Shamu whale kills trainer Wednesday; videos show eyewitness account of SeaWorld death and give clues to the past of the killer whale named Tilikum.
The Orlando, Florida SeaWorld park was the unfortunate scene of a murder. As reported by the Associated Press, the giant killer whale called Tilikum suddenly attacked and killed its trainer, 40-year-old Dawn Brancheau. Reportedly it's the third time Tilikum has killed a human being, yet this 12,000 pound killer whale was still performing.
SeaWorld trainer Brancheau, had the most experience with Tilikum, though it's said that trainers were forbidden to swim with him.
Videos related to Wednesday's incident are now appearing on YouTube. The first video is an eyewitness account of exactly what happened. A word of warning: the explanation is graphic:
In the video, the woman, Eldon Skaggs, said the "trainer was massaging the whale on his belly, then the whale took off really fast, came around, right up to the glass, popped up and started thrashing, grabbed the trainer by the waist, started thrashing, and her shoe came off. The sirens went off."
Skaggs said that people, including kids, were covering their mouths in disbelief over what they had seen. The park staff yelled and forced people to leave the stadium; eventually the park was closed.
This is the video account by MSNBC:
In this video a "killer whale expert", Jr. Janet Mann of Georgetown, says it's impossible to tell if a killer whale is in an aggressive mood:
In the video below, the Orange County Sheriff's Department said they're conducting a death investigation. It appeared to be an accident, with no sense of fowl play. Then Dan Brown, of Sea World Orlando explained that they too had initiated an investigation. "We have never in the history of our parks experienced an incident like this and all of our standard operating procedures will come under review."
This video below, made by Tilikumtrainer on YouTube (who's name is Rose) in 2007 is one to watch twice. It tells the "life story" of Tilikum. The video reports that Tilikum was born a male Orca calf in 1981 in an Icelandic Pod and spent two years with his mother and and her family until it was taken from them in 1983.
That year, Tilikum was flown to Sealand of the Pacific in Canada, where he performed and lived with two female Orcas that "constantly picked on him", according to the video.
After an incident at Sealand (which must have been the 1991 death of trainer Kelly Byrne), and the birth of his first calf, Tilikum was sold to Sea World Florida in Orlando. He enjoyed a larger pool and was the largest known male at Sea World. While at SeaWorld, Tilikum has sired 15 calves between 1993 and 2007.
The video ends with "Though he was brought in from the wild, we have learned so much with having him and the others around. But one thing's for sure: Tilikum is the wild guy you gotta love...I know I did.
What that means, as of this writing, I do not know. Rose's YouTube channel has a link to a MySpace profile that was deleted. Here's the video:
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