The MagazineThere was a hubbub recently when Tilikum, a resident of Orlando’s SeaWorld theme park, attacked and killed one of his trainers, 40-year-old Dawn Brancheau. People were surprised that a killer whale would kill. But then, killer whales have been misunderstood for a long time. For starters, killer whales aren’t whales. Orcinus orca are members of the delphinidae family, meaning that they are, taxonomically, dolphins. Their common name “killer whale” comes from the fact that they kill whales. Their formal name orcinus means “belonging to the realm of the dead.” It’s perhaps not surprising, then, that Brancheau’s is the third human death in which Tilikum has been involved. This orca’s sordid history began in 1983, when he was captured off the coast of Iceland. A year later he was sold to an aquarium in British Columbia. In 1991 a trainer there slipped and fell into the pool with Tilikum and two other orcas. They killed her. In 1992 Tilikum was shipped off to SeaWorld. On a July morning in 1999, workers arrived at the park to find a dead, naked man floating in Tilikum’s pool. The maniac had stowed away in the park the night before in order to go skinny-dipping with the 22-foot, 12,000-pound orca. And then there was poor Mrs. Brancheau. Tilikum jumped up, grabbed her by the ponytail, and pulled her into his tank shortly after a performance. To read more, you must be a Weekly Standard Subscriber We're Sorry,
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