Beneath the Surface: Killer Whales, SeaWorld, and the Truth Beyond Blackfish

by John Hargrove

  But it has to be done. Killer whales grow only one set of teeth in their lifetimes—and so all effort must be expended to preserve them. The consequences for not doing so are enormous. An orca may eventually become so uncomfortable from the swelling and pain of its dental problems that they may just stop eating, which would result in lethargy and illness and, very quickly, death. Trainers have to desensitize the whale to the idea of accepting a drill—and that takes weeks or months of training. We slowly approximate the pressure of the drill, each time rewarding the whale before we finally have to perform the actual dental procedure that will open the tooth up and allow the bacterial inflammation to erupt and clear. The whales—like most humans—hate dental work. They shut their eyes when we have to irrigate their teeth and drill out the pinholes which have developed.

  For the rest of the whale’s life, you will need to pump daily doses of hydrogen peroxide solution into the tooth to keep it from getting reinfected and to make certain the drilled hole is free from blockage. On average, trainers drill and then irrigate 10 to 14 teeth for the whales who need it. It is the rare whale that doesn’t. Probably because of their temperament, Kasatka and Takara had perfect teeth. They were the exceptions. Their good strong teeth made them particularly fearsome to whales who might challenge them. Being raked by Kasatka and Takara was bloody and painful.

  As mighty as they appear, killer whales become fragile creatures in the artificial world of marine parks. In captivity, they face so many miniscule but potentially catastrophic risks. Tiny bacteria growing in a dental cavity might bring down the apex predators of the ocean. Several whales may have died of infections stemming from holes drilled into their teeth; it was most likely the cause of the infection which killed Kalina—the original “Baby Shamu”—who was born in 1985 and died in 2010. Two whales have died as a result of mosquito bites—Kanduke, who came down with St. Louis Encephalitis in the Florida facility; and Taku, who fell victim to the West Nile virus, in SeaWorld Texas. One influential peer-reviewed scientific paper on the deaths by two former trainers—John Jett and Jeffrey Ventre—said that mosquitos were often seen “accessing the dorsal surfaces of captive orcas in Florida.” These are hazards orcas never have to face in the wild.

  Splash was a star-crossed whale—and his misfortunes were exacerbated by captivity. He was born in 1989 at a Canadian marine park before being sold to SeaWorld San Diego in 1992. There was always something wrong with him. He kept getting into unlucky scrapes. Once, he was playfully rough-housing with Takara; they were pushing and tossing each other in the water. Unfortunately, someone forgot to put the protective barrier over the pool gate’s hook, which latches the gate in an open position, and Splash hit it and ripped a large piece of flesh out of his lower jaw. He looked like Frankenstein’s monster.

  But he had much more severe problems. He was epileptic—a condition never documented in whales in the wild. To control his seizures, we treated him with phenobarbital, a barbiturate for convulsions. He also had severe digestive problems, including ulcers, for which he was medicated and that were probably caused by stress. In 2005, at the age of 15, he died of a perforated ulcer, succumbing to what must have been peritonitis—that is, the toxins of his digestive tract spreading into his body cavity to cause massive infection. A veterinarian told me they found hundreds of pounds of filtration sand in his stomach. Sand is used to purify the pool water and the filtration system, which in this instance, had malfunctioned and sent the grit directly into the pools. Splash had then spent hours each day sucking in the sand at the inflow, swallowing it out of boredom. The rough granules, found in all the chambers of his stomach, would only have worsened the pain of his ulcers. It may have led to the perforation of the lining of his intestines—and even caused the peritonitis that killed him.

  He was another paint eater and had terrible teeth from rubbing them excessively against the pool walls. He also had the misfortune of having multiple teeth drilled by a trainer who virtually destroyed the crowns. It is no surprise then that Splash was one of the more unpredictable and potentially aggressive orcas of SeaWorld. And because of his lethargy and his illnesses, you never quite knew how his frustration was going to manifest itself.

  Splash often seemed to be in a haze, a likely side effect of the many drugs he had to take. At 15, he was also at a difficult age—the point at which young male whales are sexually mature, dealing with surging testosterone and other hormones, which contribute to aggression. You definitely do not want to find yourself swimming with a killer whale with an erection.

  During one show with Splash, I remember diving into the water and rolling on my back, which is a signal to the whale to roll over as well before swimming underneath to scoop you up on his stomach in a ventral position. The whale then swims along the perimeter, carrying you along. But when Splash picked me up, his penis was already out and fully erect, many feet in length. Luckily, he allowed me to step off him at the main slide-out area. I rewarded him with fish for letting me get out. But given his arousal, I could not risk swimming with him. I gave him a signal to swim to the back pool where he was received by another trainer. I then went on with the rest of the show, performing with a different whale.

  I had another strange experience swimming with Splash one night. Not only was it completely dark but it was even harder to see because a fog machine had blanketed the surface of the pool with mist for theatrical effect. Splash and I were supposed to move underwater, out of sight of the audience, and then surface magically in the middle of the pool. With the lights out, I sent him from the back pool to the front silently and underwater to swim around the pool’s perimeter. I then dived in to meet up with him in the middle, swimming through pitch-black water. I could not see anything.

  Whales have the advantage of echolocation and, during performances, they use it to find the trainer as they course their way through the pool. When they use it, you can feel the vibration of their sonar. You can hear it as it reverberates in your chest, so even if you don’t see the whale, you can sense its presence. Killer whales use these sound waves to identify objects in the water with absolute precision. Their sonar even allows them to make out the internal organs of the creatures they are searching for. In the wild, orcas can tell if a seal they have been pursuing is tired or injured because their sonar allows them to sense the heart rate and breathing of their prey. It helps the whales strategize the final kill.

  But as I swam through the pool that night, I could not hear or feel Splash echolocating on me. He was completely silent and it was eerie. I knew that a 5,000-pound sexually mature male orca was swimming toward me but why couldn’t I hear or feel his echolocation? Why was he silent? What was he doing? More importantly, what was he thinking about doing?

  These concerns ran through my mind as I swam, trying to detect invisible clues. And then, boom, I was nose to nose with Splash under the water. My adrenaline levels must have been off the charts. He could well have been thinking of doing something aggressive and violent. He would have known I had no idea what he was up to. I am grateful that, in the shadows of that pool, he decided he would behave and we proceeded to complete the rest of the show without any problem.

  Splash may have been one of the unluckiest whales I have ever worked with. But he had the good fortune to have a protector: Orkid. She wasn’t the dominant female at SeaWorld San Diego. That was Kasatka. But she was always on the cusp of challenging Kasatka for the crown. For some reason, she made herself Splash’s guardian—and also his partner in crime.

  Every time Splash had an epileptic seizure, Orkid, who was just about a year older, would be there to bring him back to the surface to breathe if the episode occurred at the bottom of the pool. She would lead him away from the hard walls where he could hurt himself as his seizure caused him to lose control of his body and flail against the concrete. She would sometimes put herself between Splash and the wall to keep him from injuring himself. There was no incentive for her
to do this. She did it because she cared for him.

  Orkid was by no means virtuous. She was one of the more dangerous whales we had in San Diego. She was as smart as Kasatka but had a devilish streak in her as the many birds that flew into the park learned all too late. One day, a mother duck and her seven ducklings wandered into the Dine with Shamu pool. No whales were in that pool at the time—but they had access to it because the gates were open. As soon as I saw the ducks hit the water, the other trainers and I scrambled to make sure the whales were called over to another pool and the gate closed behind them. But it was too late. Orkid was in the Dine with Shamu pool within seconds. She made her way there completely underwater. The ducks were never aware that she lay in wait under them. The enormous whale slowly sucked the ducklings under and into her mouth, swallowing one by one until only the mother duck and one duckling were left. It is a testament to the precision of killer whales that they can do such subtle and undetectable work—and also proof of how nefarious they can be. We managed to wave the surviving birds out of the pool before Orkid got to them as well. It was impressive to see a 6,000-pound orca work so stealthily and with such speed. Orkid did all of this without causing a ripple on the surface. But the other trainers and I felt very sorry for the poor mother duck searching desperately for her babies.

  Orkid, Kasatka, and Takara were experts at making sport of seagulls—animals that are not typically orca prey in the wild. Among the three of them, they could easily catch and kill ten of the gray-and-white birds a day. During some training sessions, I’d be in the water with the orcas and, as we submerged on a practice run for a specific behavior, we’d swim right by a dead bird that a whale had killed without anyone noticing. Takara was particularly creative at enjoying her seagulls. She would nibble at the carcass, carving it up with the skill of a sculptor so that by the time she presented it to you when you asked her to retrieve it, it was just the wings attached to the bird’s heart, a morbid piece of jewelry, something Hannibal Lecter might find attractive.

  Orkid and the other orcas had an especially bizarre way of luring seagulls for the kill. They would regurgitate some food to attract the birds but remain calm and steady, floating on the surface, lulling the birds into a false sense of security as they bobbed on the water next to them. When a gull finally convinced itself that there was no danger, the whales would grab the bird in their jaws, drag it around the pool, pull it under water and let it go to splash helplessly at the surface. The whale would toy with the poor creature in what humans would describe as a sadistic manner. A kind of ritual would ensue: the orca would let the gull struggle free every now and then, allowing it to recover a little from its dunking in the frigid waters. But, at the very moment the bird thought it was dry enough to finally flap its wings to fly away from the pool, the whale would snap, grab it and drag the poor gull under once again. The whale would do it again and again until the bird was exhausted. Or the orca got bored. Then the whale would kill it.

  We eventually trained the whales through approximation to give us back a bird—alive. In the beginning, you had to accept the fact that the whales would come over with a dead gull. But as you trained the orcas, they’d bring back an injured one and then eventually a live and uninjured bird. They would choose not to kill.

  Still, the whales almost seemed to wait for opportunities to misbehave. Splash and Orkid worked with each other in a Bonnie-and-Clyde way. You had to watch them carefully because they could be up to no good. They once victimized a young trainer—with horrific results.

  The trainer, Tamarie Tollison, was working as a spotter at the Dine with Shamu close-up pool. When a trainer is spotting in that section of SeaWorld, he or she typically works alone because they are not interacting with the whales, just spotting both the whales and the park visitors. You have to make sure that park guests don’t try to put their hands in the water or interact with the orcas directly, or throw anything into the water. You just have to patrol the area and keep things orderly—and make sure the visitors and the whales stay apart.

  In any event, trainers—even the most experienced ones—are never allowed to interact with whales alone. Everyone needs a spotter to watch their back. However, while sitting by the gates in the pool, Tollison began to make physical contact with Orkid. Tollison repeatedly placed her foot on Orkid’s rostrum as well as in the orca’s mouth and on her tongue. All this took place as Splash floated beside Orkid, watching.

  Clearly Tollison had no idea of Orkid’s history of “baiting” a trainer by soliciting contact in some fashion. If a trainer responded, Orkid would strike or grab at him or her. Orkid was doing just that with Tollison in full view of SeaWorld visitors enjoying their meals and watching the action in the pool. Later, when I reviewed the video, I knew what was about to happen. I knew Orkid well.

  Orkid closed her mouth on the trainer’s foot and would not let it go. Tollison tried to reach down to give Orkid a signal to release her. But the whale refused. The trainer whipped around and desperately grabbed the gate to pull herself out of the whale’s mouth but she was no match for the power of the 6,000-pound orca. The whale ripped Tollison from the gate and pulled her underwater. As Tollison plunged into the water, Splash joined in and bit her arm, crunching and compound fracturing it. Both Orkid and Splash then took turns pulling and holding the trainer underwater.

  Terrified park guests began to scream for help and soon other trainers rushed to the area. A video camera that a visitor left behind in the panic recorded the incident—including Tollison’s voice as she struggled to the surface as Orkid toyed with her, every now and then shouting from the water, “Somebody help me!”

  At this point Robbin Sheets, a very experienced trainer, arrived. He attempted to call the whales over by slapping the water. But they refused and continued to drag Tollison under. Robbin, however, had presence of mind. He knew who these whales had to answer to, the dominant female. He asked another trainer to take the chain off the gate to the pool where Kasatka was penned up. He wasn’t about to introduce another whale into the chaos; he just wanted to make Orkid and Splash think it was going to happen. Taking the chain off was part of a sequence of actions that we had consistently trained the whales to recognize as always leading to the opening of a gate. And Splash and Orkid knew that behind the gate that day was Kasatka.

  In terms of the social hierarchy at SeaWorld San Diego, Kasatka has always been more dominant than Orkid—certainly more so than Splash and all the other whales in San Diego. Once the chain to Kasatka’s gate was taken off, Splash and Orkid knew that the number one orca in SeaWorld was in play—a social and hierarchical factor they did not want to calculate into their troublemaking. They let the trainer go.

  Tollison was very badly hurt, with multiple broken bones and a lot of bleeding. She was injured because two whales saw an opportunity and they seized it. I believe she is alive today only because Robbin Sheets knew how to manipulate the social hierarchy of whales—and let Kasatka’s awesome power influence the outcome.

  What Robbin did was also a perfect example of the value of a trainer’s experience. These situations are never described in any rule book. It takes years of working with the whales to have the confidence and awareness to know what to do when whales cross over into the dark side.

  Kasatka and her daughter Takara are built the same way. Their most eloquent similarity is the steely musculature of their jaws. I sometimes wonder if that is what has made them the dominant forces they are in whatever SeaWorld pool they have been sent into. Do the other whales sense the power in those jaws, in the potential for damage they can cause when they rake those they dislike with their teeth to impose discipline? Is that why they exercise so much power over whales almost twice their size?

  Kasatka also had near-perfect teeth, and she never rubbed them against the walls. She did not peel paint. She had a straight dorsal fin that had a unique curve to it, not collapsed like those of all the adult male orc
as. She and her daughter had rostrums of steel. Think of brand new tennis balls, just out of the can, the kind you can barely squeeze. That would be what a normal killer whale rostrum is like. But imagine a tennis ball with no give to it at all. That is what Kasatka’s rostrum is like. Like stone. And so was Takara’s.

  No one crossed Kasatka. Not even her daughter. Luckily, she almost always let you know when she wasn’t happy. The last thing you want is a whale that masks their feelings. With Kasatka, you knew her moods. And the other whales in the park knew too. In true dominant female fashion, she could shut down an entire show if she was unhappy—or if she was jealous that another whale was receiving more attention than she was, or if she was concerned about her calf. I have been in situations that could only be explained as instances of Kasatka imposing her power. I’ve seen her communicate to a whale out of her line of sight, causing that whale not to accept a reward of fish. I’ve seen Kasatka get a whale who had just received a big juicy salmon to swim over and pass it to her through the gate.

  It was never good to misread or misinterpret Kasatka. I was the spotter for Ken Peters, one of the best trainers in San Diego, during a show in 1999 with Kasatka and Takara. Petey, as we all called him, had an extremely close and trusting relationship with Kasatka. He believed—we all believed—that few trainers could read her better.

  But something was wrong during one segment of the show. Takara was slow to respond to signals. Instead of sitting up with her head out of the water so she could maintain eye contact with her trainer, she was dropping her head with her eyes beneath the surface and keeping them on her mother, who was about 30 feet away working with Petey. Takara became so uncomfortable that she split from her trainer and swam out of the front show pool and into the back pool. We knew there was a social altercation going on between the two of them. Still, her mother seemed, to us, completely calm and well-behaved. But in the back pool, Takara was swimming in fast circles, breathing rapidly, clearly distressed about something that had just happened. At one point, she slid out of the pool and onto the scale we used to weigh the whales once a week. She was escaping a negative environment and was emitting vocalizations to indicate she was upset.