquarium and the dolphin “abusement park” industry refer to them as ‘killer whales’. There are many well documented incidents of ‘killer whales’ attacking and killing humans in captivity, but not in the wild. Why is this? I think it is because they become psychotic in captivity.” The “many well documented incidents” that O’Barry talks about are 32 cases where the whale was identified and five where the whale was not. While only four of these resulted in a human death and three out of four were trainers, many of those injuries were very intense. One trainer, Ken Peters, who had both feet injured and can clearly be seen in Blackfish as not being able to walk away from the scene while another, Joanne Webber, suffered a fractured neck as a result of having an orca land on her. Webber is not the only trainer to have had an orca land on her. Footage in Blackfish depicts a trainer riding an orca during a show when suddenly another orca jumps and lands directly on him. Although highlighted in Blackfish, Tilikum is not the only orca to have attacked and killed a human.
When she started the project of Blackfish, Cowperthwaite says that she began investigating with an open mind. “Only slowly did she conclude that orcas like Tilikum may be driven to aberrational — or, in the words of one of the film’s interviewees, ‘psychotic’ — behavior by their captivity.” When Cowperthwaite tried to interview SeaWorld executives, they refused to cooperate because they “doubted that the material would be used in good faith.”
AUGUST 2013
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