Diary Of A Killer Whale: You Will Not Be Seeing Dawn Brancheau Die

Media organizations have given up on their legal efforts to force videos and photos of Dawn Brancheau’s death into the public domain. Here is a report from the Orlando Sentinel, one of the media outlets seeking access to the material:

The Orlando Sentinel and other media outlets have abandoned an effort to ensure public access to video recordings and photographs documenting the killing of a SeaWorld Orlando trainer by one of the park’s killer whales.

The move is a victory for SeaWorld and the family of the late Dawn Brancheau. The two parties have been battling in court to block any release of the images capturing the Feb. 24 tragedy, in which a 6-ton killer whale named Tilikum pulled Brancheau into his tank by her hair and drowned her in a violent episode in front of some park guests.

The court dispute revolved primarily around images recorded by SeaWorld surveillance cameras — including one capturing an underwater view into Tilikum’s tank and another mounted atop the park’s 400-foot-tall Sky Tower — which SeaWorld turned over to the Orange County Sheriff’s Office as part of that agency’s investigation into Brancheau’s death.

A lawyer for the Sentinel’s parent company said Thursday that representatives for SeaWorld and the Brancheau family were unwilling to accept a settlement offer in which news organizations would have agreed not to publish any of the images or air the video in exchange for the right to have their reporters inspect the materials.

The only reason to ever make any of this sort of material publicly available is if it helps answer questions about what happened, and can help prevent a similar tragedy. Anything else is just prurience, and voyeurism of the sickest kind. I have watched a person die on video. In that case the video was the only way to understand why he died. It was still an intensely harrowing, and painful experience (which is why I haven’t supplied the link to the video).

I am not sure what photos are involved, but if they depict scenes from the aftermath, when efforts to resuscitate Dawn were being made, and when she was cut out of her wetsuit, then I don’t think they come close to meeting this standard.

Continue reading “Diary Of A Killer Whale: You Will Not Be Seeing Dawn Brancheau Die”

Department of Revealing Moments: False Killer Whale Jumps Out Of Tank

This YouTube video has been getting a lot of views, because it does what all good video does: it makes you sit up, take notice, and think.

We can’t know what that false killer whale (Pseudorca crassidens) is thinking, but it’s definitely not: “I like it in here, I think I’ll stay.”

During my reporting for The Killer In The Pool I heard stories of killer whales that had jumped out of the pool, particularly a SeaWorld orca called Kotar, who was moved from Orlando to San Antonio after he bit the penis of another male (what would Freud say?). Kotar eventually died after a pool gate he was playing with closed on him and crushed his head.

Does anyone know the facts about Kotar, or of other videos or stories about dolphins and killer whales jumping out of their pools?

The video story of the incident above continues (interesting to note the reaction of the other animals). You can bet the audience left that park wondering about many things.

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Diary Of A Killer Whale: Tilikum’s Dine With Shamu Performance

One of the other clues to Tilikum’s potential state of mind (Part 1 here) just before he killed Dawn Brancheau is his performance in the “Dine With Shamu” show that she completed with him before he grabbed her.

Trainers working with killer whales are trained to look for clues in their behavior, anything that might indicate that there is something wrong, or potential danger. These are called “precursors,” and no experts I spoke with about Tilikum’s interaction with Dawn in the “Dine With Shamu” show believed that there were any precursors or red flags that should have warned her that she might be in danger. That said, some behavioral experts I spoke with also told me that the “Dine With Shamu” show did not go that well from a performance point of view. Specifically, they said Tilikum appeared uninterested and somewhat disengaged, and did not perform well.

The primary resource when it comes to seeing Tilikum and Dawn’s work together in that show comes from a video made by a family attending the Dine With Shamu show on February 24. Here is the video, made by the Connell family, from New Hampshire. It’s a little difficult to watch, knowing what comes moments after it concludes, but it is a key to helping understand what happened that day.

[Update: WESH-TV, which is a local Orlando station has disabled the embedding for this video. Interestingly, they have not disabled embedding on the other videos on their YouTube channel. SeaWorld conspiracy theorists, you can run with this one! For those who just want to watch the video, click on the link which appears along with the “embedding disabled” message]

To the untrained eye, this looks like Tilikum putting on a pretty good show. And when Dawn engaged with Tilikum after the show, lying down next to him on the slide-out and talking to him and stroking him in what is known as a “relationship session,” it indicated that she thought he had done okay, too, as relationship sessions are partly used as a reward for good behavior (though she also had to keep him engaged while the Dine With Shamu guests headed down to the underwater viewing area).

Following the tragedy, SeaWorld employees described the “Dine With Shamu” show as “perfect,” with nothing out of the ordinary occurring. Here is trainer/spotter Jan Topoleski’s description of the show to Orange County Sheriffs Office investigators:

However, one behavioral specialist I spoke with took the time to break down the video of Dawn working with Tili and found a less than smooth performance.

Continue reading “Diary Of A Killer Whale: Tilikum’s Dine With Shamu Performance”

Chart Of The Day

Americans like things BIG: cars, serving portions, houses.

So how much more space per capita does the average American new home have compared to the rest of the world? Plenty.

(Chart via http://voices.washingtonpost.com/ezra-klein/)

Next it would be interesting to know how much more energy per capita our large houses consume, but you get the picture.

We are entering an age in which we need to scale back. A lot. Good to know that there is plenty of excess to trim.

Check out the world’s smallest house, which measures in at 96 square feet.

How low can you go?

Here, take a tour:

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BP Oil Spill: Start Worrying About Whale Sharks

We can see the oil-coated pelicans, the tar-balled beaches, and the dead marine mammals that wash up. But its a lot harder to know what is going on beneath the surface. And Pete Thomas sounds a warning over what might be happening to one of the oceans’ gentlest and most beguiling beasts: the whale shark.

Here is what Pete says:

Now it’s feared that another of nature’s iconic marine creatures — the whale shark, which is the world’s largest fish — will soon be included on a checklist of spill victims long enough to fill afield guide.

Sylvia Earle, an explorer-in-residence at National Geographic, agreed with the assessment that many of the more than 100 whale sharks she and other scientists encountered recently during an expedition 70 miles off Louisiana might be “on death row” because much of their historic feeding habitat is closer to shore, within the spill zone.

Whale sharks, long-distance travelers that can measure 40 feet, were once harvested globally. They’re classified as “vulnerable,” one step up from “endangered” on a red list published by the International Union for Conservation of Nature.

Little is known about migration patterns of whale sharks that utilize the Gulf of Mexico. But some are believed to help support recreational diving industries off Belize and elsewhere in the Caribbean.

What is known is that these gentle giants are filter-feeders who spend much of their time skimming for plankton and small fishes at or near the surface. Unfortunately, this is where spilled oil tends to gather, so the future looks bleak for whale sharks unable to steer clear of now-tarnished areas, such as the Mississippi River Delta, in which they’ve feed for perhaps millions of years.

Dr. Eric Hoffmayer, a scientist with the University of Southern Mississippi’s Gulf Coast Research Laboratory, says at least five whale sharks have been spotted within 20 miles of the spill area. The number might be much greater were it not for boating and fishing restrictions that have limited the number of people who typically report such sightings.

I’m always amazed at how little we really know about some of the planet’s most impressive creatures, and critical ecosystems. Which only makes me wonder at the unintended damage we busy, busy humans do to them as we pursue our busy little lives.

When we will start pricing those externalities, those consequences, into oil, our economies, and the avalanche of consumer goods no one seems to be able contemplate doing without? When will we all step back and live lives that see the whole planet instead of just the things that affect our comfort and well-being? Probably never?

Here’s a video to make you think about that:

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Diary Of A Killer Whale: Is Tilikum A Transient Or Resident Orca?

This from a comment by Dee Johnston on my post about Tilikum’s state of mind:

Resident (fish-eating) killer whales. The curv...
Image via Wikipedia

With regard to the Education of Seaworld: I found on a message board that someone had contacted Seaworld and asked “Is Tillikum transient or resident?” and Seaworld replied:“Thank you for contacting the SeaWorld Parks and Entertainment Family of Parks. We appreciate your questions as they are invaluable in helping us provide you with world class service.

Tillicum lives at our Orlando facility full time.

Thank you again for your interest!

Best Regards,

Karen
SeaWorld and Aquatica
Guest Correspondence
guestcorrespondence@worldsofdiscovery.com ”

That is definitely a different definition of “resident.”

In my research I also pursued this question. And the best answer I could come up with is that the orca population off eastern Iceland, where Tilikum came from, shows resident characteristics. Another key point is that the Icelandic orcas were caught either by following the herring fleets, or by dumping herring into the water ahead of a pod. So Tilikum almost certainly came from a fish-eating population, which reinforces the notion that he is more likely resident than transient.

One other very interesting question raised for me by orca biologists is whether transient killer whales that are taken into captivity–used to eating and hunting large mammals–are more likely to be involved in trainer incidents. There probably are not that many transients kept at marine parks since most of the killer whales taken into captivity were taken from the Pacific Northwest and Iceland, from resident populations. But it is an interesting idea.

Anyone have insights into this transient versus resident question?

From source: Two mammal-eating
Image via Wikipedia
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Diary Of A Killer Whale: What Motivated Tilikum’s Attack On Dawn Brancheau?

Now that “Killer In The Pool” is on news stands and online, thanks to Outside, I want to take some time to start digging a little deeper into some of the questions surrounding the tragedy of Tilikum and Dawn Brancheau. I met and interviewed some incredible trainers and scientists, and there is so much more that I would have loved to fit into the Outside piece. Getting into those issues, and posting additional news about orcas and killer whale entertainment will become one of the missions of this website, and I hope you will become part of the conversation.

The first question it makes sense to address, to the extent that it is even possible, is Tilikum’s state of mind on the day he killed Dawn Brancheau. Killer In The Pool has some relevant details about Tilkum’s life at SeaWorld: the abuse he receives from some of the female killer whales at SeaWorld Orlando, his physical health, his relative isolation (which has only increased since Taima, one of his most frequent companions, recently died in childbirth).

But the question of what triggered Tilikum to pull Dawn Brancheau into the pool, on that day as opposed to any other day over the years of close interaction with Dawn and many other trainers, is a key question which bears close analysis. It could have been a spur of the moment response to specific stimuli present while Dawn lay close to him on the slide-out. But it is also important to try and understand whether there might have been anything going on with Tilikum that day that might have made him MORE LIKELY to grab her, and then thrash her violently once she was in the pool with him.

So: was anything in particular going on with Tilikum and the other seven killer whales at SeaWorld Orlando that day? Anything that might have impacted his behavior and state of mind, beyond his general experience at SeaWorld and the specific way in which Dawn interacted with him?

Continue reading “Diary Of A Killer Whale: What Motivated Tilikum’s Attack On Dawn Brancheau?”

Forget Versus and ESPN: The Future of Broadcast Sailing Is Online

(Cross-posted from The Wetass Chronicles on Sailing World)

I don’t usually pay much attention to the sailing world’s endless navel-gazing about how to make sailing more attractive to a wider audience (“What we really need is yachts that sail at 90 knots and blow up when they cross the finish line!”), or how to Save Sailing.  I don’t really give a damn about trying to appeal to disinterested, video-obsessed teens or NASCAR motorheads, particularly if it means turning the sport inside out or groveling before the Great Gods of TV. I love to sail. I know lots of other people who love to sail (including kids). So we sail. And I feel pretty confident that sailing’s essence—teamwork, the outdoors, mastering wind and weather—is appealing enough to keep a sufficient number of people coming out on the water, so I can sail with them and against them.

But I do care about my options, and the quality, when it comes to following and viewing sailing—from the America’s Cup to the Moth World Championships, say—that I myself am not lucky enough, or good enough, to be doing. And despite all the pessimism about sailing’s future that somehow manages to penetrate my cocoon of indifference, I am quite certain that we are in fact on the cusp of a Golden Age of Viewing.

It starts with abandoning the idea that sailing will ever really work on TV (at least in America). The weather is too unpredictable, and racing is simply too complex for the average viewer. Listening to television dumb it down for a mass audience often has me whimpering with pain. We are a complicated, niche sport. Get over it. The BASE jumpers don’t whine about whether they are a television sport. They just go out and make incredible videos.

Instead, embrace the internet. It started with On The Water Anarchy, trying to bring live racing action to the rest of the cubicle-bound sailing world, with humor and candor. But now you’ve also got Sail.Tv and SailGroove. Virtual Eye adds yet another interesting dimension.

In March it all came together for me with the Louis Vuitton Trophy’s Auckland series. The matches were broadcast live online, so if you were someone who absolutely had to watch while it was happening, you could get up at 5 in the morning and sit with a laptop and a cup of coffee. And if you didn’t care when you watched the match, or if the wind was not cooperating, you could go back later and watch the WHOLE DAMN THING ON REPLAY. Let me emphasize: The entire race. When you wanted. On your laptop.

This is why the internet and sailing are so perfectly matched. TV cannot abide delay or schedule changes. The internet and its audience couldn’t care less. The only people who end up sitting around are the sailors.

Then there was the commentary, which came from some utopian parallel dimension. Martin Tasker and Peter Lester had an audience that knows the game and knows the rules (who else would watch sailing online?). They called the races without spending a single second explaining what an assymetrical is, or the difference between port and starboard. They invited world-class sailors into the booth with them to add even more detail and understanding. They had camera feeds from the boats, which conveyed the incredible intensity of close match racing. And they had access to onboard microphones, which let the viewer occasionally drop onboard for an intense tactical discussion. I put away the gun that I usually keep nearby, in case I have to put myself out of my misery when watching sailing on cable.

In fact, I never watched so much sailing, so happily, in my life, and I was pulled deep into the regatta. I don’t know what it took to broadcast the event online that way (apparently whatever it was did not come together for the recent regatta at La Maddalena; no full replays, only highlights (and live broadcasting for the final rounds). Arrgh!). But LV Auckland is what I want (can’t find the full replays, but this highlight vid will give you a taste of what is possible). A few more cameras onboard, maybe. A few more microphones on the afterguard, perhaps, to catch all the tactical nuance and salty language. But I have seen the future of broadcast sailing. It is online, and it is beautiful.

So, umm, Russell? Larry? Are you listening? Send the ESPN and Versus suits packing. Don’t try to reinvent sailing for TV. You’ll ruin it. Instead, reinvent it for a wired, live-streaming world and give us the America’s Cup up close and online. That’s all I ask. Sailors everywhere will thank you. As for the rest of the world: Who cares?

Here’s what it the future looks like to me:

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Diary Of A Killer Whale: Tilikum And The Death Of Dawn Brancheau

My effort to trace the marine park experience of Tilikum the orca, in order to try and understand how his life life led to the death of Dawn Brancheau, his trainer, is now out in the July issue of Outside. Here’s a brief excerpt:

Tilikum as
Image via Wikipedia

Tilikum kept dragging Brancheau through the water, shaking her violently. Finally—now holding Brancheau by her arm—he was guided onto the medical lift. The floor was quickly raised. Even now, Tilikum refused to give her up. Trainers were forced to pry his jaws open. When they pulled Brancheau free, part of her arm came off in his mouth. Brancheau’s colleagues carried her to the pool deck and cut her wetsuit away. She had no heartbeat. The paramedics went to work, attaching a defibrillator, but it was obvious she was gone. A sheet was pulled over her body. Tilikum, who’d been involved in two marine-park deaths in the past, had killed her.

“Every safety protocol that we have failed,” SeaWorld director of animal training Kelly Flaherty Clark told me a month after the incident, her voice still tight with emotion. “That’s why we don’t have our friend anymore, and that’s why we are taking a step back.”

Dawn Brancheau’s death was a tragedy for her family and for SeaWorld, which had never lost a trainer before. Letters of sympathy poured in, many with pictures of Bran­cheau and the grinning kids she’d spent time with after shows. The incident was a shock to Americans accustomed to thinking of Shamu as a lovable national icon, with an extensive line of plush dolls and a relentlessly cheerful Twitter account. The news media went into full frenzy, chasing Brancheau’s family and flying helicopters over Shamu Stadium. Congress piled on with a call for hearings on marine mammals at entertainment parks, and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) opened an investigation. It was the most intense national killer whale mania since 1996, when Keiko, the star of Free Willy, was rescued from a shabby marine park in Mexico City in an attempt to return him to the sea. Killer whales have never been known to attack a human in the wild, and everyone wanted to know one thing: Why did Dawn Brancheau die?

The story tries to answer that question. Hope it succeeds, at least in part.

There are a number of elements to the tragedy that I did not have space to fully explore. In the coming weeks, I’ll get into some of them right here, with the help of some of my expert sources. So please stay tuned…

In the course of reporting the story I developed enormous respect for the intelligence and complexity of orcas. Here’s a beautiful video that captures some of their majesty:

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Wind And Beauty Racing Off Marseilles

Yesterday the MedCup fleet raced a spectacular 36-mile coastal course, in winds that pumped up to 26 knots. I was at the back of the Team Origin boat, and had a great view of Ben Ainslie, Iain Percy and the rest of the team working their new TP52 around the course. We had two breakdowns, which the crew jumped on quickly, so there was plenty of fast and furious action. Here are some of the views:

Here’s another downwind. You can see all the crews crowded into the stern, trying to keep the bows from submarining:

At the bottom of the run, our spinnaker halyard broke:

But despite all the chaos it was hard not to notice how profoundly beautiful the coast is here off Marseilles:

Today the wind is forecast to pump it up again, and we’ll be back to round-the-buoys racing…

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