After years of persistent FOIA appeals, dolphin advocate Russ Rector has managed the very worthwhile feat of getting NOAA to release more than 1000 pages of documents related to SeaWorld’s purchase of Tilikum, Haida, and Nootka from Sealand Of The Pacific. I am going through them and posting some of the details and insights that the documents contain.
My first post, about the back and forth SeaWorld and NOAA had over how SeaWorld planned to deal with the fact that the three killer whales it was purchasing from Sealand had killed a trainer, is up at The Dodo.
SeaWorld’s take on whether Tilikum, Haida and Nootka’s behavior was normal, and whether SeaWorld was set to handle the three whales in the aftermath of Keltie Byrne’s death, doesn’t look so great in light of what followed with Tilikum’s life at SeaWorld. NOAA, which gets credit for pressing SeaWorld on the question of how it might deal with killer whales that had killed, was clearly not that impressed by SeaWorld’s complacency. Nevertheless, they ended up granting the permit.
You can download the full set of permit-related documents here, and I’ve also embedded them below:
The Earthist Chronicles 
Tim thank you for your new bulletins!
We are relocating to the UK from South Africa due to violent crime and would appreciate if you would direct emails to my new email address :
michele@jankelow.com
I eagerly await your bulletins as I find them factual and informative. I hope in some way in the UK I can encourage media coverage.
My family have just experienced horrible violent crime and will arrive in the UK August 1.
Thanks again!
Michele Jankelow
UK No. +44 (0) 755 291 4238
Why do we humans controle over every living creatur on earth!? Wild animals do not belong in a limited space!!!!! You should notn do triks with wild animals!!!! The have to live in the ocean, that ware the belong!!! LET THEM FREE !!!