Tilikum (whale)/Dawn Brancheau (trainer)

If you forget my name
You will go astray
Like a killer whale
Trapped in a bay
- “Bachelorette”, Bjork

So for some reason I can’t stop thinking about the case of Tilly/Dawn. I dunno whether to refer to it as the orca who killed her trainer or the trainer who was killed by an orca. I feel so bad for both of them. On the one hand, an animal taken from its natural habitat @ two years of age then kept in captivity for 30, taught to perform for an audience, etc. On the other hand, Dawn (the trainer), whose childhood dream since she first visited Sea World @ the age of 10 was to be an orca trainer. Even for those of us who think it’s wrong to keep animals captive & make them perform for the entertainment of the people…those trainers love them. The animals are their lives. Dawn was her trainer for 16 years. SIXTEEN YEARS. & then Tilly killed her. That’s just so sad. She weighs 4 tons, the biggest orca in captivity in the world. Was she aware of her power & what she was doing? Or was she just having a bad day & letting off some steam? I think animals do know...Also she’d been “involved” in the deaths of two humans before…but not 100% directly - once a trainer fell into a tank with Tilly & two other orcas, one of which drowned her. But not Tilly!- another time a dude with mental problems appeared dead in Tilly’s tank. Apparently officials said he died of hypothermia but it was also said that he had a bite mark.

So I dunno how I feel about it. Maybe she did it on purpose, but being in captivity had driven the poor thing batty. Is that an excuse? I DUNNO. It's often hard for me to make up my mind as I agree with both sides.

Source: Clarin.com. But here's a CNN article in English.

On another note, I’ve always been an animal lover. As a child after seeing Free Willy, I called the 1800 number @ the end of the movie & made a donation to the I-dunno-what foundation for whales/orcas (maybe it was Save the whales?). They mailed me a tape with the Michael Jackson song from the film, among other stuff. I think that was my very 1st tape ever.