The Dark Truth Behind Killer Whale Shows

April 2024 ยท 2 minute read

Between 1988 and 2009, SeaWorld documented over 100 instances of captive orcas acting aggressively toward trainers, as noted by National Geographic. In 1991, at the now-defunct park Sealand of the Pacific, a trainer named Keltie Byrne drowned as a result of being held underwater by a whale named Tilikum, as reported by CNN. SeaWorld bought Tilikum shortly thereafter and went on to use him as the primary male for orca breeding. He is believed to have sired 21 calves, per National Geographic.

In 1999, the body of a naked man who had allegedly hid in SeaWorld after hours was found in Tilikum's tank. "He may have been a victim of what a whale would call horseplay, just playing around," Orange County Sheriff's Office spokesman Jim Solomons said at the time (via CNN).

Then, following an orca show on February 24, 2010, Tilikum grabbed senior trainer Dawn Brancheau, pulled her into the orca tank, and began swinging her around, as reported by CNN. By the time Brancheau's body was retrieved, she had died of blunt force trauma to the head, neck, and torso, per ABC News. According to Brancheau's autopsy, part of her scalp was "forcibly torn from her head," her jaw was broken, her vertebra was fractured, and an elbow and a knee were dislocated. Orca experts attributed the aggression to the fact that Tilikum was often isolated in small tanks and used excessively for breeding, per NBC News.

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