Blackfish Page #2

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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.

I thought it was a PR thing.

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

and display of killer whales.

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 night

till 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

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