Blackfish Page #2
And tempers flared between the two sides today
when OSHA's attorney suggested
that SeaWorld only made changes
after trainer Dawn Brancheau's death
outraged the public.
OSHA doesn't want
the trainers going back in the water
without a physical barrier
between them and the whales.
Being in close proximity
to these top predators is too dangerous.
They won't then be getting in the water
riding on the whales, things like that.
If you were in a bathtub for 25 years,
don't you think you'd get
a little irritated, aggravated,
maybe a little psychotic?
The situation with Dawn Brancheau--
it didn't just happen.
It's not a singular event.
You have to go back over 20 years
to understand this.
It was a really exciting thing to do
and so everybody wanted to do it.
What were they telling you you were going to do?
Mm, capture orcas.
Whoo-hoo!
They had aircraft,
they had spotters, they had speedboats,
they had bombs they were throwing in the water.
They were lighting their bombs
with acetylene torches in their boats
and throwing them as fast as they could
to herd the whales into coves.
Whoo!
But the orcas had been caught before
and they knew what was going on
and they knew their young ones
would be taken from them.
So the adults without young
went east into a cul-de-sac
and the boats followed them,
thinking they were all going that way,
while the mothers with babies went north.
But the capture teams had aircraft.
And they have to come up for air eventually.
And when they did,
the capture teams alerted the boats
and said, "Oh, no, they're going north--
the ones with babies."
So the boats-- the speedboats
caught them there
and herded them in.
And then they had fishing boats with seine nets
that they would stretch across
so none could leave
and then they could just pick out
the young ones.
We were only after the little ones.
And a little one is, you know,
a big animal still.
But I was told because of shipping costs
that's why they only take the little ones.
They had the young ones
that they wanted in the corrals,
so they dropped the seine nets.
And all the others could have left,
but they stayed.
We're there, trying to get
the young orca into the stretcher,
and the whole famn damily is out here,
25 yards away maybe,
in a big line...
...and they're communicating
back and forth.
Well...
you understand then what you're doing, you know.
I-- I lost it.
I mean, I just started crying.
I didn't stop working,
but I...
you know, I just couldn't handle it.
Just like kidnapping a little kid
away from their mother.
Everybody's watching.
What can you do?
It's the worst thing I can think of, you know?
I can't think of anything worse than that.
Now, and this really sounds bad,
but when the whole hunt was over,
there were three dead whales in the net.
And...
so they had Peter and Brian and I...
cut the whales open, fill them with rocks,
put anchors on their tail, and sink them.
Well...
you know...
really, I didn't even think about it
being illegal at that point.
They were finally ejected
from the State of Washington
by a court order in 1976.
It was SeaWorld by name that was told,
"Do not come back to Washington
to capture whales."
Without missing a beat, they went
from Washington to Iceland
and began capturing there.
I've been part of a revolution
and two change of presidents
in Central and South America...
and seen some things that's hard to believe,
but this is the worst thing
that I've ever done--
is hunt that whale.
Sealand has been
a part of Victoria for over 20 years.
We specialize in the care
By the time I started, when he was four,
he was up to 16 feet long
and weighed 4,000 pounds.
Tilikum, up again.
Thank you.
I had actually seen Tilikum
quite a number of times.
He was right across the street here in Victoria.
Now, this show
can get a little bit soggy at times.
All Sealand was was a net hanging in a marina
with a float around it.
Tilikum was the one
we really loved to work with.
He was very well behaved
and he was always eager to please.
When he was first introduced,
everything just went fine and dandy,
but the previous head trainer
used techniques that involved punishment.
He would team a trained orca up
with Tilikum who was untrained.
He would send them both off
to do the same behavior.
If Tilikum didn't do it,
then both animals were punished.
Deprived of food to keep them hungry,
this caused a lot of frustration
with the larger animal,
the established animal,
and would in turn get frustrated with Tilikum
and would rake him with his teeth.
There would be times during certain seasons
that Tilikum would be covered
head to toe with rakes.
Rakes are teeth on teeth and raking the skin.
And from head to toe you could see blood
and you could see scratches,
and he would just be raked up.
Both females would gang up on him.
Tilikum was the one we trusted.
We never were concerned about Tilikum.
The issue was really that we stored
these whales at night
in what we call a module,
which was 20 feet across
and probably 30 feet deep as a safety precaution
because we were worried about people
cutting the net and letting them go.
And the lights were all turned out,
so there was really no stimulation.
They're just in this dark,
metal 20x30-foot pool
for two-thirds of their life.
When we first started,
they were quite small and quite young.
So they fit in there quite nicely,
but they were immobile for the most part.
It didn't feel good.
It just didn't.
And it was just wrong.
We started having difficulty getting them all
into this one small steel box, to be honest.
That's what it was.
It was a floating steel box.
That's where food deprivation would come in.
We would hold back food,
and they would know if they went in the module
that they would get their food.
So if they're hungry enough,
they're going to go in there.
And during the winter that would be
from 5:
00 at nighttill 7:
00 in the morning.When you let them out,
you'd see these new tooth rakes
and sometimes you'd see blood.
Closing that door on him
and knowing that he's locked in there
for the whole night is like...
it's a stab, it's a "whoa."
If that is true, it's not only inhumane,
and I'll tell them so...
but it probably led to what I think
is a psychosis that...
he was on a hair trigger.
He'd kill.
An employee is dead after an encounter...
...at a Canadian park
called Sealand of the Pacific.
The victim, Keltie Byrne,
was a championship swimmer
and a part-time worker at Sealand.
As seen in this home video,
rescuers used a huge net to try...
...rescue workers' efforts
were hindered by the agitated whales.
I'd like to make
the Pan Pacific team this summer,
but my more immediate goal
is just to swim fast at nationals.
It was sort of a cloudy, gray day
Translation
Translate and read this script in other languages:
Select another language:
- - Select -
- 简体中文 (Chinese - Simplified)
- 繁體中文 (Chinese - Traditional)
- Español (Spanish)
- Esperanto (Esperanto)
- 日本語 (Japanese)
- Português (Portuguese)
- Deutsch (German)
- العربية (Arabic)
- Français (French)
- Русский (Russian)
- ಕನ್ನಡ (Kannada)
- 한국어 (Korean)
- עברית (Hebrew)
- Gaeilge (Irish)
- Українська (Ukrainian)
- اردو (Urdu)
- Magyar (Hungarian)
- मानक हिन्दी (Hindi)
- Indonesia (Indonesian)
- Italiano (Italian)
- தமிழ் (Tamil)
- Türkçe (Turkish)
- తెలుగు (Telugu)
- ภาษาไทย (Thai)
- Tiếng Việt (Vietnamese)
- Čeština (Czech)
- Polski (Polish)
- Bahasa Indonesia (Indonesian)
- Românește (Romanian)
- Nederlands (Dutch)
- Ελληνικά (Greek)
- Latinum (Latin)
- Svenska (Swedish)
- Dansk (Danish)
- Suomi (Finnish)
- فارسی (Persian)
- ייִדיש (Yiddish)
- հայերեն (Armenian)
- Norsk (Norwegian)
- English (English)
Citation
Use the citation below to add this screenplay to your bibliography:
Style:MLAChicagoAPA
"Blackfish" Scripts.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 22 Dec. 2024. <https://www.scripts.com/script/blackfish_4221>.
Discuss this script with the community:
Report Comment
We're doing our best to make sure our content is useful, accurate and safe.
If by any chance you spot an inappropriate comment while navigating through our website please use this form to let us know, and we'll take care of it shortly.
Attachment
You need to be logged in to favorite.
Log In