Free Willy From The Bathtub

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MrsSpringsteen

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As much as I disagree with PETA about some things and mainly with their tactics, doesn't this latest death at Sea World tell us that a mammal that size does not belong in a tank doing tricks for our amusement? Yes it's important to see them in order to be educated about them and to appreciate them even more-but at what price for them? And obviously for that trainer.

The sheriff says that the trainer "slipped" and fell in-but the eyewitness reports contradict that and I do believe the killer whale could have lashed out because of the conditions there. I don't care how well you treat them-if they're really in a tank that's relatively like a bathtub compared to their size..I've never been to Sea World so I don't know what it's actually like.

From the PETA web site

"Earlier this afternoon, another trainer at SeaWorld in Orlando was killed after being pulled into the tank by an orca named Tilikum (or Telly, for short). According to a witness, the whale, who has been involved in two previous fatal incidents involving human beings and who our captive wildlife director, Debbie Leahy, describes as "12,300 pounds of sheer rage," leapt out of the tank and grabbed the trainer by the waist, pulled her into the water, threw her around like a rag doll, and then held her underwater until she drowned. SeaWorld officials canceled the dolphin and whale shows for the rest of the day, but SeaWorld remains open (have they no shame?!) and will continue to exploit and abuse these captive animals despite the many horrific injuries and deaths of trainers and animals that have occurred throughout the theme park's history.

PETA has long been asking SeaWorld to stop taking wild, ocean-going mammals from their families and ocean homes and confining them with no semblance of a life to an area that, to them, is the size of a bathtub. No wonder these huge, intelligent animals, like the beaten elephants in the Ringling Bros. circus, lash out after being forced into subservience and forced to perform stupid circus tricks for their food for so long. For years, PETA has been calling on SeaWorld to switch to hugely popular robotic replacements like those used in the amazing "Walking With the Dinosaurs" exhibit. The public needs to stand up now against this cruelty and stop patronizing aquariums and whale and dolphin shows. Please join us in saying, "Enough!"
 
I frequent Six Flags and as much as I love watching the dolphin and whale shows, I always feel bad for the animals. Animals of that size really don't belong there. I was glad to find out that the whale was not going to be put down. That would have really pissed me off. It's really sad what happened, but I'm sure the trainers are aware of the risks they're taking by working with animals of this caliber.
 
Sea World is a preservation society first, and a park second.


Do you know how big the orca tanks are, if that would really equate to a bathtub size for them?

I'm not defending PETA at all or saying they can't suck it either

If Tilikum was put down Sea World would only be facing even more anger-and it would seem as if they were blaming the whale for something that they have to accept partial responsibility for, no matter how you look at it. I'm glad they didn't do that too, but what happens in the future?
 
I don't care how well you treat them-if they're really in a tank that's relatively like a bathtub compared to their size..I've never been to Sea World so I don't know what it's actually like.
then why say it?

i've personally got mixed feelings about animals being kept in cages and pools solely for us to see them. keeping endangered animals in captivity so they won't go extinct is one thing, but this is different. on one hand yes, it educates us and can also hopefully spark interest in kids to want to go into some field involving animals in the future. but we're also putting animals in captivity unnecessarily. but i think, as usual, peta is completely overreacting by this. why shouldn't sea world remain open? a school doesn't close if a teacher dies.
 
I have mixed feelings too. I have an annual pass to SeaWorld Orlando and have seen the whales there many times. The whale in this incident is huge! The tanks they have seem pretty large to me but I'm not an expert.

It surprised me to learn that this whale (and quite a few of the whales in the parks) was captured from the wild. Granted this whale was captured over 20 years ago and I think it is no longer legal for people to do so (in the USA at least), but still that was disturbing. I thought all of the whales were from breeding programs.

PETA doesn't help their cause by sensationalizing an already tragic event.
 
i don't think that PETA trying to frame this as this being akin to a murder, or justifiable homicide, is at all helpful. it's a wild animal. it's actions might have been affectionate in intention (so much as an animal, even a vastly intelligent animal, can be said to have intention).

to assume as PETA has that this was an act of rage is silly.
 
The problem is that the animals cannot survive in the wild. Many if not most animals in the parks and zoos have been born in captivity, or were taken from the wild so long ago they can no longer be released. Really the only other viable solution is to put them down. When my uncle was a DNR officer they sometimes found wild animals that people had captured for various reasons - once a bear cub being used to train hunting dogs. The cub was confiscated and sent to a zoo. The problem with a whale is it's so damn big and swims miles and miles in the wild. I have been to Sea World and personally, for an animal of that size the tank is like pacing in a bathtub.

I won't even get into PETA, a bunch of quacks. I'm not even sure this whale was "lashing out". How does he understand that a human can't swim under water that long? When I first heard the headlines, I thought the whale *ate* the human, the way it was being sensationalized and embellished. Not that it makes it any less tragic for her family, but....
 
i will say, honestly, that the shows i saw at Sea World in San Diego when i went there when i was, like, 7, really did give me an appreciation for the magnificence of these animals and for sea life as a whole. i did a huge report on dolphins when i was in 5th grade. i wanted to be a marine biologist. though that didn't happen, it certainly gave me a love for the ocean that's been most recently realized through scuba diving. and an absolute dream of mine would be to produce a show for Discovery or Animal Planet about whales, dolphins, orcas, etc. for serious.


I won't even get into PETA, a bunch of quacks. I'm not even sure this whale was "lashing out". How does he understand that a human can't swim under water that long?


not that we can read a whale's thoughts, but it doesn't seem like this was an angry animal lashing out.

also, and i guess i could look this up, but that Seigfried and Roy accident from a few years ago -- wasn't that an issue of the tiger actually trying to protect him when he fell during the act, as one would a cub? the problem being that she grabbed Roy by the neck, as she would a cub, and that's what caused the massive injury? and there was something with a stupid woman with big hair trying to pet the tigers during the performance.

wouldn't surprise me if there was something similar going on here.
 
Even if he was trying to drown her so he could eat her like prey, I don't like how PETA associates "rage" with natural wild animal behaviors. Unlike humans, animals do not do things out of spite; their behaviors are not based on emotion but simply on survival. Humans are the species that are spiteful and vengeful and act based on rage, not animals.
 
They really are magnificent creatures. If I could have handled dissecting frogs in high school biology I might have become a marine biologist. :lol:

I've been to SeaWorld San Diego and orca whale watching in the wild off the coast of Victoria, BC as well as to Blue Lagoon in Nassau swimming with dolphins. All incredible experiences.

I'm inclined to go with the expert in the Star article who said Tilikum was likely playing with her (and the two he killed before her).
 
also, and i guess i could look this up, but that Seigfried and Roy accident from a few years ago -- wasn't that an issue of the tiger actually trying to protect him when he fell during the act, as one would a cub? the problem being that she grabbed Roy by the neck, as she would a cub, and that's what caused the massive injury? and there was something with a stupid woman with big hair trying to pet the tigers during the performance.

wouldn't surprise me if there was something similar going on here.
exactly. i think peta tends to confuse animals with humans, as dumb as that sounds. but my point is, an orca whale isn't exactly capable of emotions like spite or anything. the trainer died for one of two reasons. either it was a complete accident, or the whale thought it was playing with the trainer, protecting it, or something. i doubt it could be anything else.
 
^ Well, one of the ones he killed before this trainer, was a drunken idiot who snuck into the pool after hours and paid the price. He died of hypothermia long before the orca saw him, though.
 
The whale killed because we aren't following the Bible. DUH.

Bible ignored, trainer dies

Chalk another death up to animal rights insanity and to the ongoing failure of the West to take counsel on practical matters from the Scripture.

...

If the counsel of the Judeo-Christian tradition had been followed, Tillikum would have been put out of everyone's misery back in 1991 and would not have had the opportunity to claim two more human lives.

Says the ancient civil code of Israel, "When an ox gores a man or woman to death, the ox shall be stoned, and its flesh shall not be eaten, but the owner shall not be liable." (Exodus 21:28)
 
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