Word: tilikum
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Dawn Brancheau died tragically on Feb. 24, at age 40, after Tilikum, the killer whale she was working with, pulled her to the bottom of the pool...
...course, plenty of killer whales live in captivity and never do anything like what Tilikum has done. What was it about this particular whale's experiences or environment at SeaWorld that led to the swish of a ponytail sparking such violence...
...places. Bernd Wursig, a professor of marine biology at Texas A&M University, acknowledges that the sheer size of whales makes them hard to accommodate well, but that doesn't mean it can't be done. "I don't buy the idea that confinement is what was responsible for Tilikum," he says. "I prefer to see animals in nature, but when they were born in captivity or have been in captivity so long, that socialization is the only one they know." (See the top 10 scientific discoveries...
Wursig suspects Tilikum lashed out for much the same reason that humans lash out. "Even though whales are bright and very well trained, they can show aggressivity if they feel threatened or if they're in a bad mood," he says. "It can also be displacement, if they haven't had a good time with their pod members...
...matter what brought on this tragedy, Tilikum's third killing has not been ruled a death-penalty crime. Though animals that kill humans, both in the wild and in captivity, are usually summarily killed themselves, that's not a firm rule. Travis, the chimp that mutilated a Connecticut woman in 2009, was killed on the spot when police arrived at the scene. Montecore, the white tiger that attacked Roy Horn of the Seigfried and Roy performing team in 2003, was spared when Roy himself insisted on it. Tilikum, too, benefited from merciful judges. Brancheau's relatives pleaded for mercy...