First published on the public account "Star Talk"
The killer whale named Tilikum is probably one of the most famous whales in the world. It is the largest captive marine animal in the world, and half of the captive killer whales in the world have its blood. But what makes it most famous is that it killed three people...
1
Arrested
The story began in 1983. At that time, a ruthless whaling boat separated the baby killer whales from its parents and family. A two-year-old killer whale was spotted by the whalers in the boat. They fished it out of the sea and prepared to sell it at a high price. .
The group of whales, who had just been driven away by the explosives and ropes of the whaling ship, were reluctant to leave for a long time. They followed the whaling ship and screamed for a long time. In fact, at this moment, the tragic fate of this little killer whale is doomed.
Killer whales are gregarious animals, leaving their companions and living alone. From that moment, until death, it did not meet a real companion. If it weren't for this whaling ship, it would live another 30 years, and it is still swimming with its companions in Icelandic waters.
The two-year-old male baby killer whale was named Tilikum.
2
Land of the sea
Tilikum was bought into Sealand in Victoria, Canada.
Here, it has been training since the age of four. The training adopts the punishment method of sitting in a row. If Tilikum does not cooperate with the training, it will starve with other killer whales.
Because of this, Tilikum, who made a mistake during training, became a punching bag for other killer whales. In order to avenge the hungry punishment of the trainer, the killer whales often raked Tirikum with their teeth, and it became scarred.
Every night, in order to prevent the killer whales from coming into contact with each other, Tilikum was kept in a metal box not much larger than his body. In fact, it spends two-thirds of its life in a tin box.
After several years of training, Tilikum turned out to be a star in the land of the seas. It is obedient and well-behaved, performs hard, and is deeply loved by tourists. However, no tourist knows what kind of torture it has experienced.
In 1991, a part-time trainer was walking by the pool and accidentally slipped and fell into the pool where Tilikum was. Unexpectedly, Tilikum, who was usually meek and obedient, suddenly broke out and violently attacked the victim.
The two killer whales in the same pool as Tilikum went mad and bite the victim together. The victim died tragically in the pool under the watchful eyes of the tourists. Even when rescuers tried to salvage the body, Tilikum was still blocking it.
This finally led to the closure of Ocean Land, but the abuse suffered by Tilikum is far from over.
3
Second attack
Although there has been a record of killings, Tilikum was still sold at a high price, and it was taken to Seawrold in Orlando, USA.
In the ocean world, it was besieged by several female whales. Although it was superior in size, it could not be resisted at all. Limited to the width of the pool, it can't even escape. It gradually became withdrawn and had a violent temper. It often gnawed on the edges of the pool and railings, and even caused severe wear on its teeth.
Here, in addition to acting, it was also forced to assume a more money-for-profit identity: the sperm bank. People use Tilikum's sperm to breed a large number of small whales.
These whales have never seen the sea and spend their entire lives in small ponds. Even after they were born, they were forced to separate from their mothers, repeating the tragic experience of their parents in another pool.
One morning in July 1999, inspectors found a male body in a pool in Tilikum. The deceased was a man who broke into the ocean world in the middle of the night. At first, Sea World announced that his death was due to drowning, but with the release of the autopsy report, they had to admit that he died as a result of Tilikum's attack.
Although there are 24-hour surveillance cameras in the Land of the Seas, I know that today, the Land of the Seas refuses to provide relevant information and investigations. The story of this incident is still very mysterious.
4
Third attack
Although there were two murder records, Ocean Land didn't care and insisted on Tirikum's performance. Many experts have said that the next outbreak of Tilikum is only a matter of time.
In 2010, an experienced trainer in the aquarium was killed by Tilikum in front of the audience during the performance. Strictly speaking, it was torn apart by it.
In front of the entire audience, Tilikum dragged the trainer into the water, and then bitten wildly. After more than ten minutes, Tilikum finally calmed down, and people could only fish out a corpse from the pool.
And Ocean Land once again turned on the pan-shaking mode, attributed the trainer's death to her hair style that angered the whale, and did not mention the abuse of Tilikum over the years. However, even the former employees of Land of the Seas are complaining about Tilikum.
This matter has received widespread attention all over the world, and people have different opinions. Under tremendous pressure, Sea World suspended Tilikum’s performance and isolated Tilikum in a smaller pool. It stayed in this pool for a year.
5
Belated justice
In 2013, the encounter between Tilikum and other killer whales was made into the documentary "Black Whale".
"Black Whale" does not use a lot of sensationalism, but uses real images and descriptions of the parties to look at the problem from a calm onlooker perspective. Perhaps because of this, the audience feels heartache even more when they see the scenes in the film.
Perhaps due to the pressure of "Black Whale" and large-scale protests, Ocean World finally announced in 2013 that it would stop orcas performances and take good care of the killer whales still in Ocean World. However, for Tilikum, all this came too late.
Imprisoned in a small pool for a long time, it suffered from stomach ulcers, lung infections and depression. In 2017, at the age of 36, he died of a lung infection. The life span is only half that of a wild killer whale.
6
pain
The killer whale is a smart and emotional animal. They have a very high IQ, are good at teamwork, and have a language that can communicate with each other. At the same time, they have deep emotions. There is even a killer whale carrying its dead cub for weeks in mourning.
However, people take advantage of the clever characteristics of killer whales to train killer whales to perform various movements that go against the conventional body structure of killer whales. There can be hundreds of kilometers of killer whales in nature every day, imprisoned in pools of only tens of square meters.
Because the living space of killer whales is too narrow, they often chew on pools and railings. There were once killer whales who had "eaten" the pool a whole circle. However, this behavior often causes damage to the teeth and body of the killer whale.
Killer whales in different regions have different languages and behaviors, but they are locked together in an artificial environment, which often leads to tensions between killer whales, and even killer whales of their kind in the pool...
At the same time, captive killer whales have a lot of health problems. The most obvious is the failure of the dorsal fin. The incidence of this phenomenon in the wild is less than 1%, but under artificial breeding, the dorsal fin failure rate of male killer whales is 100%.
Due to the poor environment, high mental stress and frequent injuries, the life span of captive killer whales is very short, with an average of 20-30 years old. But in the wild, killer whales can even live to 100 years old.
In the ocean world, incidents of killer whales attacking humans abound. According to statistics, several people have been killed in killer whale attacks, and there have been hundreds of cases of injuries caused by killer whale attacks.
Ironically, none of the killer whale attacks occurred in the wild. This is not because there is little contact between wild humans and killer whales. On the contrary, wild humans and killer whales often interact. In these interactions, the killer whales showed incredible friendliness to humans.
Killer whales belong to the vast ocean. How can they be imprisoned in a small pond? In fact, there are far more than killer whales who have similar experiences, but also beluga whales, dolphins, seals, fur seals...
Anyone with sensitive empathy can feel pain when watching animal performances. Indeed, killer whales are cute and intelligent animals, but in any case, please don't go to the pool to watch killer whales, let alone watch killer whale performances.
You see joy in the killer whale show, but all you bring to the killer whale is pain.
Star Talk
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