Whale that killed its trainer won't be isolated

Associated Press ^ | Feb. 25, 2010 | MIKE SCHNEIDER

[Beowulf9]

“It kills people or mammals?”

I prob should’ve said ‘strictly people or basically speaking, mammals’.

[Liberty1970]

But as it applies to this case, you couldn't have any acts with large Cats like Lions, Tigers, and Leopards because one of these cats just might kill or severely injure the trainer/handler.

Where did I imply that the animals should be killed pre-emptively? Everything I've stated has been in the context of reacting to an actual fatality. I agree that we cannot and should not try to mitigate every possible risk. That would be like choosing to apply the logic in the movie I, Robot on ourselves. (Wherein robots, charged with protecting humans, try to take that to its logical conclusion of enslaving humans to keep them from doing anything dangerous.)

[tatsinfla]

yes they did, my jaw dropped....i looked at my wife and said how in the hell can they report that so many hours after the fact when its been reported by others interviewing eyewitnesses that said the whale grabbed her and pulled her underwater and thrashed her around....its just unbelievable anymore...

[Finny]

Sorry, dear, I'm obviously not anthropomorphizing anything. I'm pointing out the realities of the orcas' behavior in the wild as observed and experienced by the very men who've make their livings around them for decades and generations, and how that behavior relates to expectations of their behavior in captivity. If you think commercial divers and fishermen romanticized, find "cuddly," or otherwise anthropormophize orcas or any other critter in the ocean, then you are wildly mistaken.

People "in the know" dont' expect orcas to kill humans not because of anthropomorphizing them, but because of OBSERVED HISTORY. It makes no more sense to say that people should expect to be aggressivly attacked by them because it's a normal behavior, any more than it makes sense to say that people should expect bassett hounds and St. Bernards to tear mailmen, old people, and children to shreds in the same percentage proprotion as pit bulls and Rottweilers. DENYING it, indeed, is a kind of anthropomorphism.

The orca that killed this woman and the two other people before her is an aberration, not the norm. Something was abornmal in THAT orca, otherwise over the past 40-plus years that hundreds of trainers have worked around hundreds of orcas, there'd have been a LOT LOT LOT more incidents like this.

[GonzoGOP]

Me thinks the fish is a democrat, and is now garnering special treatment in line with the Alabama Harvard professor

Change the name to Tilly Kennedy. It drowns a couple of women and nobody thinks it should lose its job. And at six and a half tons it is about the same size as Teddy.

[GonzoGOP]

The whale certainly cannot swim from home to home, terrorizing children at play.

Candygram

[Let's Roll]

Exactly. Let him go.

He’s sired a whole bunch of offspring. With 3 human deaths on his rap sheet, why would we want that aggression passed on to animals intended for work with human trainers?

[Bulwyf]

I don’t even watch the news anymore. I might occassionally see some by accident, normally in a public place, and I look around and see all the folks taking it for gospel, I wish they’d wake up.