Killer Whale Kills Trainer in Seaworld Florida

We went to Seaworld, Florida last year and it was amazing, we went to see the whale show, where me, my brothers and sister sat in the SPLASH ZONE so we could get the full experience of the show...it was totaly out of this world and its the all mighty whale Tillikum who splashed us with his enormous tail, i was mesmorised with his pure power, skill and beauty in the water, hes amazing...



This whale is an amazing creature and lives in a "fish pond" in his eyes...so many things shoud have been done to prevent this terrible accident from happening, lots of people have said one thing or another regarding this storey...the pony tail of the trainer fell down on the whales nose and it grabbed her hair and pulled her into the water........so its not rocket sciende to actualy tie your hair up properly to prvent this from happening...the whale proberly thought it was a piece of rope which they have on their toys when training, i realy dont believe the whale has anger issues or would just randomly attack its human trainr for no reason, one trainer said the whale was acting a bit unusual, again another sign to move the whale off show to prvent an accident...and for all those people who think this whale should be destroyed because of this, i think their mad, they need to think about health and safety, but at the end of the day there are so many factors which could have been done to prevent this and the trainer having 17years of experience working alongside these whales should have been actualy taking notice of the whales behaviour and actualy act on her upmost intuition and remove "Tillikum" from the stadium...i do feel for the womans family as they lost their child but at the end of the day things happen and you never know what might be waiting round the corner when working with any animal

Taken from the news, please read:
A trainer at the SeaWorld park in Orlando, Florida, has died after being attacked by a killer whale. Witnesses said the orca had jumped and grabbed Dawn Brancheau by the waist from a poolside platform before dragging her underwater. Guests were evacuated while fire crews tried to rescue the 40-year-old, but they were unable to revive her. The killer whale, Tilikum, was also reportedly involved in the death of a female trainer in Canada in 1991.
Other orcas were also said to have attacked trainers at SeaWorld parks in 2006 and 2004.



'Shaking her violently'
Chuck Tompkins, SeaWorld parks' head of animal training, was quoted by Reuters news agency saying: "She was rubbing the killer whale's head, and [it] grabbed her and pulled her in." SeaWorld said an investigation was under way into Wednesday afternoon's death of Ms Brancheau, a trainer with 16 years' experience. Jim Solomons, a spokesman for the Orange County Sheriff's Office, said early accounts indicated she could have slipped and fallen into the tank.

He said it was too early to tell if she had been attacked by the 12,000lb (5,450kg) orca.

But witnesses told a different story. Park visitor Victoria Biniak told a local TV channel that the trainer had just finished explaining to the audience what they were about to see.At that point, she said, the whale "took off really fast, and then he came back around to the glass, jumped up, grabbed the trainer by the waist and started shaking her violently. The last thing we saw was her shoe floating."

Audience member Eldon Skaggs told AP news agency the whale had "pulled her under and started swimming around with her".
A male spectator who witnessed the tragedy gave CNN a similar version of events.
Brazilian tourist Joao Lucio DeCosta Sobrinho and his girlfriend were at an underwater viewing area when they saw the whale with the trainer in its mouth.

The entertainment park, known for its killer whale, seal and dolphin displays, was closed after the incident. SeaWorld in San Diego also suspended its killer whale show.
Tilikum is said to have been involved in previous incidents, the BBC's Andy Gallacher reports from Florida.

A SeaWorld spokesman said the orca had been one of three whales blamed for killing a trainer in 1991 after she had fallen in a pool at a marine park in British Columbia, Canada.

'Naked man'
After the whale - nicknamed Telly - was sold to SeaWorld Orlando it was involved in a second incident when authorities discovered the body of a naked man lying across his back in 1999.
Officials later concluded the man, who had either crept into SeaWorld after closing time or hidden in the park until it closed, probably drowned after suffering hypothermia. There have been incidents involving other whales at SeaWorld.

In November 2006, a male trainer escaped with a broken foot after he was bitten and held underwater by a female killer whale during a show at SeaWorld's San Diego park.

In 2004, another whale at the company's San Antonio park attempted to bite a trainer, but he too escaped.

Though called a killer whale, the orca (Orcinus orca), is actually the largest member of the oceanic dolphin family.

Animal rights group Peta says it has long been asking SeaWorld to stop taking wild, ocean-going mammals and confining them to an area that, to them, is "the size of a bathtub".