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

by David Kirby

  Leading the fight to repatriate the Icelandic whale from Norway to the United States was the Miami Seaquarium, who wanted a companion for their lonely and aging Southern Resident, Lolita (Tokitae). On September 13, 2002, Arthur H. Hertz, chairman and CEO of the Seaquarium, wrote to Florida senator Bob Graham expressing “concern” about Keiko because he was not in the company of wild whales and was “exhibiting solicitous behaviors toward people and vessels.”

  The harsh Nordic winter was quickly approaching, Hertz warned the senator, a Democrat. It was critical to “become pro-active regarding his recovery.” The aquarium had already written to the Norwegian Directorate of Fisheries, “offering to rescue Keiko and bring him to the Miami Seaquarium® where he could live out his remaining years in the companionship of Lolita our killer whale,” Hertz said.

  It was not clear if Senator Graham’s office intervened on behalf of Miami’s popular aquarium, but the US government backed up the effort to return Keiko to the United States for a life in captivity. On September 19, 2002, NMFS sent a letter to the Norwegian fisheries director offering its support—political, diplomatic, scientific, and material—for the capture, transport, and relocation of Keiko to a marine park in the United States. NMFS said that Keiko was not acting the way a wild whale should act.

  “We believe his behavior toward people and boats and the absence of interaction with free-ranging killer whales suggests that he is not exhibiting behaviors expected of a wild killer whale,” NMFS said, adding that US public display facilities were standing by to take him. If Oslo agreed, NMFS would be available to consult with the Norwegians on the best way to rescue and transport the wayward whale back across the sea.

  The Norwegians offered a speedy response. On September 24, the Norwegian ambassador to the United States, Knut Vollebaek, wrote to Senator Graham. The message was blunt and clear:

  “Keiko is doing well and he is getting a lot of support. There is no immediate need for a rescue.”

  But the Norwegians added insult on top of rejection. “We are skeptical to keeping huge animals like whales in captivity,” the ambassador said. “In Norway there is no tradition for that.” It would be “problematic” from an animal welfare perspective to transport Keiko to Florida, he added. “We do not doubt that Keiko would get good support in Miami, but it would be a great step back to put him in an aquarium that will stress him.”

  The whale would stay in Norway, the ambassador insisted. Keiko was enjoying a “freedom that makes it possible for him to make choices.” When Naomi read that, she felt hopeful and a bit vindicated.

  Keiko’s journey was not the only remarkable return-to-freedom story capturing the world’s attention at the time. There was also the moving saga of Springer, a little female from the Northern Resident killer whale community who one day found herself horribly lost and all alone.

  Springer (A73) was born to a female known as Sutlej (A45), a member of the A4 pod. In the summer of 2001, neither Springer nor her mother returned to Johnstone Strait with the rest of the A4s. Most people assumed the two of them had died, but in January of 2002, Springer was alone off Vashon Island, in south Puget Sound, far from her native waters. Sutlej was never seen again.

  When Springer first appeared, her origin was a mystery. But researchers taped a few of her vocalizations. Helena Symonds, of OrcaLab, and John Ford, of the Canadian Department of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO), analyzed the recordings and determined that Springer belonged to the Northern Residents, some 250 miles north. At OrcaLab, a fourteen-year-old recording of calls made by A45, Sutlej, were compared with calls from Springer. She was confirmed to be A45’s offspring.

  During the spring of 2002, a heated debate ensued over what should become of Springer. Most scientists, environmentalists, and animal advocates were adamantly opposed to sending the whale to a marine mammal park. But life in Puget Sound was hardly ideal for a lone juvenile orca. Springer was underweight and in poor health. Ken Balcomb and John Ford discovered she had “ketone breath” (the smell of burning body fat for fuel), as well as intestinal parasites and a skin condition. Her prognosis was not good.

  Later that year, NMFS, DFO, the Vancouver Aquarium, and groups such as OrcaLab, Orca Network, and the Center for Whale Research created a plan to transport Springer back to her native waters in Johnstone Strait. She was first transferred to a government research center at Manchester, Washington. There she was fed live salmon and underwent a battery of medical tests. Over the next four weeks, her health improved and she ate more fish. Tests found her clear of any genetic or communicable diseases, and she was deemed fit to return to Canada.

  The timing could not have been better. On July 9, Paul Spong at OrcaLab announced the detection of underwater killer whale calls that closely resembled Springer’s. The orcas were moving toward Johnstone Strait. Four days later, Springer was brought to a netted-off pen in Dong Chong Bay, on Hanson Island, near the OrcaLab location. As darkness fell late that evening, Springer settled in. She chased and fed on wild bioluminescent salmon, provided by local First Nations fishermen, as they zigzagged across the black water.

  Suddenly, Springer heard the calls of other killer whales passing through the sound. She spy-hopped repeatedly, called out loudly, and pushed at the edges of her net. The OrcaLab staff soon determined that the whales out in the sea included her grandmother, aunts, uncles, and cousins. “She was vigorous and vocalizing and obviously interacting with the other whales,” Paul Spong told reporters. “We were listening practically with our mouths hanging open all night.”

  In the early morning hours of July 14, 2002, part of Springer’s pod cruised past Dong Chong Bay. Springer grew increasingly excited and exchanged calls with another whale. But after a while, the whales left. Springer calmed down and spent the next few hours alone. Then her family quietly entered Dong Chong Bay. Springer was now screeching and flailing about with excitement. The decision was made to drop the net. With a salmon grasped in her jaws, presumably to share with her relatives, she porpoised toward the other orcas waiting at the mouth of the bay. But then, for some reason, Springer hesitated and slowed down. The other whales moved on.

  Now free, Springer spent the next few days wandering around the local waters, showing a disturbing attraction to boats and people. But gradually she moved closer to the other killer whales. She was spotted trailing her own pod about a half mile behind the others.

  Three days later, Springer was accepted back into her community. Even as Keiko struggled to socialize and form bonds thousands of miles away, Springer was now home. A sixteen-year-old female relative, A51, or Nodales, began mentoring Springer in proper pod behavior. She even began to steer the young whale away from boats. “She is in excellent condition,” Paul Spong said at the time. “There can now be no question about the success of the return project as it is clear that Springer has resumed living a normal social life among her kin and community.” Springer remains with the pod to this day.

  Back in Norway, things were not going quite as well for Keiko. He needed to get out of his fjord before it froze over. In October 2002, HSUS won permission from the Norwegian government to relocate Keiko to a site called Taknes Bay near the town of Halsa. Keiko arrived there on November 8. When winter set in, Keiko ended up under an ice floe anyway while swimming in a nearby fjord. When he came up to breathe, he was blocked from reaching air and had to struggle his way through the ice. Finally, he succeeded in breaking through the frozen cover, but not before scraping a good deal of skin off the top of his head. The wound eventually healed completely.

  Throughout 2003, HSUS discontinued its attempts to sever Keiko’s nearly lifelong umbilical cord with people, directing his caretakers to return to daily interactions. Though he still went out for “walks,” Keiko mostly stayed in the bay, where he again assumed status as a local celebrity and tourist attraction. The long-term plan was to help him find a home of sorts with the Norwegian whales, but their travel patterns had shifted along with the herring, and they did not swim past
Taknes that year, as they had in the past.

  In early December 2003, Naomi was called into the Gaithersburg office of HSUS president Paul Irwin, along with a few other senior officials. They all sat down.

  “I’ve just gotten a phone call,” Irwin said. “I’m afraid Keiko is dead.” He had learned the day before that Keiko was off his food and receiving antibiotics. But he decided not to tell anyone until it was clearer what was happening. But on December 12, Keiko had beached himself—attended by his loving caretakers—and died.

  Naomi sat in stunned silence. She had sincerely hoped for more time to see what Keiko would do in Norway. It took her a moment to gather her bearings.

  “Will there be a necropsy?” she finally asked, trying to remain as scientific and poised as she could. Irwin said no. Lanny Cornell had said Keiko’s symptoms were consistent with pneumonia, and they’d have to leave it at that. Keiko would be buried beneath a pile of rocks on the shore at Taknes, so that people could quietly pay their respects. The spectacle of conducting a necropsy on the beach—slicing open the world’s most beloved whale in front of the public—would be too much for everyone to bear, it was thought. Naomi vigorously opposed that decision. Critical data could be collected from Keiko, including diet, nutrition, muscle tone, infections, immune health, and, of course, cause of death. A curtain could be raised around Keiko to avoid offending anyone, she argued. Naomi lost that fight. Her insistence cost her some points among her superiors.

  Immediately, the critics began circling in, accusing Naomi, HSUS, and the entire campaign of “murdering” Keiko. It was tough to take. HSUS staff worked overtime, struggling to make public the entire timeline. That way, Naomi thought, people could see for themselves that it had been seventeen months since Keiko took off on his own from Iceland, and that Keiko was among the oldest male orcas ever to have been in captivity.

  But the criticism was deafening. The I-told-you-so retribution was barbed and heavy. Naomi felt compelled to respond, which she did in a post to the HSUS website, titled “Keiko’s Sudden Exit from the Limelight Caps a Long, Strange Trip.”

  “From a lonely, broken whale in a semi-tropical climate wholly foreign to him, he was once again in the vast northern wild of his birth, robust, adventurous, alive,” Naomi wrote.

  On his “walks” in Iceland, he was free to leave or stay. And leave he did—taking off across the open waters separating Iceland from the rest of Scandinavia, swimming steadily for at least five weeks, almost certainly feeding himself, without human contact.

  What must he have thought, in those immensely wide spaces? Following the mackerel, hearing the whistles of dolphins and the booming of sperm whales for the first time in years? Was he frightened? Perhaps a little, as one is when one first leaves the comfort of the familiar for the unknown of “real life.” But he kept his head, and he steered true and came at last to another shore, in Norway.

  In his final months in Taknes, he was free to come and go as he pleased. He explored his surroundings, interacted with his human caretakers, mugged for the occasional camera, even chased birds and fish. He breathed clean sub-arctic air, watched the days grow shorter and then longer again, felt the fury of storms and the joy of a boisterous breach, with no walls confining him. He lived longer than almost any other male orca ever has in captivity. He lived at least as long as most male orcas do in the wild. He died as many might wish to die—suddenly, with little warning, happy and free and among friends. What a long, strange, amazing trip Keiko took. We will miss him.

  Naomi’s preemptive defensiveness was well-founded. The attacks kept growing. Clive D. L. Wynne, an associate professor of psychology at the University of Florida, unleashed an arch and accusatory op-ed in The New York Times on December 27, 2003. The story of “probably the most expensive animal in human history” had come to a close, Wynne said. By the time Keiko died, seven years of work and more than $20 million had been expended “vainly—and unwisely—trying to return the whale to the wild.”

  Though Paul Irwin and his HSUS minions had committed themselves to offering Keiko the “chance” of freedom, “there was never a shred of evidence to suggest that freedom was an aspiration that Keiko shared with the humans who cared for him,” Wynne said. “Indeed, what we know about Keiko’s response to his attempted liberation suggests quite the opposite.”

  Mark Simmons was even less charitable. He suggested that Keiko had died after he was prematurely jettisoned from the rehab project when the McCaw money, allegedly needed to keep him alive, dried up. He said Keiko was forced to rely on handouts from Norwegian fishermen up until he died. It incensed Naomi. Keiko had lived in Norway for fifteen months before he got sick. His caretaking team was right there with him the entire time. It was well established that, once captive cetaceans presented outward signs of illness, their clinical pathology had usually reached a life-threatening stage.

  But the attacks continued. Opponents of the project said Keiko had turned up in Norway famished and sick. They alleged he had suffered needlessly and would still be alive if he had been returned to captivity.

  Those challenges did not go uncontested. Dr. Lanny Cornell shot back at the critics. Keiko had shown no reduction in girth levels since leaving Iceland, he said, which would have been expected after such a prolonged period of active swimming if he had been fasting. Cornell had also reviewed extensive dive data from the period between Iceland and Norway and found that Keiko “exhibited deeper diving than he had ever done before.”4

  Such deep-water diving consumed a lot of energy and “would likely not be continued without the reward of successful foraging.” Since there was no sign of weight loss, to sustain his weight Keiko would have needed to maintain an average daily intake of 125 to 150 pounds of fish, Cornell said. If he had not consumed that, “it would have manifest in emaciation and severe indentation behind the head and in the rib areas.

  “There is overwhelming and conclusive evidence that Keiko foraged successfully and was able to sustain himself in the wild during the summer of 2002,” Cornell insisted. “I am unaware of any scientist or veterinarian with even a rudimentary understanding of orca whales who could credibly claim that Keiko could undertake such activity and arrive in the condition that he did without being able to feed himself.”

  Bitter as it was, the fight over Keiko’s death was soon overshadowed by another attack at SeaWorld, this time in San Antonio.

  Trainer Steve Aibel was performing water work before a packed house with the male Kyuquot, or Ky as he was known. Ky was born to Tilikum and Haida II in 1991 while they were still at SeaLand of the Pacific. He was the reason that Tilikum had been isolated in the medical pool in Victoria and then sent to Orlando on an emergency import permit from NMFS.

  Ky had been very attached to his mother.5 When Haida died in 2001, it sent him into a deep bout of depression. He became moody and refused to perform certain behaviors. Ky assumed the subdominant position within the social structure in San Diego. In 2002, his closest ally, another subdominant whale named Winnie, died and left Ky more ostracized than ever from the rest of the animals.6 The female Kayla and the male Keto, in particular, took out their frustrations on Ky, raking him repeatedly with their teeth.

  In August of 2003, Ky had refused to let an unnamed trainer out of the water during a hotdogging session. He did not become aggressive, according to his Animal Profile, but he refused to obey callback tones and hand slaps on the water and persisted in blocking the trainer’s exit. The trainer was able to move over to the Plexiglas wall and flee from the tank. When Ky noticed the escape, he began fast-swimming around the pool’s perimeter, then slid out of the water and onto the main stage, ignoring all attempts to bring him under control. Water work with Ky was halted for a brief period after that.

  “During summer 2003, this avoidance behavior became more prevalent, and also more unpredictable,” his Animal Profile said. But, it added, “Overall, Ky is a very gentle natured animal.”

  Then, on July 27, 2004, Ky and Steve
Aibel were thrilling the crowds with another hotdog session in the “Shamu Adventure” show when the whale suddenly refused to perform a rocket hop. Ky then refused to let Aibel exit the pool. Instead, he swam over Aibel the way a cargo ship might swamp a sailboat. He blocked Aibel’s attempts to escape. Whenever the trainer came up for air, Ky would shove him back down under the water. Other trainers rushed to the pool’s edge, but they could do nothing to stop the aggression.7

  It took the audience a few moments to realize the attack was not part of the show (the entire incident is posted on YouTube).

  Justin Lecourias, of Houston, was there with his family when it all began. “I said ‘This ain’t right, something’s going on,’” he told reporters. “And then it got real bad.” The whale spun out of control. “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. I told the kids to close their eyes, something was wrong … was like, you know, exhausted, coming around, the trainers and everyone around him was going nuts.”

  Ky continued to leap halfway out of the water and land on top of Steve Aibel. He refused repeated tries to call him back to stage, including tones, hand slaps, and other commands from trainers around the pool. When Aibel began to climb out of the water, Ky spotted him and pulled him back in. After several frightening minutes, Aibel was able to calm the rampaging adolescent and escape without injury. The crowd applauded.

  Despite the tantrum, Ky never opened his mouth on the trainer. “It looked like Ky lost a little bit of focus,” Aibel said later. “Seventeen years of training with animals and I’ve never had an experience like that.” He said he wasn’t frightened, though it sure looked that way on the video. Nonetheless, he did remain remarkably composed. Aibel said that years of training had taught him the patience needed to resolve the situation and get out of the pool. Ky was reaching sexual maturity, he explained, and a hormone surge might have triggered his abnormal behavior.