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Posted by: thekohser

With a special "thank you" to another of my Internet Review Corporation colleagues for bringing me the links, I give you http://akahele.org/2010/02/tilikum-and-wikipedia/ of Akahele!

Posted by: MZMcBride

What an interesting and insightful blog post.

Posted by: thekohser

Not sure if you're being sarcastic, but I thought it speaks volumes about Wikipedia. Pithy, yes. But, it gets the job done.

Posted by: RDH(Ghost In The Machine)

Hypothermia in JULY in ORLANDO FLORIDA...orly? Gee it musta snowed that night.
Maybe they should bid for the Winter Olympics.

Posted by: Somey

I would tend to agree, though admittedly it would have been worse if the article had been SeaWorld Orlando (T-H-L-K-D) or Incidents at SeaWorld parks (T-H-L-K-D). Then again, given that the deceased was a trainer rather than a "guest," I suppose it wouldn't have made much difference for the victim either way.

Posted by: CharlotteWebb

Could be a psychological thing. Ignore the thermostat, I've never been in a swimming pool that didn't feel numbingly cold.

Posted by: RDH(Ghost In The Machine)

Or postmortem hypothermia after climbing into the pool with a large docile marine mammal...

Posted by: thekohser

You can get http://books.google.com/books?hl=en&q=%22warm%20water%20hypothermia%22&sourceid=navclient-ff&rlz=1B3GGGL_enUS351US351&um=1&ie=UTF-8&sa=N&tab=sp in 80-degree water.

Posted by: anthony

They keep the water in the tanks at 50-55 degrees year round.

Posted by: RDH(Ghost In The Machine)

That makes sense, since Orcas are cold water animals and they want to keep them comfy.
It still might not explain the blood in the pool, though.
Maybe Tilli got a bit peckish after playing with his new toy and had a little snack...

Posted by: anthony

Yeah, I find it hard to picture the whole thing. The guy was found draped across the back of the orca? Was that because the orca picked him up after he was dead? On its back?

"Authorities later concluded that the man, Daniel Dukes, likely suffered hypothermia in the 55-degree water and drowned, but they said it also appeared Tilikum bit the man's body and tore off his swimming trunks after he had died." (http://www.hispanicbusiness.com/newswire/2010/2/25/tilikum_known_to_be_dangerous_killer.htm)

I assume they did a full autopsy to conclude the cause of death, since they had to rule out the possibility that the guy was murdered and then dropped off at Seaworld (thus "framing" Tilikum). This is the first I'm reading that they suspect the guy wasn't already naked before he got into the water.

Why would anyone lie about the cause of death? Would it have actually been worse publicity for Seaworld if they had concluded that the orca did attack and kill some guy who sneaked in in the middle of the night? Seaworld doesn't hide the fact that all the orcas are dangerous creatures.

Here's the YouTube of the 2006 incident with a different orca. The trainer was bitten and taken under water, and got away with only a broken foot. That's a trained professional, wearing a specially designed wetsuit, with a smaller orca which unlike Tilikum *was* trained to swim with humans, and with three other trainers pounding the water trying to get the orcas attention and then holding them back while he swims to safety. Daniel Dukes had no training, was in his swim trunks, up against a bigger orca, which may very well have been woken up by him. To claim that he died of hypothermia, and not drowning, just doesn't make much sense to me.



You might have to watch it a few times to figure out what happening. The guy and the orca start out on the right hand side of the screen. The guy starts swimming to the edge, when the orca grabs him and pulls him under water. Then the camera zooms to the other trainers trying to get the orcas attention, and you see the guy's head pop up in the bottom left. Once the trainers feel they have the orcas under control you see them call to the guy to start swimming for safety, which he does, and then you see him limping off behind the scenes (he broke his foot but otherwise was okay).

I don't know how well they can determine in an autopsy which came first, the hypothermia or the drowning (*), but an incident similar to the one in that youtube (only with a bigger whale which had less prior experience swimming with humans) causing a drowning, with hypothermia only coming in later, seems more likely to me, barring a conclusive autopsy to the contrary.

(*) They can do it on CSI, but is that something which can actually be done in real life?

Posted by: RDH(Ghost In The Machine)

Indeed.
They could've spun it instead-
Brave Orca takes down crazed night intruder; prevents harm to his podmates!


Orcas will take out Great Whites, in fact Jacques Cousteau once reported one carried a White shark carcass alongside the Calypso like "A proud cat presenting a dead mouse".

Here's a similar incident of Orcas owning Jaws:



Magnificent creatures. They really do need to provide them with better living conditions in captivity, though. Maybe large, artificial lakes, where they would have much more room to roam. These could be connected to their holding tanks by channels which would also help chill the lake water for their comfort. Hell, make it part of the tourist park! Have fake waterfalls, glass-bottom boat and mini-sub tours and even a fake grotto where the Orcas could go to escape the sun!