A SeaWorld trainer was killed during a show at the popular park in Orlando, Fla. on Wednesday.
It’s being reported that the trainer had finished explaining to the audience what they were about to see when the whale swam up out of the water, grabbed her and whipped her around in the way the whales normally use to kill prey, like seals.
Captive killer whales have been known to attack and kill their trainers.
The Orlando Sentinel reports the following:
Park guest Victoria Biniak told Local 6 that the trainer was a veteran of SeaWorld and had just finished explaining to the audience the show they were about to see.
At that point, Biniak said, the whale came up from the water and grabbed the woman.
“He was thrashing her around pretty good. It was violent,'” Biniak told Local 6.
The whale “took off really fast in the tank, and then he came back, shot up in the air, grabbed the trainer by the waist and started thrashing around, and one of her shoes flew off.”
She said sirens went off and everyone was forced to leave the stadium.
Guests were evacuated from the area. The park is not shut down.
The U.S. Humane Society has opposed the use of killer whales at sea parks, arguing that such venues don’t fill the animals’ needs the way nature would.
An excerpt from a USHS document produced after a previous SeaWorld attack:
Ky, like every captive wild animal in the world, whether a circus elephant or a white tiger in Las Vegas, has complex physical and behavioral needs, which can never be fully satisfied in captivity. Breeding is just one of many such needs among killer whales, commonly known as orcas. They also require lots of open water and the life-long companionship of their own family members.
That’s one reason why The HSUS is constantly encouraging summer vacationers to avoid marine parks: Visitors only help perpetuate this grim illusion–that orcas and dolphins are perfectly content performing in tanks that can never recreate their natural environment.
“To say that Ky’s actions were motivated by his teenage hormones is a bit like saying a lion’s hunting instincts are motivated by his appetite,” says Naomi Rose, The HSUS’s marine mammal scientist. “Well, yeah, maybe that’s right. But that’s not the point. The point is humans cannot predict, let alone control, these natural behaviors. The danger in thinking we can control these animals is injury, maybe even death.”
