by David Kirby
Washington State filed suit against Goldsberry, alleging that he and SeaWorld had violated the terms of their permits, which mandated that the roundups be humane. It was the worst publicity SeaWorld had ever endured. The company agreed to release the whales being held in Budd Inlet. A Seattle district court subsequently demanded that SeaWorld relinquish its permit to collect killer whales off Washington.4
SeaWorld would have to look elsewhere for new animals. It promptly dispatched Don Goldsberry on a worldwide tour in search of promising hunting grounds. He selected Iceland—the whales were plentiful and the government was cooperative. In October of 1976, SeaWorld had its first killer whale flown in from the island nation.
Naomi grew angry at the long list of killer whales that had been yanked from their homes and families since that first ailing female was taken from Newport Harbor. Nearly one hundred and thirty orcas had been shipped to display facilities between 1961 and 1992.
Now, only twenty-four of them were still alive.
16
Backstage Doubts
Nobody likes cognitive dissonance, the itchy, uncomfortable feeling that your previously held beliefs about a person, place, or thing—a job, say—do not conform with what your eyes and ears are telling you. Human nature goes into overdrive to eliminate, or at least tone down, the unbearable internal conflict.
Denial and rationalization are thus highly useful for collecting a paycheck. As the great muckraker Upton Sinclair put it, “It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it.”
Looking back at their earlier years at SeaWorld, former trainers such as Jeff Ventre, John Jett, Sam Berg, and Carol Ray marvel at the denials and justifications they used to muzzle the whispering doubts that followed them to sleep at night. They were loyal team players at the world’s premier marine-life enterprise. No matter what their eyes and ears were telling them, they still thought SeaWorld was a great place to work—for people and animals alike.
After all, they had been trained to believe many workplace myths: The whales and dolphins in their care were happy, healthy, and pampered, with longer life spans than animals fending for themselves in “the dark, scary ocean,” as SeaWorld officials sometimes called the natural environment. The trainers were part of the SeaWorld “family”: They were fairly if not richly rewarded for their one-of-a-kind jobs; their bosses, while not always congenial, were leading experts in animal behavior; and above all, they felt safe, even while doing water work with killer whales. No one at SeaWorld ever led them to believe otherwise.
Over time, however, cognitive dissonance grew stronger; the soothing balm of denial and rationalization eventually began to wear off.
Jeff and John had become good friends; they spent many Orlando nights over beer at local hangouts, where talk often turned to the more disquieting aspects of their jobs. Each recognized the other as a critical thinker, and both had ethical questions about keeping marine mammals in captivity, and its effect on the animals’ mental and physical health. They were also growing skeptical about the integrity and intelligence of their supervisors and the relatively low pay they received.
Such discussions were reserved for quiet corners in dark pubs, far from the earshot of other SeaWorld staffers. Bill Clinton had recently taken office and was concocting a plan to allow gay Americans to serve in the military, as long as they did not reveal their sexual orientation. Jeff and John now felt as if they were living under their own bizarre set of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell restrictions. They understood the rules. They didn’t ask questions at work, and they saved the “telling” for after hours.
One thing the men noticed was that whales, because they were so smart, easily got bored. The animals needed to invent ways to amuse themselves when humans weren’t interacting with them. Frequent targets of the whales’ restlessness were birds—usually seagulls, but other Florida fowl as well. Captive killer whales in San Diego had been observed leaving small bits of food on the surface to attract hungry birds, then ambushing and killing them, for fun, not a meal. It is believed that one whale devised the trick, which the others learned by observing. In other cases, whales would float a whole fish on the surface as bird bait. This indicated purposeful intelligence: the willingness to forgo food up front for the potential of a greater reward later on. The use of bait to attract a victim was a form of tool deployment, a hallmark of intelligence in animals.
Birds in the water could also demonstrate how stubborn and unyielding killer whales can be. One day in San Diego a killer whale grabbed a pelican right in the middle of a show, much to the revulsion of the guests. The whale refused to relinquish the new toy and ignored all callback commands to drop the bloody carcass and return to the stage.
The doubts that began to germinate in John’s and Jeff’s minds were sometimes planted from people on the outside. SeaWorld executives had already anticipated that anti-captivity critics—activists and scientists—who routinely showed up to observe the animals would also try to make contact with staff members. But the company had done a thorough job of infusing its employees with a general disdain for anyone who criticized the business of keeping cetaceans in tanks. All members of groups such as the Animal Welfare Institute, Whale and Dolphin Conservation Society, In Defense of Animals, and, of course, HSUS were almost universally despised at SeaWorld. They were nut jobs to be avoided at all costs.
One outsider did manage to break through the wagons to connect with a few of the trainers in Florida, including Jeff and his friend and fellow hotdogger at SeaWorld Mark Simmons. Her name was Astrid van Ginneken, MD, PhD, a tall, athletic woman from Holland with gray-blond hair pulled back behind the ears and a deep, heavily accented voice. Jeff first noticed her back in the spring of 1988, sitting alone for hours in the stands at Shamu Stadium, during shows and in between, watching one of the whales: Astrid first arrived after the female Gudrun had been brought to SeaWorld from the Netherlands.
Jeff began speaking with the stranger, even though most staff dismissed her as that “crazy Dutch whale lady.” Eventually, he became more cautious and met Astrid off-site, to avoid prying eyes and ears.
Astrid, who had designed an innovative computerized patient-record system for the Erasmus University Medical Center in Rotterdam, first fell in love with killer whales after seeing one at the Dolfinarium Harderwijk theme park in the Netherlands. It was Gudrun, whom the Dutch aquarium—together with SeaWorld—had captured off Iceland in 1976, along with the female Kenau. The two whales were brought to Harderwijk, east of Amsterdam. Kenau was quickly sent to SeaWorld in Orlando but Gudrun remained. Astrid found herself spellbound by the giant black-and-white dolphin with the gentle personality.
In 1986, work brought Astrid to a conference in Washington, DC, where she visited the Natural History Museum, which was having a blockbuster exhibit on whales. Again, Astrid was enraptured by the creatures. She purchased a few books on cetaceans at the museum store. Two of them were about whales: Erich Hoyt’s Orca: The Whale Called Killer, and Song of the Whale by Rex Weyler, which tells the story of Paul Spong’s metamorphosis from dispassionate scientist to global whale advocate. She was deeply inspired by what she read.
Astrid went back home with a deep desire to see Gudrun again. She arrived at the Dutch aquarium early one Sunday to see if the orca was still there. She was. But it was November now. The park was closed for the season. The staff allowed Astrid some time with the whale.
As they approached, the trainer cautioned, “Gudrun doesn’t like strangers much. She can be very nervous in their presence. So please don’t look her in the eye, and don’t make any wild movements or that sort of thing.” But Gudrun acted calmly around the stranger. Astrid felt they had a bond. Using her charm and enthusiasm, her university credentials, and the reference of a curator she knew at the New York Aquarium, Astrid talked her way into a standing invitation to visit Gudrun. She was even allowed to feed the whale.
Astrid visited every week for the next year.
The aquarium had a small underwater viewing area, and Astrid would also spend time down there, staring into Gudrun’s eye. It was a profound experience. “She dramatically changed my life,” Astrid told Jeff one day, “because somehow she broke through my shield. You see, I was—how do you say it?—I didn’t dare show affection in the open, I was very shy about that.” Gudrun had changed that.
Astrid became so fascinated by killer whales she began looking into places where she could study them in the wild. She learned about the Center for Whale Research, an orca science compound on San Juan Island, in Washington State, run by Kenneth Balcomb. Ken, a premier expert on wild killer whales, had worked with Mike Bigg on the early surveys of the Northern and Southern Resident communities and coauthored several papers with Mike. Ken also cowrote the seminal field guide Killer Whales, with his Canadian colleagues Graeme Ellis and John Ford.
The Center for Whale Research operates out of Ken’s home and office on a few acres of land overlooking Haro Strait and across to Vancouver Island. Its ongoing project, Orca Survey, is a long-term photo-identification study of the three pods J, K, and L, which make up the Southern Resident community. Astrid contacted Ken and offered to work as a volunteer in the summer of 1987. He agreed to take her on.
In the fall, it was announced that Gudrun would be transferred to Florida on a “breeding loan.” The director of Dolfinarium Harderwijk, F. B. den Herder, had contacted SeaWorld vice president and zoological director Dr. Lanny Cornell, informing him that Gudrun, who was captured in a joint operation between SeaWorld and the Dutch aquarium, had reached “reproductive age.” At this point in nature, den Herder added, most females would already be impregnated by males.
“We would like to mimic this natural process which would be beneficial to the well-being of our female,” den Herder wrote, “but we have no possibility to provide a male killer whale.” He proposed sending Gudrun to one of SeaWorld’s “killer whale breeding facilities” on a breeding loan basis for at least four years. “The ownership of the potential young should be decided on in a future stage of negotiation.”1
But the Dutch were not offering Gudrun for free. She was a “major attraction” at Harderwijk, den Herder reminded his American colleague. “We are afraid that her absence will decrease the number of future visitors.” In order to “overcome this potential problem,” den Herder requested that SeaWorld send two of its false killer whales to Holland for the same period that Gudrun was to be in Florida. He also wanted two white-sided dolphins, to “give the public a chance to come in contact with other species than the ‘Flipper’ [bottlenose] dolphins.”
The exchange could happen in November, when the aquarium’s 1987 season was winding down.
Astrid was allowed to stay with Gudrun in the final hours before the flight, in mid-November 1987, keeping the animal calm and hand-feeding her fish.
Gudrun had a rough time when she got to Florida. Not only did Katina assert her dominance by raking and shoving the newcomer, but SeaWorld began breeding her almost immediately. She was locked in a back pool with Kanduke, who chased her around the tank, trying to penetrate her over and over, and often succeeding. What seemed like serial rape to Jeff produced the birth of Taima, the unpredictable Transient-Icelandic hybrid, in July 1989. Born during a summer storm, her name was a Native American word for “crash of thunder.” It would prove to be an appropriate moniker.
In Europe, Gudrun had spent most of her time with bottlenose dolphins. SeaWorld officials were unsure what kind of mother she would be, but Gudrun showed herself to be loving and competent with Taima. Within a year, the two of them were performing daily at Shamu Stadium.
Astrid had been disturbed to see Kanduke’s rough treatment of Gudrun. But after the Transient died in 1990 and was replaced by Tilikum in 1992, things began to get better for the Icelandic female. Both Gudrun and Taima took to Tilikum soon after he arrived, Astrid observed, unlike the dominant matriarch Katina, who harassed Tilikum and raked him with her teeth—unless she was in estrus (heat) and wanted to mate.
“Gudrun is different,” Astrid told Jeff. “Maybe she comes from Tilikum’s clan in Iceland, or maybe their personalities just match better. We’ll never know. But they do spend a lot of time together, and very harmoniously.”
The two also mated harmoniously. There was no “rape” between Tilly and Gudrun. One day, a trainer informed Astrid that Gudrun was in estrus and invited her to watch the pair mate in a back pool. She watched in amazement and even captured the ritual on her camcorder.
“Tilikum was so gentle!” she marveled to Jeff later that day. “He would swim behind her, and Gudrun would be in the lead, and she would look back at him, as if to say, ‘You’re still following me, right?’ And then he would swim up to her and caress her with his head, or he’d roll over and take her on his chest. It was so romantic. Afterwards, they were completely content, resting side by side. It was totally different from Kanduke.”
On New Year’s Eve, December 31, 1993, two years after Tilikum arrived in Orlando, his fourth offspring—a three-hundred-pound, seven-foot female named Nyar—was born to Gudrun.2 It was the second birth in Florida that year. Four months earlier, Katina had given birth to a male calf, named Taku, who was also sired by Tilly.3 SeaWorld’s killer-whale-breeding program was booming. It was now the most productive in the world: Nyar was the ninth successful birth at the chain.
Gudrun’s new daughter seemed to fit in well with the artificial pod she was born into. Even the queen, Katina, assisted Gudrun while she was in labor with the calf. The newborn began playing with Taku, and sometimes her older half-sister, Taima, joined in as well.
SeaWorld officials told the media they had been given an “unprecedented” opportunity to study the development of social behaviors simultaneously with two infant killer whales. “This is a very happy occasion for all of us at SeaWorld and the zoological community,” Brad Andrews told reporters. Each successful birth, he claimed, was “adding to the scientific community’s knowledge of killer whales.”
Mother and calf “appear to be doing well—we’re all hopeful this is a strong and healthy young whale,” Andrews continued. But he cautioned that the days and weeks ahead would be crucial for the calf’s survival. Half of all baby orcas died before their first birthday in the wild, Andrews stated. “This successful birth is further evidence that the killer whales are thriving in SeaWorld’s environment.”4
Andrews spoke too soon. Nyar did anything but thrive. The infant girl seemed to suffer from some kind of congenital birth defects. She was physically and mentally unsound. Gudrun rejected her calf and tried to drown her several times before SeaWorld separated the two. Nyar made little progress and had trouble swimming correctly. Blood tests showed she suffered from immunosuppression. She had trouble learning and was unfit for shows.5 Nyar often spent time in the company of Tilikum, her father, who treated her with great gentleness.
Astrid told Jeff that Gudrun’s rejection of her calf would be rare in the wild. The Dutch scientist was on her way to becoming a bona fide killer whale researcher herself, having now spent six summer seasons on San Juan Island at the Center for Whale Research.
Jeff had never seen a killer whale in the wild. He wasn’t sure if any of the trainers at SeaWorld had ever seen one.
“You really must come to the San Juan Islands one summer, very soon,” Astrid told him. “You will never look at an orca the same way again.”
Jeff loved the idea, but he wasn’t sure how well his bosses would take it if they found out he went to the Pacific Northwest to observe wild killer whales with the “nutty” lady from Holland. He said he would think about it.
Over the years that she visited SeaWorld, Astrid taught Jeff much about the natural history of killer whales in the wild, something he would never learn at the marine park. The Dutch doctor was not overtly opposed to captivity and was by no means anti SeaWorld. But many of the things Jeff learned from his discussions with her left a lasting impact. However inadvertently, Astri
d was helping to change Jeff’s feelings about captivity. Jeff’s talks with her added more fuel to his nighttime ruminations with John. Both of them were growing more concerned about the whales’ health—the drugs in their morning meals, their dorsal fins, the way they kept dying.
And then there was the tooth issue.
Many of the killer whales had developed serious dental problems—mostly chipped and broken teeth, but also teeth that had been removed or fallen out. Most disturbing of all were teeth that needed to have the pulp drilled out of the center, leaving behind a conical cylinder.
Fighting between the whales could also lead to tooth loss. Astrid told Jeff about one particularly awful conflict she had witnessed. Katina had been acting up with Gudrun, shoving and ramming her repeatedly as they swam around the main pool. Gudrun tried to defend herself by raking Katina with her teeth. But just as Gudrun moved in with her mouth wide-open, Katina thrust her tail at it. The impact was loud and severe. Two of the teeth in Gudrun’s lower jaw were driven down into the bone. She was in excruciating pain. Blood and green vomit spilled from her mouth.
An emergency medical crew was assembled and Gudrun was separated into D Pool, the small medical pen. The floor was raised and the water drained, stranding Gudrun on a mat in the pool. She was held by trainers and animal-care staff, who used a four-by-four block of wood to keep her mouth open long enough to allow vets to yank out the two impacted teeth.
Jeff and John were beginning to believe that stress and boredom were adding to the tooth problem. The steel gates that separated the park’s pools were made from horizontal bars. These gates were the first line of defense when the whales went “off behavior” and became aggressive and in need of physical separation. Once separated, two whales sometimes bit down on the bars, a display of aggression called jaw-popping. Jeff knew that some animals show more aggression when restrained than when unfettered—the way some dogs will snarl at other dogs when on a leash, but be friendly when off leash. When they know there is no chance for actual physical combat, they exaggerate how tough they are.
