at least not right now. There is no need (as in preservation of the species), and although I think we can learn a lot in the wild, I think there are things you can observe being able to see them up close and every day. That said, I don’t think we have the ability to truly meet their needs in captivity, and it can cause a whole host of issues, like what was observed in the vid.
Tilicum was just acting like a killer whale. It is actually surprising that more trainers aren’t killed, when you think about it.
I think he was acting very abnormally, even in captivity. I think that food deprivation, social deprivation, inappropriate interspecies interactions and lack of other mental stimulation had a cumulative effect of making him a very dangerous animal that lacks inhibition in many areas.
I remember a study(?) of young bull elephants that were relocated at a young age to another park that had been w/o elephants for a long time. The park began to find rhinos dead here and there. Turns out that the social structure of the herd, especially where the older/larger/more dominant bulls were concerned acted as a safety net/behavior example to the young males and thus inhibited their interactions till they were psychologically old enough with enough experience to handle themselves appropriately.
it would not surprise me at all, if there was a similar behavior model within the orca social structure where young teenage-ish bulls were kicked to the outside of the pod and the larger, stronger males were the ones who dealt with them. If this is the case, Tilikum did not have that advantage and so did not learn any (or much) social inhibition.
I found what led up to the fatal attack on Dawn really interesting. Tilicum had evidently missed a signal, and went all the way around, doing the pectoral fin wave, and then wasn’t rewarded, when he thought he had done everything right and deserved to be rewarded. Talk about a sense of justice! The frustration built as he realized from the sound of the ice in the bucket that Dawn was running out of fish, and was giving out smaller rewards as time went on. Sounds like he became frustrated and angry, and directed it towards Dawn.
I don’t often feel like animals are vindictive, but in this case, it might have been appropriate and as his trainer, she should have seen that.
What I found so fascinating was that there were no lawsuits for the people so badly injured or killed. Must be that SW settled out of court and put a gag order in the settlement.
I was very very glad to see OSHA, step in and do something. I find it deeply disturbing that SW would/did not tell their novice trainers about how dangerous working with them is. I also think there will be no going back from this, the venue will have to change. Can you imagine having a child at the Dine With Shamu (which is where Dawn was killed) and witness that??? Horrifying.
did anyone else watch the commentary at the end? That was quite interesting as well.
I was fortunate to have seen Orcas off the San Juan Islands, never knew they could have that flopped over dorsal fin, apparently the wild ones rarely develop that. I didn’t catch why so many of the captive ones develop that, does anybody know?
no idea, but I am jealous you got to see them off the San Juan Islands.
