Whale kills trainer at Florida SeaWorld park

• Source: Global Times
• [02:16 February 26 2010]
• Comments

The sign at the entrance to SeaWorld in Orlando. A female trainer was fatally injured after she was attacked by an orca. Photo: AFP

A killer whale at the SeaWorld amusement park in central Florida killed a trainer Wednesday, a sheriff's spokesman said.

There were conflicting reports about the incident, with authorities saying the woman had died after apparently falling into the whale's tank and an eyewitness claiming that the animal leapt out of the water to grab her in its mouth.

"She apparently slipped and fell into the tank and was fatally injured by one of the whales," Orange County Sheriff's spokesman Jim Solomons said.

The trainer was killed in the whale-holding area just before the start of a public performance and the stadium was immediately evacuated.

Dan Brown, the president of SeaWorld Orlando, said the victim was one of the park's most experienced animal trainers.

An eyewitness told CNN that Tillikum attacked the trainer as she showed him off to park visitors.

"He just took off like a bat out of you know what, took off really fast and came back around to the glass, jumped up, and grabbed the trainer by the waist and started shaking her violently," Victoria Biniak said.

Though killer whales, also known as orcas, are a common attraction at entertainment parks, they are known for aggressive "play" and behavior in the wild, including batting seals or dolphins back and forth, apparently for fun.

"It is a tragedy this woman died, but animals shouldn't be kept in captivity in the first place," a netizen named Georgina commented on Sky News Online.

They are very large creatures – Tillikum weighs at least 11,000 pounds – and "are among the most curious of all whales, with a great tendency to 'play' and to manipulate objects," according to SeaWorld's website.

The Florida park is owned by the Blackstone Group, a private equity company that also owns part of the Universal Orlando theme park.

A spokesman for SeaWorld in San Diego, California, said all killer whale shows have been suspended following the death in Orlando.

According to the Orlando Sentinel, Tillikum, popularly known as "Tilly," has a controversial past.

The whale was blamed for the drowning of one of his trainers in 1991 while he was performing at Sealand of the Pacific in Victoria, British Co-lumbia, the newspaper said.