by David Kirby
Even less understood were the “consequences from increased ultraviolet (UV) radiation exposure to the skin, eyes, and immune systems as animals float motionless at the surface.” Marine-park orcas sometimes got sunburn and required coats of black zinc oxide to protect their backs. “Furthermore, at least one serious trainer injury (John Sillick) has been linked to a whale’s poor visual acuity, possibly secondary to cataract formation. It is known that UV radiation exposure is a factor in the development of cataracts.” It can also lead to immunosuppression and retinal damage. Despite these risks, APHIS—charged with enforcement of Animal Welfare Act (AWA) provisions such as protection from direct sunlight—had “historically been ineffective” in doing anything about them.
Turning to survival issues, the authors needed to provide some metrics for comparison, and they came up with two. The first value they calculated was the “mean duration of captivity” (MDC), which took into account the 152 killer whales that had lived and died in captivity.
The results were shocking. The mean duration of captivity among the 152 animals was 2,413 days—a brief 6.6 years. But the MDC had a weakness: It only included animals who had died. John and Jeff needed a statistic accounting for living animals as well. John consulted a colleague at Stetson University, who suggested the Kaplan-Meier statistical formula, often used in large-scale drug trials, to best represent the “central tendency” of the data. This allowed “credit” to be given for living animals, including the older whales Corky, Lolita, Ulises, Katina, Kasatka, and Tilikum. After factoring them in, however, the figure rose to just 8.5 years.
Privately, Naomi was concerned that these calculations repeated some of the same mistakes she herself had made back in 1993—such as including calves that had died before they were one year old—and she didn’t know if the Kaplan-Meier method was applicable to this situation. John and his colleague at Stetson insisted it was, and John’s calculations certainly suggested that captive orca survivorship was no better, and probably worse, now than in 1995.
“Their life spans are decreased and their behaviors altered from the stressors associated with confinement,” Jeff and John asserted. They also called for an end to orca shows. One solution would be phasing out captive populations via attrition. “In short, stop breeding the animals and let those already in captivity live out their lives.”
John and Jeff still hoped to publish their work in a journal (Zoo Biology encouraged them to submit a formal manuscript). But now it was posted at TOP for all to see. “As it turned out, many more people read the paper online than would have in some journal,” John told his orca colleagues. Traffic data by the end of 2011 showed that the paper was read some forty thousand times at TOP and downloaded nearly two thousand times. Jeff’s own post of the paper was hit five thousand times, and a Spanish version (translated by Ester Quintana-Rizzo, PhD, a marine scientist at the University of South Florida) was read about fifteen hundred times. The paper was also posted at the website of the British Natural History Museum.
Howie sent the paper to the MARMAM list, allowing thousands more to read it. “Ventre and Jett have kept their focus on the evidence, on what’s happening to the orcas,” he wrote, “a key element that is seldom seen in the controversies over orca captivity.”
* * *
In early 2011, Florida attorney Maurice Arcadier, who represented the two SeaWorld whistle-blowers, braced himself for a day of depositions. He was scheduled to meet with client Michelle Dillard, who had filed a “constructive discharge” claim after witnessing a sensational array of misdeeds at work.
Arcadier entered the conference room and sat across the table from a battery of unsmiling lawyers. His client walked in and sat down. After she was sworn in, SeaWorld attorneys handed her the affidavit she had signed. Dillard read the document aloud, line by line.
After each sentence, he said she declared, “I retract that statement in full.”
Arcadier’s stomach sank. His client had turned. She had not even told him in advance. Somehow, they got to her, he thought. Either with money or with threats, but SeaWorld had found a way to make this go away.
Arcadier looked across at the opposing attorneys. They looked back, no longer unsmiling.
* * *
On February 23, 2011, the eve of the first anniversary of the Dawn Brancheau killing, the anti-caps anticipated a wave of publicity. It came, but not as they expected. Instead of thoughtful discussions on policy changes in killer whale captivity, the news cycle was dominated by SeaWorld’s own carefully crafted story: Orca trainers were preparing a return to the water.
Park officials told Sentinel reporter Jason Garcia that trainers at all three parks would initiate water work within a few months, with interactions “initially restricted to small medical pools equipped with false-bottom floors that can be lifted out of the water.”
SeaWorld was investing tens of millions of dollars on lifesaving technologies such as fast-rising pool floors and “underwater vehicles that could be used to distract an out-of-control killer whale with pulsing lights and whale vocalizations.” The officials had not decided when, or even if, water work during shows would resume, Garcia reported, but it was not dependent on the outcome of the OSHA hearing.
Opponents were unimpressed. Both John and Jeff appeared on CBS’s Early Show, where John called the plan “a recipe for disaster.” The Orca Project ripped into the proposed measures, saying they came “on top of other inadequate safety improvements SeaWorld has made in recent months,” citing removable guardrails around stage ledges and net boxes that reportedly deployed quickly.
SeaWorld’s Julie Scardina responded that the reforms were essential to resume water work, which was the “best way to not only showcase those animals but to care for the animals, as well” because it allowed close access to the whales. Meanwhile, trainers were attending seminars “on topics such as whale aggression,” Jason Garcia reported. Perhaps anticipating further mishaps despite these precautions, executives were investigating another technological innovation: a machine to quickly pry open a whale’s jaws.
* * *
It was time to put Tilikum back in the show.
On March 29, 2011, Jason Garcia reported in the Orlando Sentinel that the 12,500-pound, three-time killer would appear in that morning’s “Believe” show. It was important for Tilikum’s health and husbandry, SeaWorld insisted. “Participating in shows is just a portion of Tilikum’s day, but we feel it is an important component of his physical, social and mental enrichment,” noted Kelly Flaherty Clark in a prepared statement.
The house was packed that morning. “After the audience’s trademark tribal chant of ‘Shamu, Shamu,’ [Tilikum] answered by splashing icy water into the first several rows of the stadium,” Sentinel reporter Dewayne Bevil wrote. The fans loved it; not so the demonstrators outside the park hoisting placards that said LIFE IN A CONCRETE BOX IS NO LIFE and IT WILL HAPPEN AGAIN. Inside SeaWorld, Bevil caught up with Colleen Gorman and John Kielty, who had driven up from St. Pete Beach to see Tilikum perform for the first time in thirteen months.
They were “unhappy after the show,” Bevil wrote. Tilikum had “moved a little slow today.… He looked a little lethargic,” according to Colleen. She was afraid he would kill again, she said. Tilikum should be retired to a sea pen, where caregivers could teach him to catch live fish “and just teach him how to be a whale again.”
In Alaska, former trainer Samantha Berg was asked to speak on CBS’s Early Show about Tilikum’s return. Having him perform again was good for him, she told coanchor Erica Hill, but “you’re risking that another tragedy could happen. It might not be today, it might not be tomorrow, but somebody could make a mistake and there could be a fourth death.” Sam’s own awareness of Tilikum’s dark past had been “very limited” while working there, she said. “In fact, there had been thirty incidents between killer whales and trainers prior to my being hired at the park. I didn’t know about any of them until I left SeaWorld.”
Tilik
um’s return to show business was given mostly positive reviews—though nobody could report the story without mentioning that three people had perished in his tanks.
On other fronts, things were shaping up to SeaWorld’s advantage. On April 14, the administrative law judge overseeing Secretary of Labor v. SeaWorld of Florida, LLC, Ken Welsch, agreed to postpone the hearing, yet again, from April 24 until September 19. SeaWorld claimed that most if not all of the discovery documents it had turned over were proprietary trade secrets—maintaining that revealing them in open court would harm SeaWorld’s business and aid its competitors. It would take more time to sort through this issue.
SeaWorld was reportedly trying to use its muscle to close some or all of the proceedings to the public. The idea was fiercely opposed by HSUS. Naomi wrote a protest letter to Labor Secretary Hilda Solis and issued an action alert to members asking them to do the same. Other anti-captivity advocates, including TOP and the former trainers, also decried any proposed closing to the public. Whether SeaWorld would win that battle remained to be seen.
Two weeks after the hearing was postponed, another legal difficulty for SeaWorld suddenly fizzled away.
Linda Simons, just like Michelle Dillard, recanted.
Citing what it said was a sworn statement from Simons, SeaWorld quoted the ex-employee as saying that she had reviewed new materials since bringing her claim against the company and that “I now realize SeaWorld acted appropriately under the law.”
“As we have said throughout this process, Ms. Simons’ allegations were unfounded and we are grateful that she has fully recanted those charges in a sworn statement,” SeaWorld said in a prepared statement. In a separate communiqué Fred Jacobs noted that Simons admitted that her “earlier opinions and allegations were formed and made without the necessary facts and were not accurate.” Jacobs likewise said that Michelle Dillard “admitted that she had no factual basis to support her allegations and dropped her claims as well.”
Word of Simons’s turnaround swept through the anti-cap community within seconds. Most people assumed she was paid off. Perhaps so. But attorney Maurice Arcadier had previously alleged that SeaWorld was applying intimidation tactics against his client, including a threat to make her reimburse them for all legal fees if she lost. After Simons folded, Arcadier would no longer comment, except to note that Simons had disavowed her allegations about SeaWorld’s behavior during the Brancheau probe, leaving open the question of whether she had agreed to recant and drop her wrongful termination complaint in exchange for a settlement of her defamation suit.
* * *
In the spring of 2011, Naomi decided to write her own white paper on orcas in captivity. One of her main goals was to update the annual survival rates (ASRs) of captive killer whales and compare them to the rates reported by Small and DeMaster in 1995. If SeaWorld’s claims were accurate, and animal husbandry practices had improved over time, then the ASR of captive whales should have improved as well.
Naomi hired a graduate student consultant with expertise in statistics and had her communicate with Colleen and John at TOP. John’s database of all known captive orcas worldwide was far more complete than the government’s Marine Mammal Inventory Report, with all its holes and omissions.
When Naomi completed a first draft, she shared copies with Lori Marino, Paul Spong, and Tim Zimmermann, to solicit their comments. She wanted to have the white paper finished by September, when SeaWorld and the feds fought out their differences in court. It was sure to be a magnet for the media, and a fine venue for unveiling the report.
* * *
It was getting hard to keep track of all the current and former SeaWorld employees who had stepped forward—some quietly, some quite vociferously—and challenged the company in the wake of the Brancheau tragedy. In May of 2011, their ranks grew by one.
Yet another current trainer who did not want to be named sent a message to Colleen via TOP. Colleen sent a copy to Jeff. “I would proceed with a bit of caution just to make sure this person is not pulling some BS,” she said. “But if this guy/girl is for real, it’s wonderful news indeed!”
Jeff was suspicious, though he was certain the contact worked at Shamu Stadium—or was close to someone who did.
“After giving this a lot of thought and consideration I have decided that I want to anonymously give information I have,” the person had written to Colleen. “Why? Because I thought that SeaWorld would have truly learned something from what happened to Dawn but we continue to go the wrong direction and down the wrong path, and I am impressed with the investigative reporting I have seen from you.”
The source, who claimed to have years of experience at SeaWorld, asked for Jeff’s e-mail address. “I know the hearings with OSHA have been pushed to September now and I want to help Jeff who I know will be called as an expert witness for OSHA. Some information I can provide may be helpful in those proceedings.… The focus of my intention, and I believe your work as well, is to provide the best life possible for these animals who have given so much.”
Jeff decided it was worth responding. “Hello Sir,” he wrote, not knowing the person’s gender or park location. “Thank you for reaching out. It must be tough. I’m not sure that anything provided anonymously can be of use. However please feel free to give your accurate and current perspective. I agree that the animals have given a lot.”
The trainer confessed to an initial sense of betrayal when Jeff first spoke out against SeaWorld, “but then I actually read your and John’s paper and watched your interviews and I had an entirely different view.… How can you get angry when it’s the truth?”
The trainer shared that sentiment with others at work, adding, “I need to be careful before I start getting pulled in behind those closed door meetings because I’m singing your praises and applauding the Orca Project … definitely a slippery slope there. I just want to say thank you. And if there is anything that you may feel I can answer and that could help you, feel free to ask. I want the truth to come out in the OSHA hearings and the public able to witness it.”
As for the trainers at Shamu, “we have all been kind of just hangin’ in there waiting to see what happens with these hearings,” the e-mail said. “Will we swim again? Will we get a higher pay grade? If we get the answers to these that we feel we will get, I believe several trainers at Shamu from each park will jump ship.”
Then the person suggested something that Jeff had suspected: Dawn did not let her hair “drift” into Tilikum’s mouth; instead, the whale most likely grabbed her by the arm, a seemingly small but important distinction.
“One interesting response to the ponytail issue and how he pulled her in,” the source wrote, “a very high up individual over training conceded that Tilikum may have very well pulled her in by her arm and not the ponytail and noted that they just didn’t know for sure. But they come across as sure to the public.… Good luck to you Jeff and for having the balls to advocate for the whales and us trainers,” the person signed off. “Something’s gotta give.”
In a follow-up e-mail, the trainer complained about construction under way for the new orca show, “One Ocean,” which would soon replace “Believe.” The new production was costing each park millions, “with absolutely no benefit or reward being given to the whales. This new, fancy, and ridiculously expensive set does not enrich the lives of the whales at all, and they are the ones who suffered throughout construction, most often being confined together in a single pool with all the sound of jack hammering and concrete cutting.”
Jeff asked the trainer how SeaWorld had reacted when Keto killed Alexis. The three parks went “dry” for only a day or two before returning to water work, the trainer said, “without even knowing the specific details on the incident.” There was no hard-copy report, and “details didn’t even start to come out until after curator Mike Scarpuzzi flew to Spain because Brian Rokeach was so distraught. They were obviously not overly concerned about our safety at that time, to put us back in the water.”
As for Dawn and Tilikum, the insider said it was “infuriating” that blame was being placed on her for being too complacent around the giant whale. “The truth is, those who were on Tilly’s close contact team had interacted with him that same way for years; a trainer even had her profile pic on Facebook of her laying face to face with Tilly the same way.”
The truth was, being anywhere near Tilikum—or “over the wall,” as the trainer put it—put anyone in danger. If someone were to be grabbed while irrigating his teeth, for example, the person would “ultimately be blamed for being too complacent,” for taking an eye off the whale, perhaps, or getting a forearm too close. Whatever happened, it was always the trainer’s fault.
“I believe you are a perfect spokesman for the cause and I hope that you guys have something good up your sleeve in preparation for this case,” the source told Jeff. “I am not looking to ever ask you any questions regarding that because I don’t want you to question my intentions. As I said before, we all need to be cautious.”
In another e-mail, the insider complained about poor worker morale and low pay. After Dawn died, some trainers requested a transfer out; others were planning to do the same. But new safety protocols required that more trainers be on-site at all times, so all transfer requests were allegedly denied. “People seem to be getting more disgruntled by the minute.” Nobody was getting rich: Senior pay, including a $5-an-hour “water work bonus,” was $23 per hour in Texas and $26 in California, the insider wrote. That was better than it had been before Kasatka attacked Ken Peters in 2006, but was “still disgusting considering the responsibility and abuse your body takes.”
