Blackfish Page #3

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and we were looking for something to do,

so we thought,

"Why not go to Sealand?"

It was kind of like this dingy pool

with these whales and--

it just felt a little bit like an amusement park

that was kind of on its last legs

and everything was a bit gray.

Yeah. It was like

a swimming pool.

- Yeah, yeah.

- You know,

three whales in a swimming pool.

Yeah.

And they would come up

and touch the ball and there was--

I think there was some tail splashing

and there was some--

- Some jumping.

- The fish. And--

They hold the fish and the whales jump up.

I remember saying, "Oh, what a fun job.

You know, she's so lucky."

And then I saw her walking with her rubber boots

and she tripped and her foot

just dipped into the edge of the pool

and she lost her balance and fell in.

And then she was pushing her way up

to get out of the pool

and the whale zoomed over, grabbed her boot,

and pulled her back in.

At first, I didn't think it was that serious

because you see the trainer

in the pool with the whale

and you think, "Oh, well,

the whales are used to that."

And then all of a sudden,

it started getting--

there was more swimming,

more activity, more thrashing,

and she was starting to get panicked.

And then as it progressed,

you started to realize,

"Whoa, something's not right here."

She started to scream

and she started looking around

and her eyes were, like, bigger and bigger

and realizing that,

"I really am in trouble here."

And then they would pull her under.

And then they would come up

and then when she--

they came up, she'd be,

"Help me, help me."

And then they'd take her down again.

And she would be submerged for several seconds

up to, I don't know, maybe a minute.

You're not keeping track.

So it was harder and harder

for her to get the air in

because she was screaming.

And my sister remembers

her saying, "I don't want to die."

Well, condolences to Keltie's family.

Yeah.

That we couldn't help her

was pretty wretched.

Sealand closed.

Well, it's probably a good thing.

I mean, it was a little pond.

And I think the owner,

you know, made the right decision

for whatever reasons.

I don't believe he's a bad guy, a bad man.

I think he was shocked by the whole affair, too.

The blush was gone from the business

and he decided that that was it.

We should shut down.

No one ever contacted us.

There was an inquest.

No one ever asked us to say what happened.

- Yeah.

- You know, we just left.

There was no big lawsuits afterwards

and there was no memorial.

And the only thing remaining

of Keltie Byrne is--

is what's left in the folks' minds

who recall the case.

So in the newspaper articles,

the cause of death

was that she drowned accidentally,

but she was pulled under by the whale.

Well, there's a bit of smoke

and mirrors going on.

I mean, one of the fundamental facts is

is that none of the witnesses

were clear about which whale pulled Keltie in.

Yes. Yeah, it was the large whale.

Tilikum, the male, is the one

that went after her.

And the other two just kind of circled around.

But he was definitely the instigator.

And we knew it was that whale

because he had the flopped-over fin.

Like, it was very easy to tell.

Sealand of the Pacific closed

its doors and was looking, I guess,

to make a buck on the way out

and these whales are worth millions of dollars.

When SeaWorld heard that Tilikum was available

after this accident at Sealand of the Pacific,

they really wanted Tilikum

because they needed a breeder.

So I don't even think that anybody

even was questioning,

like, is this a good idea?

My understanding of the situation

was that Tilikum and the others

would not be used in shows.

They would not be performance animals.

Our understanding of their behavior

was that it was such

a highly stimulating event for them

that they were likely to repeat it.

Sealand was-- we were all young

and bit of sea cowboys

and we weren't so technical

and scientific as SeaWorld,

so we all had this vision

that they knew more than us

and they were better than us

and Tilikum would have

a bigger pool and he'd have a better life

and he would have better care

and he'd have better food

and it'd be a great life for him.

So it was like, "Okay, Tilly.

You're going to Disneyland.

Lucky you."

The orcas' intelligence

may be even superior to man's.

As parents, they are exemplary,

better than many human beings.

And like human beings, they have

a profound instinct for vengeance.

Dino De Laurentiis presents...

..."Orca."

If you go back only 35 years, we knew nothing.

In fact, less than nothing.

What the public had was superstition and fear.

A fight to the death...

between the two most dangerous animals on Earth.

What in hell are you?!

These were the vicious killer whales

that, you know, had 48 sharp teeth

that would rip you to shreds

if they got a chance.

What we learned is that

they're amazingly friendly

and understanding and intuitively

want to be your companion.

Are you recording this?

And to this day there is no record

of an orca doing any harm

to any human in the wild.

They live in these big families.

And they have life spans

very similar to human life spans.

The females can live to about 100, maybe more,

males to about 50 or 60.

But the adult offspring never leave

their mother's side.

Each community has a completely

different set of behaviors.

Each has a complete repertoire of vocalizations

with no overlap.

You could call them languages.

The scientific community is reluctant to say

any other animal but humans uses languages,

but there's every indication

that they use languages.

The orca brain just screams out

intelligence, awareness.

We took this tremendous brain

and we put it in a magnetic

resonance imaging scanner.

What we found was just astounding.

They've got a part of the brain

that humans don't have.

A part of their brain has extended out

right adjacent to their limbic system.

The system processes emotions.

The safest inference would be these are animals

that have highly elaborated emotional lives.

It's becoming clear that dolphins and whales

have a sense of self, a sense of social bonding

that they've taken to another level--

much stronger, much more complex

than in other mammals, including humans.

We look at mass strandings,

the fact that they stand by each other.

Everything about them

is social-- everything.

It's been suggested

that their whole sense of self

is distributed among

the individuals in their group.

There are five of them.

These orca are going

to attack this seal on--

they've been breaking the ice off

and swimming around him.

Oh, here they come, two of them.

Lookit, underneath there.

You can see them underneath.

They made a big wave.

Look at that, a big wave.

- Oh, yeah.

- Whoa.

- Oh, God.

- Oh, God. No, no, no.

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