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SeaWorld Sees Green
Today — a measly four days days since whale trainer, Dawn Brancheau, was violently killed by a whale — SeaWorld resumed its killer whale show. Clearly, SeaWorld must be using Tiger Woods’ PR firm for advice on how to handle crisis PR. Maybe they offer a special promo for Florida-based eff-ups? Seriously people. WTF? A woman was brutally and traumatically thrashed and drowned in front of a crowd of people, including a bunch of children and SeaWorld thinks four days is the magical number to resume shows. How insensitive and unaware can people be? Let’s not forget this same whale was involved in two other deaths. In an act that can only echo the stupidity of the Catholic church relocating priests who were known sexual predators, SeaWorld purchased Tilikum from a park in Canada but only to be used as a stud, not in performances. What was the catalyst for the decision to let Tilikum go from stud to performer? Was there a meeting in a SeaWorld conference room where some employee advocated on behalf of Tilikum saying “we owe it to him because he has done a great job knocking up a bunch of female whales.” If you were a parent, would you hire a convicted child molester as a babysitter? Probably not. This situation is just as absurd. The whale had killed. Twice. No sane person would allow that situation to be repeated.
Let me be clear, I do not blame the whale for the death. It is unfathomable to me that these amazing creatures — who were meant to swim the vast oceans of the world — are being held in captivity in tiny tanks. What creature with a beating heart and brain would not go crazy in that type of environment? The cruelty is unimaginable.
There can only be one motivation behind SeaWorld’s decision to resume the killer whale shows and that is money. After four days they have managed to compartmentalize the death and can now only see green. What else could be behind the decision? It’s not like there are throngs of children protesters sitting in strollers outside SeaWorld holding signs that say “Bring Back The Whale Show.” The decision was based on pure greed. SeaWorld appears to rationalize this decision by saying no trainers will be in the water with the whales. Oh that’s a good plan. That makes everything better. It’s kinda like charging tickets to see Charles Manson but promising he won’t be within striking distance of any human beings. SeaWorld’s delusional plans are further amplified by citing in-water interactions between whales and trainers will resume after a “completed review and new policies” are made. Ummm….do you think you might want to review the findings before you state that you’ll be tossing the whale version of human popcorn back in the water. Dudes, unlike the cigarette industry who denied for decades that cigarettes caused cancer because there was no concrete evidence, this death was witnessed by many people. These whales kill. Who in their right mind would make a statement that essentially says “yeah, we’ll take a look at things but no matter what we find we promise to put human beings in the same risky situation in the future.”
What are your thoughts on SeaWorld’s decision?
February 28th, 2010 at 4:30 pm
This is such a tragic situation, and yes, I agree with you that four days seems a little soon. I feel like you briefly touched on a really important piece of this whole thing, and that is the question of whether or not these animals should be in captivity at all. I read several articles that said that these whales basically never kill humans out in the wild, but there have been (albeit extremely rare and few) instances in which they show aggression to humans at places like Sea World…although this statement does seem a little Captain Obvious considering whales aren’t around humans in the wild but they are around humans at Sea World. Moreover, the popular argument for keeping these whales in “breeding programs” aka a glorified circus is that it raises public awareness for the plight of endangered species. But with the internet, so many people have access to information regarding that problem. There are so many new ways with social media to spread that kind of information and raise awareness. I’ve started to question the effectiveness and purpose of captivity, whale shows…the entire Sea World thing. I think there is no doubt that these places do raise awareness and draw public compassion to these issues, but given that there are so many other ways to do that now, do we need to hold wild animals like Tilikum in captivity anymore?
February 28th, 2010 at 4:39 pm
I agree and think it is awful to resume the show so soon after the trajic event. IT even baffles me that they are resuming the show at all – with the same whale! The whale they are using for the show is clearly not safe to keep preforming with and should at least be given a break or not used in the shows. What trainer in their right mind would get back in the water with this whale anyways??
I think the show is now going to attrack a different audience in the way that people are using this killer whale (literally) as a spectacle – to go and see this animal that has been the cause of the deaths. I think some people are going to now go to the show in hopes to see an attack or the whale lash out during the performance.
The whale seems to be lashing out against his constraints- liek you said the large whale is supposed to roam freely in the ocean, not all cramped up in a small confined pool.
I think Sea World at least should have publicly adressed the problem, given the show at least a few weeks break, and should find a different whale and give Tilikum some time off
February 28th, 2010 at 6:21 pm
janet, you bring up a great point. if seaworld’s motivation was really to raise awareness, social media would probably allow them to reach more people for a fraction of the cost of keeping the whales in captivity. it will be interesting to see what backlash they experience based on the “power to the people” web 2.0 world we live in.
February 28th, 2010 at 6:25 pm
deirdre, your comment about attracting a different audience is frightening and probably true. i feel terrible for the whales. they are being used so someone can make money. i can’t imagine the captive environment isn’t mentally abusive every second of every day. sigh.
February 28th, 2010 at 9:05 pm
I cannot believe Sea World is allowing this whale to resume shows. My guess is their tix sales are going to plummet, and I for one hope they do! At least then Sea World will realize they cannot simply move on as if nothing happened. I’m interested to see if the blogosphere and twittersphere produce some serious backlash on this issue and Sea World re-thinks their decision. Oh, and I think the really sick part of this is that Sea World is still trying to maintain their stance that it was a “drowning incident with a whale”. I mean, really?
March 1st, 2010 at 8:04 am
amy, i agree. their use of the term “drowning” is absurd. she was drowned by a whale. she didn’t slip in the pool and drown. it really is pathetic.
March 1st, 2010 at 11:28 am
Well – maybe the ’story behind the story’ is what Sea World knows and has figured out. We (American public in general) have tiny attention spans. They know that in 2 weeks (maybe less) we will have completely forgotten the story. As Amy said above, if we were truly outraged, their stands would be empty. But my guess is that if we check in a month from now, their traffic numbers will be on par with last year. Not many businesses are willing to take a ‘moral’ stand and lose money on principle. In fact – you could make the argument that more innocent people would be hurt if they did shut it down – how many Sea World folks might get laid off, or have their hours cut in half if they shut the show down? Maybe that wouldn’t happen, but there are always unintended consequences.
That said – I would have liked them to get rid of that whale from public shows, and take a short hiatus – if for nothing else but out of respect for their trainer who died.
Last – I am no ‘tree hugger’ (well, there was that one time at band camp) – but if you want to see an entertaining show, check out Whale Wars on Discovery:
http://animal.discovery.com/tv/whale-wars/
March 1st, 2010 at 11:32 am
Sea Shepard captain from Whale Wars TV show commenting on Sea World incident:
http://www.seashepherd.org/news-and-media/editorial-100225-1.html
March 1st, 2010 at 12:17 pm
dexter, i am with you on all fronts — even the band camp comment. ha! there is no easy answer. the whales cannot be released and would probably die as a result of such a drastic action. and i greatly appreciate the number of people and families who would be impacted by job loss. like you, it just feels to me like they should have spent more time reflecting on the incident, reviewing policies/procedures and not committed to trainers going back in the tank until after a thorough investigation was 100% complete. also, amy’s comment above about seaworld labeling this as a “drowning” leaves a bad taste in my mouth.
March 1st, 2010 at 12:22 pm
dexter, i also meant to thank you for the two links. i love the captain’s line: “no reasonable person would walk unescorted across the exercise yard of a maximum-security prison, and it is irresponsible to expect a frail human being to turn his or her back on a stressed-out, angry, captive orca – the most formidable predator on the planet.” very powerful analogy. thanks for taking the time to comment.
March 2nd, 2010 at 2:12 pm
this video just released. in 2006 osha warned seaworld that a trainer would be killed by a whale. the video shows two separate instances of trainers being put in life threatening situations by whales.
http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/us/2010/03/02/kaye.osha.whale.report.cnn?hpt=C2
March 2nd, 2010 at 3:15 pm
Great post, Kel. I watched footage of the resumed show on the news last night and people in the audience were wiping away tears when they dedicated it to the deceased trainer – definitely a WTF moment for me. I was pretty surprised to see so many people in the audience. The clueless public attending these animal exploitation shows seem just as guilty to me as Sea World for supporting such a greedy and insensitive organization. If they stopped going they’d be no more shows, no more animals being mistreated, confined, and isolated, and therefore no humans dying senseless deaths.
March 2nd, 2010 at 6:58 pm
pam, i love your point because it is so simple yet so powerful — if people would stop attending, the shows would end. at that point, i would imagine concerned people could raise money to ensure the whales had some viable future. not sure what that is since i’m not an expert, but people smarter than me must have a suggestion. bueller….anyone…