Word: brancheau
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...Dawn Brancheau died tragically on Feb. 24, at age 40, after Tilikum, the killer whale she was working with, pulled her to the bottom of the pool...
Something about SeaWorld trainer Dawn Brancheau's ponytail may have triggered the attack. That's what an official at the Orlando marine park told reporters the day after the 16-year veteran at SeaWorld was killed by Tilikum, a 12,000-lb. (5,500 kg) killer whale. On Feb. 24, in the middle of an otherwise routine show, the 40-year-old trainer was standing at the edge of a tank when the 29-year-old animal leaped from the water, grabbed her by the ponytail and began thrashing her about. As horrified visitors watched both from around the tank...
...enrich these environments," says Rector. People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals used the occasion of Brancheau's death to issue a press release expressing a similar sentiment, demanding that parks "stop confining ocean-going mammals to an area that to them is like the size of a bathtub...
...that mutilated a Connecticut woman in 2009, was killed on the spot when police arrived at the scene. Montecore, the white tiger that attacked Roy Horn of the Seigfried and Roy performing team in 2003, was spared when Roy himself insisted on it. Tilikum, too, benefited from merciful judges. Brancheau's relatives pleaded for mercy, and a little more than 24 hours after her death, SeaWorld announced that the whale's life would be spared...
...know what was going through the killer whale's head," says Chuck Tompkins, Brancheau's former supervisor. The fact, of course, is that we never can know such things - which is what will always make keeping such beasts in the first place the dangerous business...