www.esryle.comLOCAL NEWS ACROSS THE NATION
Posted on 07/27/2004 8:32:00 AM PDT by esryle
SAN ANTONIO, Texas -- A popular whale performance at SeaWorld Adventure Park in San Antonio, Texas turned into a horror show this past Friday afternoon.
Thousands of stunned park visitors witnessed a Killer Whale attack a trainer during a sea show for several minutes - including Houston, Texas resident Justin Lecourias and his family.
"I told Crystal, I said something's wrong. This ain't right, something's going on and then it got real bad," Lecourias says.
Lecourias says the whale seemed out of control and none of the trainers could calm him down so he and his family braced themselves for the worst.
"The whale would come up and the guy would go under before he hit him so I guess it wouldn't hurt him that much and then one time he didn't come up for quite a period of time and that really freaked me out then," Lecourias explains. "I was videotaping and I told the kids to close their eyes, something was wrong and the whale was jumping and that's all he could do was take a bite out of the guy."
Trainers were eventually able to calm the whale but the show didn't go on.
"And I saw the other trainers out the corner of my eye and I looked down and they were slapping the water and blowing their whistles," says Lecourias. "The dude was coming out of the water and he was like, you know, exhausted, coming around, the trainers and everyone around him was going nuts."
SeaWorld officials cancelled "The Shamu Adventure" shows for the rest of the day.
The trainer amazingly was unhurt and says he's not sure what set the whale off. But the animal is near breeding age and that might have been the reason for the strange behavior.
Since the Friday incident they've returned to work, hoping to excite more visitors, but in less dramatic fashion.
FEED Willie.
Warning, horny teenage killer on the loose.
I suspect that if the whale wanted to kill him, it would have been over real quick.
I'm actually opposed to keeping killer whales and dolphins in captivity. They're highly intelligent animals and captivity must be torturous for them.
Whales saving themselves!
< /sarcasm>
The headline is a crock. If that whale had attacked him it would have used its teeth and the trainer would be dead.
I dated a whale trainer for Sea World for about six months. Those whales have very specific ways of letting the trainers know they aren't happy with them.
bump
Woops! Trainer Bob just got eaten by Shamu kids. It's natures way. Could someone get Trainer Tim over here and fish Trainer bob's head out of the tank?
When you broke up, did you say "So long and thanks for all the fish?" :)
Hence the name KILLER whale.
Not TAME, ZANY, SHOWMAN, LOVES CAPTIVITY whale.
If he was attacking the trainer there would have been a nice red cloud in the water.
The next to last sentence of the article suggests that the whale might have had something else in mind.
When you did what she wanted, did she reward you with tuna?
Is a Killer Whale and assault weapon now?
Left 'cause she had you jumping through hoops?
Which park, and what time period? We've become friends over the last few years with several of the trainers at Orlando.
The headline is a crock. If that whale had attacked him it would have used its teeth and the trainer would be dead.
If it were Tillikum, the biggest one in captivity, who is down at Orlando, the trainer would be GONE.
Several years ago there was a Darwin Award winner who hid out in the Orlando park till after closing (getting stoned in the bushes). He took off his clothes and climbed down into the tank with Tillikum in it. They found him the next morning, dead, on top of Tillikum's back, with the whale circling the tank keeping the guy up out of the water. Unfortunately he died of hypothermia (the tank water is 50 degrees). The whale is trained to support a swimmer in distress, but there wasn't anyone around to come help.
Those whales have very specific ways of letting the trainers know they aren't happy with them.
One of our friends had an incident like the one described in this article. She couldn't do water work for about 4 months. We were there one time when a funny one happened. The trainers put the whales on "time out" when they do something wrong. Well, the trainer missed the foothold on the flippers for a throw and the stunt didn't work. The whale promptly put the trainer on "time out." It was hilarious.
"Is a Killer Whale and assault weapon now?"
You'll have to pry my Killer Whale out of my cold dead hands...
Lol! You could say that.
Just saw the video. The whale was definitely not in attack mode. It was leaping partially out of the water, with his belly landing on the trainer.
Don't all women?
You guys are on fire today! Lol!
Was the whale male or female? If it was male this guy is lucky he isn't walking bent over with his legs spread for the rest of his life. If it was female, I bet the guy never gets in the swimming pool with a horny fat woman again.
No, not actually. Killer whales will play with their kills like cats. I've seen them (on television) toss around seals for play.
Not unlike male teens. ;)
Something's fishy here.........
If you think about it, being a killer whale trainer is perfect training for a woman when it comes to dealing with the men in their lives.
You have this big, dumb animal. You take away its freedom. You make it jump through hoops and balance beach balls on its nose. Every once in a while, you give the poor creature something fishy-tasting and its happy.
It really is like dating.
I have seen this also and in some cases where the whale will knock a seal around for a while, then carry the seal back to the beach unharmed, but scared to death.
SAN ANTONIO -- A killer whale performance at SeaWorld came to an abrupt end Friday when one of the giant marine mammals slammed his trainer underwater repeatedly.
No one was injured in the incident involving the killer whale, named Ky, and his trainer, Steve Aibel.
"It looked like Ky lost a little bit of focus," Aibel said in an exclusive interview with KSAT 12 News.
Aibel has trained with Ky for the past 10 years, and said he was caught off guard by Ky's behavior.
One of them got smashed against the pool wall by an orca a few years ago, IIRC.
Ohio park in the late 80's. She's not a trainer anymore but I think some of the folks she worked with still are.
I think I'd read about that guy. We had some folks try to do the same but security was tight anough that they didn't pull it off. What makes someone think that getting into the water with an animal that size who lives in the arctic and eats 500+ lb. seals is beyond me. Let alone doing it without a wet suit.
I would have loved to see that time out. What a riot. The old girlfriend received a "nip" on the thigh from one of the whales when it was moody one day. No teeth, just the front of it's mouth from the teeth forward. To date the largest and ugliest bruise I've ever seen.
And to think, this guy's got kids of his own?! Children shouldn't be having children. We are in serious trouble...
It looked like they were playing volleyball with the seals.
Killer whales: Hey yall wanna play some volleyball?
Seals: Yeah thats sounds fun! Hey, what the...whoosh..ahhhhhrg I dont want to be the BALL!...helllllllp me peta!
LOL, You're gonna get flamed.
Michael Moore Alert!!
Ah yes, wild animals going wild, surprise, that is why they call them wild.
Disney has gotten a lot of people killed with his & their BS crap of attributing human traits to non-humans.
You take away its freedom and friends.
Then you've described my ex...
Well, Homo Sapiens are KILLERs too. So are the "Flipper" type dolphins, who are closely related to the Orcas. They are carnivores, but they don't eat people. (Maybe people taste bad?) However they do eat the herbavoire whales, and seals and other mamamals in additon to fish. Seeing one go after a seal in the surf zone is impressive.
Some of the adolescent whales in Orlando would save some fish in their mouths. After the shows when everything was quiet they'd lie under the water and then spit the fish out so it came out of the water like it was jumping. If they could coax a seagull into going for the fish they'd try and catch the seagull.
We saw a whale catch a seagull this way onetime. He didn't eat it, but just kept pulling it underwater, playing with it, then letting it go, kind of like what happend to the trainer at San Antonio. Finally the gull was exhausted and the whale pushed the bird out onto the slide out. The bird just sat there, gasping for breath, probably muttering the gull equivelant of "OMG, OMG" over and over.
I always wondered, why did they call ALL the whales "Shamu"? I guess they all have individual names, but are called "Shamu" for the performance.
Are the whales normally docile, or do they "play" (in small ways) more often?
My wife was asking these questions, and I had no clue.
Hehe. You can judge intelligence in animals sometimes by their sense of humor, and how intricate they play. It's amazing that they didn't simply kill and eat the birds, although I'm sure it's happened.
As a former teacher I am reminded of the behavior 8th grade boys as the hormones begin to surge. :-)
Well, soon after the show started Kayla started slamming the gate and the teenagers all started responding to her, not the trainers. I was getting really nervous about those young trainers, teenagers themselves probably, being put in a crisis situation with 3,000 customers wanting their "Star Show."
After getting no obedience from the younger Orcas, one trainer went back to the gate to calm down Kayla, but she just got more agitated. Finally, the trainer/announcer said that the leader of the Orca pod had decided that they weren't going to do a show that day. I admired everybodys acceptance of the obvious. Having seen the show many times, this "non-show" was actually more entertaining. Just glad no-one got hurt that time.
Orca Jihad.
> he's not sure what set the whale off
Maybe they piped in the Dem convention last night?
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