Tilikum, the orca whose killing of a trainer at a SeaWorld park in Orlando became the focus of the documentary Blackfish, has been found to have a respiratory disease that could likely end in death, his caretakers said.
According to a statement by SeaWorld, the killer whale, known to his caretakers as Tili, has been in captivity since 1983, and is estimated to be around 35 years old.
In an accompanying video, Tilikum’s veterinarian, Dr Scott Gearhart, said that the bacteria found in the orca’s lungs is found also in wild marine animals, and that “there’s no doubt in my mind” that care at SeaWorld prolonged his life.
“I wish I could say I was tremendously optimistic about Tilikum and his future,” Dr Gearhart said, “but he has a disease which is chronic and progressive, and at some point might cause his death.”
As Tilikum grows more lethargic, workers at SeaWorld have also been struggling to keep his teeth, which have been damaged for years, free of bacteria. A 2010 report by Outside Online said that Tilikum had developed a habit of chewing on metal pool gates during his time in captivity at a park in Canada, before he was moved to SeaWorld in 1992.
Tilikum, a whale that has been involved in the deaths of three people, has been central to the scrutiny SeaWorld has faced since February 2010, when the 12,000-pound bull orca bit down on the ponytail of Dawn Brancheau, a 40-year-old trainer, before dragging her underwater and killing her.
The whale has also been involved in the deaths of two other people: Keltie Byrne, a 21-year-old student and part-time trainer who slipped into a pool containing Tilikum and two other orcas in 1991, and Daniel P Dukes, a 27-year-old man who slipped into SeaWorld after hours in 1999. He was found dead, draped over Tilikum's back.
After Brancheau’s death, SeaWorld conducted an extensive review that resulted in trainers further isolating themselves from the animals for safety. But Tilikum’s problematic history has made him a unique case.
"Tilikum is basically psychotic," a marine biologist, Ken Balcomb, told Outside Online in 2010.
“He has been maintained in a situation where I think he is psychologically unrecoverable in terms of being a wild whale.”
In 2013, the scrutiny returned, and intensified, when the documentary Blackfish probed the death of Ms Brancheau by examining the mental state of whales that are taken from their pods in the wild and raised at marine parks. The film essentially makes the point that whales, which are perceptive and highly intelligent animals, suffer mental and physical harm after they are plucked from the wild.
SeaWorld has been aggressive in its rebuttal of the film’s accusations, but the company continues to deal with claims that trainers are improperly trained, and is combating scrutiny over breeding whales in captivity.
In October, California banned the breeding of captive whales, and a month later, SeaWorld San Diego said that it would phase out its killer whale performances.
Animal rights activists have now seized upon SeaWorld’s announcement about Tilikum’s health. People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (Peta) posted a series of messages to Twitter, blaming the water park for isolating Tilikum and subjecting the whale to emotional stress over a period of decades, “causing him to succumb to mental illness resulting in aggression and now to some incurable illness.”
New York Times