Death at SeaWorld: Shamu and the Dark Side of Killer Whales in Captivity

by David Kirby

  “GREAT job Jeff—Chuck,” Tompkins wrote on the copy sent to Jeff.

  And on May 10, Shamu Stadium had received a 99 percent rating from surveys completed by guests who watched Jeff and Mark Simmons perform together in the hotdogging segment. It was the highest show rating to date at any Anheuser-Busch theme park, Jeff and Mark were told. The two men were a big reason why.

  This time, Thad delivered the accolades. “Congrats on getting 99 percent for the categories on the shows and attraction ratings on the May surveys,” he wrote to Jeff. “Your contribution has helped trigger a tremendous amount of cooperative energy toward the goals at Shamu. You’re so close to perfection—100 percent in the ratings—and I know you can do it. Go for it!”

  And in late August, Jeff led a guided VIP tour at Shamu Stadium, earning him a rave review from the guest services staffer who was there that day. “He gave us a tour of the backstage areas—he took time to answer the many questions of these curious guests and their children,” the memo said of Jeff. “He was patient with the children and impressed the adults. I believe that his presentation was a highlight to our guests’ day. Please extend to him my thanks for a job well done.”

  Jeff figured everything would blow over. Then one day in December he was performing with Taima when, at the end of the performance, instead of the normal closing routine, Jeff impulsively stuck his entire head inside her mouth and planted a kiss on her big, pink tongue.

  The endearing scene was caught by one of the camera operators and projected onto the JumboTron. Jeff had no idea it would end up in a demo tape the camera operator was putting together for her portfolio. Little did he know his playful act would come back to haunt him.

  A couple of weeks later, Jeff learned he was going to appear in a special promotional video that SeaWorld was producing. The company wanted to film a trainer doing a stand-on—when he rose straight out of the water perched on a whale’s rostrum. But because of the desired camera angle—up close and shot from below—Jeff would need to perform the behavior near the Plexiglas wall.

  Stand-ons were done in the middle of the pool because the whales did not always rise from the water perfectly perpendicular. Sometimes they leaned back a little bit; sometimes they leaned forward—sending the trainer flying in one direction or the other. There needed to be plenty of water for the trainer to land in. Doing a stand-on while hugging the wall was extremely difficult and perilous. It took Jeff several takes until the directors were happy with the shot.

  Thad showed up for the filming. Jeff could see him as he worked from the water. But Thad wouldn’t make eye contact. Jeff thought it strange. Something about it was ominous, like jury members who won’t look a defendant in the eye. Jeff completed the series of stand-ons. The crew got what they wanted. He got out of the pool and dried off.

  Once again, he was called into a closed-door meeting with Thad and Chuck. The men were sour-faced. They showed Jeff video footage of his big, fat kiss with Taima.

  Thad and Chuck told Jeff he had acted unsafely and recklessly—again. He had violated the park’s “no tongue-tactile” rule. This time, he would be subject to a full-week suspension without pay, plus a formal investigation.

  Jeff was outraged. Yes, he knew about the tongue-tactile rule, and he knew he had got carried away that night. But lots of people did tongue-tactile during shows—it just wasn’t that big a deal. Besides, management had no problem telling him to do all those dangerous stand-ons near the wall for the promotional video. He was obviously a safe and talented trainer and a crowd favorite.

  A week later, when Jeff returned to work, he was fired. Animal training curator Robin Friday drove him around SeaWorld in a golf cart as he collected his things, signed a bunch of forms, and said good-bye to many people he had known for a long time.

  “This is total bullshit,” Jeff told John that night. “I don’t think anyone has ever been disciplined for tongue-tactile.”

  With modest savings and no income, Jeff applied for unemployment benefits: a few hundred dollars every two weeks. The checks came in the mail for several months, until SeaWorld contested his benefits. At the unemployment arbitration hearing, Chuck Tompkins and the human resources director argued that Jeff had been an unsafe trainer. He was fired with cause; it was his own fault, Tompkins said. The arbitrator knew nothing about killer whale training. Jeff lost and was ordered to pay several thousand dollars back.

  It was not the end of Jeff’s sparring with his former employer.

  22

  Catch and Release

  Over the years, more than a hundred dolphins—and a smaller number of other cetaceans—have been released back into the wild after spending varying periods in captivity. In the earliest days of reintroduction, animals were taken from public display tanks and essentially dropped into bays and inlets in waters nearby. Many of these dolphin rejects were no longer of use to their owners. They were not monitored after release and no survival data exist on these earlier cases.

  For anti-captivity forces fighting for Keiko’s freedom, demonstrating that successful release could be accomplished was crucial. When Ken Balcomb prepared his scientific proposal to Reino Aventura for the rehabilitation and eventual release of Keiko, he included a long list of dolphins and whales that had been held in captivity but were later set free or escaped.

  Much of the research was contributed by Ken’s half brother, Howard Garrett. Howard went on to create the Orca Network, a nonprofit whale conservation group, which he now ran with his wife, Susan Berta, out of their home on Whidbey Island, not far from Penn Cove, site of the infamous 1970 roundup of the entire Southern Resident orca community. Howard had met Susan in 1995 when she was the volunteer coordinator for Beach Watchers, a local environmental program.

  Most of the animals on the release list were held temporarily, though several dolphins were kept for a number of years—sixteen of them spent more time in captivity than in the wild before being reintroduced into the ocean and reliably reported to be alive some time afterward.

  As for the killer whales, Ken wrote, “All reintroductions can be considered successful.” He then listed those freed animals. Again, the majority of the orcas taken and released were rounded up in the early cowboy days in Washington and British Columbia. Most were held in netted pens for days or weeks, and in some cases months. A few were held for a year or longer. None had been held for anywhere near as long as Keiko.

  Several mainstream scientists, especially those affiliated with the display industry, ridiculed Ken’s assertion that these cases proved Keiko could be set free. They mocked his proposal to “swim” the animal from the Bahamas to Iceland and reminded the media that the Icelandic government—beginning with the sale of Tilikum back in 1991—had issued several statements repeating its ban on captive killer whales returning to its territorial waters.

  Ken was still unbowed.

  In his proposal to Reino Aventura, he conceded that a “major point of contention” in the red-hot debate over cetacean returns was whether the animals could readapt to catching live prey after being “fed piecemeal in prolonged captivity.” Another battle raged over the risk of formerly captive animals introducing pathogens into wild communities and whether freed cetaceans would have sufficient immunity to fend off natural diseases in the ocean. Yet a third dispute was being fought over whether released cetaceans could reintegrate with their family and pod or “be condemned to a life of loneliness.”

  Ken countered that all three were possible, especially following proper treatment, training, and acoustical and DNA research on Icelandic orca pods to locate Keiko’s relatives. Besides, it wasn’t as if the whale center had drafted a plan to “dump Keiko in the ocean and see what happens,” as critics suggested, he said. But he warned his opponents, “We will continue to make it clear that his fate shall not be biased toward further captivity. We want to bring him to a condition of health in which he can comfortably live in the ocean, and then let him decide what to do.”

  Many critic
s were already making dire predictions about Keiko’s certain demise should his release be attempted. Some said he would die within a month. But if postcaptive release was so “lethal, dangerous and irresponsible,” Ken asked in his proposal, “then why has it been done so many times by organizations that are generally considered responsible?” None of the released cetaceans were known to spread diseases to wild animals. When Keiko was brought to Mexico from Canada, he did not sicken the dolphins at Reino Aventura, not even with his unsightly skin condition.

  In addition to Keiko, at least two dozen other killer whales being held in captivity—about half the total—could be considered candidates for reintroduction, Ken stated, adding that most wild animals of all species return to nature when given the chance. “We think that probably any captive killer whale would go back to the wild, even to an uncertain fate,” he said. “In this particular case, we don’t know what Keiko wants, but we propose that at least his needs be guaranteed and that he have some control over the options for his future.”

  SeaWorld officials dismissed the Center for Whale Research’s quixotic dream of freeing the real “Willy.” They made it clear that their intervention in Mexico to improve Keiko’s water quality and temperature meant that they would help determine the whale’s fate, and not that troublemaker on San Juan Island, Ken Balcomb, or anyone else in the opposing camp.

  After all, SeaWorld could rightly claim that it had stepped in and saved Keiko’s life.

  In January of 1994, SeaWorld announced that its efforts to stabilize Keiko’s living conditions had cost more than $200,000 in equipment and services. The improvements were “part of a responsible and comprehensive plan to help Keiko,” a company statement claimed.

  But part of the plan to “help” Keiko meant shipping him to another marine park, where he would “benefit from medical treatment, a more suitable facility and the companionship of other whales.” After Keiko had spent six months to a year in his newly chilled, fifty-five-degree pool in Mexico, he “could be evaluated to see if he can be moved to another marine park.”

  But he would not be released. The character of Willy may have been “returned to the sea and reunited with his family,” SeaWorld said, but “we do not believe that scenario is in Keiko’s best interest.” SeaWorld experts and “independent scientists around the world” had studied the feasibility of releasing long-held captive animals and concluded that “such a proposal is ill-advised and would most likely result in the whale’s death.”

  Ken was not interested in SeaWorld’s opinion, and he fundamentally disputed the conclusion of the independent scientists the company had consulted. Instead of being cowed by their bluster, he got on a plane and spent two weeks in Iceland to start the daunting task of identifying Keiko’s family via DNA samples and pod vocalizations.

  That same month, the Keiko saga took yet another unexpected detour. Ken was contacted by Craig McCaw, a high-tech-entrepreneur billionaire from Washington State. He and his wife, Wendy, had read Keiko’s Life magazine profile and were inspired to help. McCaw and his brother had just sold their cell phone megabusiness to AT&T for a staggering $11.5 billion. Now McCaw wanted to discuss financial support for Keiko’s release plan. Ken went down to Kirkland, the affluent suburb northeast of Seattle, to meet with the billionaire.

  Ken secured a commitment of $2.5 million.

  The case for Keiko’s freedom got another lucky break on March 7, 1994, when Brad Andrews told the Chicago Tribune that SeaWorld had ruled out bringing the whale to one of its parks. Perhaps the Miami Seaquarium might be interested, Andrews ventured, or maybe Hong Kong’s Ocean Park aquarium. But Keiko would never come to SeaWorld. Industry observers speculated that Keiko’s warts had scared off SeaWorld—even if the condition wasn’t contagious, the lesions were not something people wanted to see in a show. Reino Aventura was stuck with a high-profile whale that it was not able to care for. Keiko needed saving.

  Naomi was following the drama intently. In May of 1994, Ken returned to Mexico City to present his finalized plan for Keiko’s release, now backed with the $2.5 million commitment from Craig and Wendy McCaw. Oscar Porter, the park’s director, rejected the proposal. For now at least, Keiko would stay in Mexico City. Sadly for the whale, his best friend, the bottlenose Ritchie, had to be separated from Keiko by a glass partition in the pool because the dolphin could not survive the cold water. Keiko spent much of his time making dolphin vocalizations and staring at Ritchie through the glass.

  Ken was appalled and disappointed. He, his half brother, Howard, and the staff at the Center for Whale Research had fought hard. They had pulled together a comprehensive proposal and secured impressive amounts of funding. But they couldn’t win the release of Keiko.

  The idea, however, lived on. In June, Mexico’s Proceso newspaper reported that Reino Aventura was getting more than a hundred letters a day urging the company to approve Keiko’s release to the wild. Letters also began pouring in to US companies, and to the Alliance of Marine Mammal Parks and Aquariums, including one from Nancy Bendsten of Pittsburgh. Her letter was accompanied by a petition demanding an end to whale and dolphin captures for public display, and calling for the release of Keiko. Bendsten added that whale watching on the ocean was a far superior way to observe the animals—for people and orcas alike—than in artificial tanks.

  But Alliance executive director Marilee Keefe wrote back to Bendsten, who forwarded a copy to Naomi.

  Keefe suggested whale watching in the wild was an elitist activity that only affluent people could enjoy. “Each year, more than 30 million people come to the marine life parks and aquariums that make up the Alliance,” Keefe wrote. “Many of these people cannot afford to get to the coast to have the opportunity to go whale watching, and common sense suggests that the impact of closing public display facilities and urging these millions of people to whale watch each year would be dangerous to the animals and their environments.”

  Naomi found the affordability argument to be preposterous. To begin with, while it did indeed cost money to travel to the coast, once there one could view whales for free from the shoreline at many points around North America. Second, if a family of four wanted to see killer whales at a US theme park, they would still have to travel to California, Florida, Texas, or Ohio, where they would have to lay out well over $100 just to get in, plus parking, meals, snacks, dolphin food, orca plush toys, and Shamu T-shirts.

  “The Alliance is as concerned about Keiko’s future as are you. Our members have spent thousands of dollars trying to improve his health and environmental conditions.” Release would be a “death sentence” for Keiko, who had been in an aquarium for at least twelve years and was “no longer capable of foraging for food in the wild.” Keiko also had a skin disease, which Keefe said was “believed to be contagious.”

  The director went on to take a swipe at groups that “publish misinformation about the public display community,” especially when it came to the debate over longevity. Published, peer-reviewed studies, she insisted, “document that marine mammals in aquariums live as long or longer as those in the wild.” Keefe closed by asserting, “The irony is, I believe that without our programs caring by people such as yourself and the signers of your petition would wane and disappear. Your caring assures that these animals will be available for your children and grandchildren to admire and love, as does ours.”

  But neither HSUS nor the Earth Island Institute were giving up on winning the whale’s release. Naomi decided to up the pressure, and to direct it to Hollywood. She knew how bad it would look for Warner Bros. to have used Keiko to make millions and millions of dollars worldwide, then to allow the real Willy to languish in a tank. In August she sent a mass e-mail on her CompuServe account to activists and animal protection groups around the country.

  “To everyone interested in Keiko the whale,” she wrote, “what is needed now is letters and calls to Warner Brothers to persuade them to try the release plan. It may not work, but Keiko will still be better off in
a sea pen in Iceland (where, after all, he was born) than just another concrete tank, which is what the Alliance is proposing. The Alliance does not want to see a captive killer whale go free—people might start demanding that all captive killer whales who were caught in the wild be allowed to go home.”

  The effort paid off. By early fall, Earth Island Institute had entered into talks with the Oregon Coast Aquarium to negotiate the possible transfer of Keiko to a specially designed tank that would be built to facilitate his rehabilitation. On November 21, 1994, Earth Island Institute announced the creation of the Free Willy-Keiko Foundation with $2 million in seed money from Warner Bros. and New Regency Films, the production company.1 The foundation’s mission was to raise money and assist in the “care, treatment and potential future release” of Keiko. Meanwhile, schoolchildren were raising money to free the famous whale, including $31,000 that was collected at just one elementary school in Tampa, Florida.

  Two months later, the Free Keiko forces won the big victory they had been waiting for. Reino Aventura agreed to donate Keiko to the Free Willy-Keiko Foundation. The foundation also announced plans to build a new $7.3 million rehabilitation facility at the Oregon Coast Aquarium, with the intention of eventually returning Keiko to the North Atlantic. Most of the money would come from Warner Bros. and the McCaws.2

  HSUS also took the extraordinary step of contributing $1 million of its own funds to the project. It was a major victory for Naomi, and for Keiko and his supporters. But the Keiko war was for from over.

  In 1993 a new Internet e-mail group called MARMAM had been formed through the University of Victoria—funded for some years with a $500 annual grant from HSUS. It quickly became the electronic soapbox for all things pertaining to marine mammal science, policy, and politics.3