The New York Times has published excellent continuing coverage of the death of Sea World employee Dawn Brancheau. It includes this extraordinary sentence:
There were no signs of foul play on the part of anyone other than the whale, but questions about the mammal’s intent continued to linger.
While there are plenty of unanswered questions, it seems clear that accident is the wrong word to describe what happened:
Richard Ellis, a marine conservationist at the American Museum of Natural History in New York, said that generally whales like Tilly — which are actually members of the dolphin family — are too smart to have been acting purely out of impulse. Pulling Ms. Brancheau into the water, he said, was not an accident.
“This was not an insane, uncontrollable act,” Mr. Ellis told The Associated Press. “This was premeditated.”
So, is Sea World going to cave into public pressure and stop keeping killer whales in captivity? Don’t bet on it. Tilly’s sired 15 calves, making him a big money maker for the park. Link.
