An orca at Sea World park has attacked and killed one of his trainers. No one seems to understand why this happened. Speculation by one park employee, though he wisely stated he wouldn't jump to conclusions was that this "could be play behavior."
But that doesn't make sense to me. If this is how orcas play, why would such an incident be so rare? (Although this orca, Tilikum [above, playing the submissive role], has previously killed a trainer, and is the prime suspect in the death of an idiot who apparently snuck into the park in order to swim with the whales.) Orcas know how to be gentle, they know how to be in the water with humans in a cooperative way if they want -- why would the pattern change so abruptly?
Seems to me Tilikum is like a prisoner who got to one of the guards. Captivity -- especially for creatures used to roaming such expansive areas -- will drive almost any mammal (and many non-mammals) insane. And if not insane, it stands a good chance of making them really, really mad and vengeful. Like Tilikum.
Boggles my mind as so how we allow theme parks to capture and enclose amazing, air-breathing, live-birthing, breast-feeding fellow mammals. As I wrote in another post, some animals seem to be able to take only so much abuse off of humans. They refuse to be domesticated. Good for them.
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