About Tilikum: an open letter to Sea World

by Russ Rector

To: SeaWorld Parks & Entertainment

(9205 Southpark Center Loop #400, Orlando, FL 32819)

Necropsy of wild animals is essential in conservation. Sea mammals of key interest include the orca or ‘killer whale’. Tilikum, a famous captive orca presented to the public as education for over 31 years, is regularly described as an ambassador representing the wild orcas of the sea, from which the public can learn more about the species.

Now the public wishes to accurately learn about Tilikum’s end of life. The necropsy to be performed after he dies will complete what he has to offer the world.

Please provide Tilikum’s necropsy report to the public upon completion. Transparency is highly important to a world of environmental researchers, marine ecology students, and SeaWorld’s own vast customer base. Critical biological education should not be limited to employees and connections of SeaWorld.

Transparency in sharing necropsy results was once a federal requirement. We now ask you to provide it voluntarily in our mutual interest to further conservation efforts.

Thank you, SeaWorld, for addressing this important request for public release of necropsy.

Russ Rector
(Facebook photo)

––Russ Rector

Dolphin Freedom Foundation

824 SW 13th St.

Fort Lauderdale, FL 33315

Editor’s note:

Russ Rector has posted a Change.org petition similar to his letter above at http://tinyurl.com/houevfa.

Rector in 2012, after years of pursuing Freedom of Information Act requests, obtained 1,057 pages of documents pertaining to the 1992 SeaWorld purchase of Tilikum and two female orcas, Haida and Nootka, from the now defunct Sealand of the Pacific marine mammal park in Victoria, British Columbia, Canada.

SeaWorld profits took a dive with the February 2013 debut of the documentary Blackfish.

Tilkum, reportedly now gravely ill, had in 1991 drowned trainer Keltie Byrne, 20, before a crowd of Sealand visitors. After Tilikum was transferred to the SeaWorld park in San Antonio, Texas, he killed a night intruder in 1999. Transferred again, to the SeaWorld park in Orlando, Florida, he killed trainer Dawn Brancheau before an audience on February 24, 2010.

The 2013 hit film Blackfish centered on Brancheau’s death. The release of Blackfish immediately preceded a year-long SeaWorld attendance slide.

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Comments

Kathleen Dawson says
March 14, 2016 at 9:51 pm
I would not be surprised that SeaWorld is starving Tillikum to death. What can we learn but this? This orca was tortured until he went mad. This is the story and is the only story. This whole travesty was about money and nothing more. The only science worthy is the science conducted in the natural world.
- Merritt Clifton says
  March 14, 2016 at 11:28 pm
  Tilikum is reportedly suffering from a severe bacterial respiratory infection, with a poor longterm prognosis for successful treatment, and at about 35 years old, is among the oldest male orcas whose age has been relatively well documented. Like aged and ill humans, he is apparently eating much less now than he did when young, vigorous, and healthy. As with humans, if his ability and desire to eat fail completely, he may not be fed in his final days, while his caretakers hope for a turnabout; but there is no reason to suppose that SeaWorld, having spent millions of dollars on his care and related legal issues in recent years, might wish for the loss of one of their biggest audience attractions, even if motivated entirely by monetary concerns.
  Meanwhile, if marine mammalogists on either side of the captivity debate agree about one thing, that might be that a tremendous amount of value could be learned from a thorough necropsy of Tilikum. For example, to what extent has his physiology come to differ from that of wild North Pacific transient orcas in nearly 33 years of living in tanks? It is even possible, if not especially likely, that a necropsy might shed light on why Tilikum, a three-time killer of humans, behaviorally differed so much from Keiko. While Tilikum has often been said to have been driven to violence by captivity, Keiko spent the first 17 years of his 23 years in captivity in much more closely confined conditions than Tilikum, yet remained conspicuously gentle and gregarious, even after returning to the wild for his final 15 months of life.
Charity Wilson says
March 15, 2016 at 6:08 am
We, as human beings, are DISGUSTING…
LET THIS POOR CREATURE GO !!
DYING FREE IS BETTER THAN “LIVING” HIS FINAL DAYS IMPRISONED…..