Don't Kill Tillikum!

More:  Tillikum is used as a stud to produce more orcas in captivity since their capture in the wild is now prohibited at least in the US. That makes him a very valuable dolphin. SeaWorld says he is worth about $2 million. So it is not surprising that the manager of the Orlando theme park says that Tillikum cannot be released back into the wild because he has been in captivity for too long. Scientists beg to differ, however. The orca Keiko made famous by the movie, Free Willy, was released to the wild and lived in a Norway fiord until his death from pneumonia at age 27 in 2003. He even swam 800 miles across the Atlantic with a pod catching his own fish. But he did not achieve permanent reintegration with his own kind. The cost of moving a 12,000 lb. orca for release to the Atlantic near Iceland where Tillikum was captured would be considerable and pose significant risks to his survival. Keeping him confined in tanks and performing repetitive routines at SeaWorld will only cause him to experience more depression and boredom according to experts.  One behaviorist says another fatal incident is almost certain to happen.  Tillikum was captured when he was only 2 or 3.  Large males can lead solitary lives in the ocean, but usually they stay with their mother's pod.  He would need to be re-educated and strengthened for life in the open sea before release. The rehabilitation of Keiko shows that with committed effort, reintroduction to the wild can work.  SeaWorld is not learning from its mistake of confining such a large, intelligent animal, however.  The park plans to resume orca performances this weekend including Tillikum.

{first post 2.25.10} He is not a serial killer; he is an orca and his behavior is consistent with being an Orcinus orca. The fact that he is confined in such small spaces which might make him act neurotically is not his fault, and that is a human concept anyway. The tragic death at SeaWorld Orlando proves one proposition and one alone. Animals as large and powerful as Tillikum should not be confined and exhibited for human spectacle. The Humane Society of the United States lobbies against such confinement because it is inhumane. Tillikum is an intelligent dolphin, but their culture is nothing like ours. To ascribe intentional homicidal tendencies to an orca is to totally ignore the significant biological differences between the two species. Tillikum is after all a predatory aquatic mammal not a dog or a precocious ape.  Behaviorists see the latest incident as an escalation of aggressive behavior that could be play, not predation.  He killed humans before reports indicate. In both cases humans fell or deliberately got into his tank where he was not accustomed to having human company. There will be demands on SeaWorld to "protect the public and its employees" by destroying Tillikum as if he where a dangerous dog. That will only compound the tragedy. SeaWorld, as the price of its exploitation of this male orca, should be required to spend the considerable money necessary to release him back into the wild. Tillikum, who is thirty years old, may be facing a solitary life and eventual death as a roving male if he cannot integrate into a pod.  But at least he can live as nature intended, unconfined by man.  People can help insure that similar deaths do not occur by refusing to gawk at magnificent creatures worthy of their respect conditioned to do tricks for their brief amusement.