Once Again The Arrogant Thinking of Human Beings

Trainer Dawn Brancheau with the 5-ton marine mammal Tilikum.

I really disagreed with two of the people interviewed in the article below. Their thinking really baffles me. In particular, one of them asserts two things that I strongly do not believe.

Number one, Thad Lacinak, former head trainer at SeaWorld believes that these animals serve as "ambassadors of the species to educate the public and help protect them in the wild."

That is pure bullshit.

Pardon my language, but that sentence doesn't even make sense. Are humans treating the ambassadors of other nations in a similar fashion? Do we lock them up in small enclosures, deny them normal interaction with their people, and force them to do the dance, or sing the song, or perform the act, that we Americans (humans) have associated with their culture? This ofcourse, all for the amusement of us , the host nation, or in this case, those holding the kidnapped victim?

Lacinak also insults our intelligence. He states, "....We know for a fact that people do not learn in static conditions. They learn from these animals when they are entertained by them," Lacinak said. "That's just how people learn. They don't learn when they're bored ..."

So Lacinak believes that the only way you and I can learn or be interested in an animal, is by having it do circus tricks for us! That is supposed to teach us about the intelligence, and help us discover the depth of abilities of these creatures. Yes, seeing a bear ride a tricycle, or a a whale jump through a hoop is so enlightening!

How did he ever get his job as head trainer, if this is how he thinks about animals? And equally bad is his limited understanding of the myriad ways humans learn, or the human capacity for focus, interest and intelligent engagement with our world.

Anyone that's spent any time in the wild, will tell you, the way to learn about an animal begins with quietly observing it in it's habitat. Stillness is key to this, just as it is to a private investigator in our world. If you want to know a subject you make yourself as invisible, still and quiet as possible. And you plan to stay that way for as long as you can.

In loud and noisy settings such as those arenas at SeaWorld, the audience isn't learning anything about the animals. They are watching a show created to entertain them. We might as well be back in ancient Rome, because it's the same idea as those daily events where the gladiators fought wild animals they'd captured from Africa. When that got old, a few Christians would be thrown into the arena, to excite the crowd watching them being torn apart and devoured

SeaWorld is just the evolution of a watered down version (don't pardon my pun) of the same cruelty that entertained the masses at the Coliseum. And because we know these are dangerous animals, subconsciously everyone there is open to the possibility of the titilation of seeing such accidents and dramas of tragedy as transpired last week.

As far as any real "learning" going on~

Sadly, what I see happening, is that these highly intelligent, thinking, communicating animals are learning about us...the human species of the animal kingdom.

I sincerely regret that Dawn Brancheau's life was lost in the bigger lesson that humans are being taught. We hold tenaciously to our attachment of old ways of thinking of human superiority, and a long ingrained 'right' to use the animals and plants of Earth any way we want.

Whether this thinking is based in one's religious dogma, Darwinian science, or psychological assertions of a hierarchy in the animal kingdom based on how intelligent we think another life form is, and the capacity speech, it's really time to stop and question these beliefs. Because I've come to the revelation that they are all based on a pile of whale 'KaKa'.

In my opinion, the lesson that is one of our primary responsibilities right now, is to understand our need to correct our thinking and behaviour so that we humans can be a member in good standing, amongst the family of Earth's animals.

Yes be a good member of the animal kingdom first!

That alone, will start a domino effect in our subsequent behaviour, that would clean up and regulate how we omniact with all of the planet's different life forms, in all of the systems of life here that we are a part of.

We just don't get it!!!

I encourage you to contact SeaWorld if you have feelings about this.

I encourage you to join your local zoo associations and get in the discussion there.

I encourage you to get out in the wild, and watch an animal with your binoculars from afar, and then use your imagination to let yourself feel what that animal would feel like being captured, caged, separated from it's kind, and forced to entertain people.

Let your Heart feel this.

We can learn about animals, but only if we approach their world with the utmost of respect. If we are forcing, limiting or altering their natural way, then we'd better be about using that human brain, directed by our Heart's loving intelligence to inform us of new ways to experience the majesty of animal wild Life.

If I sound passionate about all this, it's because I wish you all could live in my world. I am experiencing such a renaissance of fulfillment and discovery, because I am allowing Nature to be my teacher. What I observe in animals and plants, I search within myself for traces of similar evidence, or ways I can relearn qualities that an egoic way of thinking has surpressed.

These are our Master teachers. These are our parents, and rather than engage them in a way to reap from their genius and abilities, we shrink their habitat, deny them their biological needs, cage and enslave them. And foolish humans, in doing so, we rob ourselves of the knowledge and habits we need to live on Earth in harmony. And thus, we hasten our own annihilation.

We are one world, one planet of Life, one pulsing Being. The Masters of Life on Earth are by no means people of any particular culture, civilization or time.

As human beings, we really need to 'get over' ourselves.

Kentke

Orca Attack Raises Question of Captive Animals

ORLANDO, Fla. — Rocky, a 700-pound grizzly considered one of the most gentle animals of all Hollywood's performing beasts, bites down on the neck of a veteran trainer. Illusionist Roy Horn is severely mauled by a show tiger during a Las Vegas performance. An elephant at an Indonesian tourist resort tramples its longtime handler to death.

And now the latest — a 40-year-old trainer at SeaWorld Orlando is drowned by a massive 12,000-pound killer whale named Tilikum, an incident that raises anew the question of whether some beasts, especially the biggest ones, have any business being tamed to entertain.
Descriptions of Tilikum, the 22-foot orca which has now killed two trainers, inevitably come around to his intimidating size.

At nearly six tons, the bull bought for breeding is a giant among killer whales, the largest in captivity.




"Humans trying to incarcerate orcas or elephants or any type of large brain or large society species, it's proven it doesn't work," said Mark Berman, associate director at the environmental group Earth Island Institute in Berkeley, Calif. "They're just too big."




No animals were meant to entertain humans, he said.




In fact, an investigation by California's workplace safety office into a 2006 attack by an orca on a trainer at SeaWorld's San Diego park initially reported that it was only a matter of time before a trainer was killed. That trainer escaped with a broken foot.




However, after objections from SeaWorld that the office had no place offering opinions that a trainer's death was inevitable, the workplace safety officials rescinded the report and apologized. They noted its investigation required expertise it didn't have.




Former SeaWorld head trainer Thad Lacinak says captive killer whales serve as ambassadors of the species to educate the public and help protect them in the wild.




"These animals are invaluable in terms of what we can learn from them. And you cannot learn about killer whales through a pair of binoculars," Lacinak said.




Using killer whales to perform, or displaying animals at zoos, brings them to life for the public, he said, something that watching the Discovery Channel just can't do.


"We know for a fact that people do not learn in static conditions. They learn from these animals when they are entertained by them," Lacinak said. "That's just how people learn. They don't learn when they're bored ... They have a greater appreciation of the animals when they walk out." Lacinak also stated the obvious — that trainers know their jobs are inherently dangerous but take the risks because they believe they're outweighed by the rewards.




Orlando SeaWorld trainer Dawn Brancheau was rubbing Tilikum from a poolside platform on Wednesday when the whale reached up, grabbed her ponytail and dragged her underwater. She died from multiple traumatic injuries and drowning.




Brancheau's funeral was set for Monday at a church in Chicago, where a wake was held Sunday.
Killer whales are the largest of the dolphin species. They are extremely intelligent and the most efficient predators in the sea. Some say killer whales are just too smart to be penned in pools that can bore them and possibly lead to trouble.




"Orcas are simply too big, too complex, too intelligent to be adequately accommodated in captivity," said Naomi Rose, a marine mammal scientist with the Humane Society of the United States. "The tanks are always going to be too featureless, too small. ... The number of incidents where trainers have been injured is much greater than most people know. They aren't all reported."




Orcas in the wild can travel up to 100 miles in a day and thousands of miles in a lifetime in the ocean, where they are generally harmless to humans, said Howard Garrett, co-founder and director of the Washington-based nonprofit Orca Network.




"In their natural habitat, there is no record of any harm to a human anywhere," Garrett said. "You cannot say that about elephants or wolves or any other highly evolved social mammal, and that really is extraordinary."




Even in captivity, orcas rarely attack out of aggression, Lacinak said, adding that they are usually cases of a killer whale trying to play with a trainer.




"It was not a bloodthirsty attack," Lacinak said of the recent incident at SeaWorld.




He said the whale likely saw the trainer's ponytail as a toy, then dragged the woman into the water and turned it into a game.




Gary Wilson, a professor at Moorpark College in California, the country's only school where students can learn to train marine mammals, believes that interacting with animals in the wild would be better, but that's not possible for most people.




"If it was a perfect world we wouldn't need to have any animals in captivity, but the reality is in order to learn about these animals and to actually ensure their survival in the wild, we need to have them in captivity so we can study them and people can learn to appreciate them," Wilson said. "If SeaWorld didn't have dolphins and whales in captivity, there would be many fewer people in the world that even cared about them at all."


_
AP writers Kelli Kennedy contributed to this report from Fort Lauderdale and Noaki Schwartz from Los Angeles.

Dawn Brancheau Pictures: SeaWorld Trainer Loved Whale That Killed Her

February 25, 2010 8:39 AM



NEW YORK (CBS) Veteran SeaWorld trainer Dawn Brancheau was living her dream when Tilikum, a 12,000 pound killer whale, turned it into a nightmare.



According to the Orlando Sentinel, witnesses said that "the animal suddenly grabbed Brancheau by the upper arm, tossed her around in his mouth and pulled her beneath the water as dozens of tourists looked on in horror." SeaWorld workers rushed to her rescue, but it was too late. Brancheau drowned Wednesday.

"There wasn't anything to indicate to us that there was a problem," Chuck Tompkins, head of animal training at all SeaWorld parks, told the CBS "Early Show." He said the whale had performed well in the show and that Dawn was rubbing him down as a reward for doing a good job.

Dawn Brancheau playing with an unnamed whale.

But some spectators who attended an earlier performance told the Associated Press that the whale was acting like an ornery child.



Joao Lucio DeCosta Sobrinho and his girlfriend were at an underwater viewing area when Brancheau was attacked. They said they suddenly saw a whale with a person in its mouth. "It was terrible. It's very difficult to see the image," Sobrinho said. The couple said they watched the whale show at the park two days earlier and came back to take pictures.



But on Wednesday the whales appeared agitated. Because of his size and the previous deaths, trainers were not supposed to get into the water with Tilikum, and only about a dozen of the park's 29 trainers worked with him. Brancheau had more experience with the 30-year-old whale than most. She was one of the park's most experienced trainers overall.



"We recognized he was different," said Tompkins. He said no decision has been made yet about what will happen to Tilikum, such as transferring him to another facility. SeaWorld has also suspended the killer whale shows at all of its parks, which also include locations in San Diego and San Antonio, to review procedures.



A SeaWorld spokesman said Tilikum was one of three orcas blamed for killing a trainer in 1991 after the woman lost her balance and fell in the pool at Sealand of the Pacific near Victoria, British Columbia. Tilikum was also involved in a 1999 death, when the body of a man who had sneaked by SeaWorld security was found draped over him. The man either jumped, fell or was pulled into the frigid water and died of hypothermia, though he was also bruised and scratched by Tilikum.



But despite Tilikum's difficult past, Brancheau's sister, Diane Gross, said that she loved working with whales and would never want any harm to come to Tilikum.



She knew she wanted to work with animals and Sea World was her dream," Gross said.


When she got hired at SeaWorld "it was the happiest day in everybody's life in our family."