Comment by marcusverus | Hacker News Reader

Comment by marcusverus | Hacker News Reader

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> but I think this was more of an intentional revenge rather than accidental playfulness.

At first blush this struck me as a silly comment, so I read the article... and boy, are you right. It really does sound like an intentional, even methodical killing. Here's the description from the wiki:

> As part of the end-of-show routine, [Dawn Brancheau] was at the edge of the pool, rubbing Tilikum's head. She was lying with her face next to Tilikum's on a slide-out, which is a platform submerged about a foot into the water. SeaWorld claims that she was pulled into the water by her ponytail. Some witnesses reported seeing Tilikum grab Brancheau by the arm or shoulder. The orca's move seems to have been very quick, pulling her underwater and drowning her. At least a dozen patrons witnessed Brancheau in the water with Tilikum. Employees used nets and threw food at Tilikum in an attempt to distract him. Moving from pool to pool in the complex, they eventually directed Tilikum to a smaller, medical pool, where it would be easier to calm him. After approximately 45 minutes, Tilikum released Brancheau's body.

I suppose I'm anthropomorphizing and making a lot of assumptions, but holding that poor woman under water for 45 minutes strikes me as making sure that she's dead--particularly since its caretakers (who, presumably, have a strong understanding of how to influence its behavior) were actively attempting to entice it to let her go. For 45 minutes.

Really wild stuff.

Honestly, it's a bit surprising that people find this surprising. Orcas are air-breathing mammals, and conscious breathers at that. They kill other mammals, namely whales, often by drowning them intentionally. They know what drowning is.

The other is that these are massive animals placed in water prisons, constantly exposed to the sun and concrete and fed fish they wouldn't eat in the wild. It would be like putting a human in a small 3'x3' box with the top exposed to the sun and fed dog food and then being surprised that they're on edge.

That orca definitely killed the trainer on purpose or did it in a way such that it didn't care whether she lived or died and was releasing frustration. An orca could bite a human in half in the same way that a human can bite through jello, which shows that the orca was displaying frustration and exasperation. Orcas have committed suicide while in captivity, by intentionally and repeatedly ramming their heads into the concrete walls to cause brain hemorrhages or starving themselves.

To be frank, it is mindblowing to me that people view these incidences as examples of orca intelligence rather than exhibitions of human cruelty and unintelligence.

It can be both. What an unnecessarily confrontational comment.

UNNECESSARY? people, including me, went to this type of shit show and had fun. whales drowning humans is a slap on our history

edit: and one reaaaaly primitive, you know, mammals only worth when on the sapiens sapiens ballpark

It shouldn't be both.

I'll agree it is confrontational, but I addressed it to people in general, so it's meant to be confrontational to the collective. And it's justifiably so because these beings continue to be held in captivity, bred in captivity, and even captured from the wild to be held in captivity. It's pure torture that people charge for visitors to come and laugh and gawk at.

> It would be like putting a human in a small 3'x3' box

I get that you're trying to make a point, but this kind of hyperbole only discredits it.

> Orcas have committed suicide while in captivity, by intentionally and repeatedly ramming their heads into the concrete walls to cause brain hemorrhages

I think you mean AN orca did this (Hugo), and it was after being kept in solitary isolation for 12 years, something that SeaWorld thankfully doesn't do.

> I get that you're trying to make a point, but this kind of hyperbole only discredits it.

How is it hyperbole, exactly?

https://www.thedodo.com/seaworld-tank-size-1282993451.html

https://www.thedodo.com/lolita-orca-45-years-1301583008.html

Wild orcas travel on average 40 miles a day, can travel 100 miles in a single day, and make round trips in the thousands of miles. They dive several hundred feet every day. It isn't hyperbole unless you're going to bikeshed over the exact footage. The chemicals in the pool and drugs they are given are also another thing.

> I think you mean AN orca did this

Hugo was with a tank mate Lolita at the time but had been in isolation prior to that.

Here's a recent case that was recorded: https://nymag.com/article/2016/06/did-a-depressed-seaworld-o...

Let's not act like the orca entertainment industry is forthcoming with data.

https://inherentlywild.co.uk/deceased-orcas/

There are cases of captive orcas arguably attempting suicide, either by intentional ramming, stranding, or starvation. It is indeed hard to find good data on this (I wonder why...), and so it is hard to state absolutes.

This ignores the much more common and documented violent outbursts towards both trainers and fellow tankmates/cellmates induced by the stress they experience in captivity.

Showed my math in another comment, but your claim is off by a factor of about 370, so that’s how it’s hyperbole. That is not bikeshedding, that’s just very very wrong.

Mixing up Miami Seaquarium in a discussion about SeaWorld is confused. The two environments are totally incomparable.

If you believe Blackfish, dolphins (which orcas are a type of) can just stop breathing if they want to commit suicide, so the ramming of the heads is moot. Humans occasionally ram their heads without intent to kill, so why would orcas be different?

It is bikeshedding. My comment about the box was in general a sentiment and an illustrative and qualitative example, not something that can be directly compared enough to calculate some exact number and certainly not something where some ideal number affects the sentiment.

For example, the average American walks 1.5-2 miles a day, so that's a factor of over x20 for the average travel distance of orcas (which by the way is average linear distance, i.e., starting point to ending point, and not total travel which is much higher). Humans don't dive and live very horizontal lives, while orcas dive 100-500 feet multiple times every day. Their tanks at SeaWorld are only approximately 30 feet deep, lesser at other places.

So your "factor of about 370" doesn't make any sense, because it myopically only takes into account relative size and a false comparison of human height versus orca length.

And by the way, I said a box with the lid off, so your mention of a 3'x3'x3' is incorrect. It's hard to believe how my off-the-cuff suggestion of 3'x3' versus your "calculated" 13'x13' discredits my point in any way. And I left something off, because the orcas experience strong chemicals in the water, so the human box would need a gas of some sort constantly irritating the skin and eyes.

So yes, it is bikeshedding, because here we are.

> Mixing up Miami Seaquarium in a discussion about SeaWorld is confused. The two environments are totally incomparable.

I'm not confused about anything or mixing anything up. I genuinely have no idea what you're referring to or even getting at. Also, you do know that SeaWorld loans and sells orcas to places that often have far worse conditions than SeaWorld's already deplorable conditions, right?

I don't know what you're getting at in your last comment at all. Orcas weigh several tons. And an orca intentionally stranding isn't trying to commit suicide by suffocation. I didn't even say so. Orcas die from stranding due to their immense weight affecting their internal organs.

I have no idea how one can do any research into the lives orcas live in captivity and feel anything remotely close to okay with it.

> qualitative example, not something that can be directly compared enough to calculate some exact number

> like putting a human in a small 3'x3' box

Good thing you provided a number then? If you want to make a qualitative example, say "it would be like if a human lived in a heated swimming pool for the rest of its life" which is more accurate. Instead, you (and I think it's obvious you know what you're doing) throw out a number, then when you're demonstrated wrong, backpedal and say it was supposed to be qualitative.

> the orcas experience strong chemicals in the water

Do you think there aren't strong chemicals in the ocean? Salt is pretty corrosive. The ocean isn't exactly a homogeneous solution. There are a ton of pathogens as well, in fact most of them on earth live in the ocean.

> you do know that SeaWorld loans and sells orcas to places that often have far worse conditions than SeaWorld's

Yes, and that's a ringing endorsement for SeaWorld in my book. It means they are a leader in the care of these mammals. They actually have to participate in loan programs in order to be AZA accredited, which they are.

> I have no idea how one can do any research into the lives orcas live in captivity and feel anything remotely close to okay with it.

This is common among people who just haven't done much research on it. Marine mammal captivity is an important activity humans do in order to promote education, not to mention conservation (for species reintroduction or rehab in case of a catastrophe). It's a little unintuitive the same way that hunting (killing animals) supports wildlife preserves is unintuitive, but nevertheless there are good reasons we have these institutions and getting rid of them would be a huge mistake.

Keeping them in a pool in your yard for entertainment is not the same as conservation.

Try telling that to some of the world's best-known conservationists who supported SeaWorld: Julie Scardina, Jack Hanna, Guy Harvey, Bindi Irwin...

3 of those encourage actual conservation in sea pens, not tanks - one of which actively swims with them.

More importantly, the orcas taken didn't need conservation they were fine before

1. Then that should provide credence to their stances in your book. And yet they still supported SeaWorld?

2. That’s a statement that would hold true for any species and for conservation as a whole. In essence, denying the need for conservation in the first place. Ignorant of the daily catastrophe that’s happening in the wild.

Allowing injured or rejected juveniles to explore is not the same as a tank.

Taking a calf from the wild that would otherwise be fine for 60 years is not conservation.

At this point I'm not sure if you're stupid or just evil.

The ocean is rapidly becoming uninhabitable for all kinds of life, orcas included. While we would previously expect a calf to live 60 years, that number is slowly dwindling and may accelerate in a downward direction. Contaminants like BPAs and BFRs are a big deal and already starting to have an effect in New Zealand on the orca population’s food supply.

I don’t know how you expect injured and rejected juveniles to survive outside of an artificial environment. Orcas are social animals, and they need a pod.

As far as stupid/evil, well believe what you like but I just believe in resilience. The same way we should have an arctic seed vault backing up seeds we should have a backup for different kinds of sea life.

> I get that you're trying to make a point, but this kind of hyperbole only discredits it.

...are you going to expand on why you think it's hyperbole?

Well, simple ratios. A human is roughly 6 feet tall, so a 3x3x3 box is a box with side length 1/2 of the height. The equivalent for an orca would be if you took an orca’s length, 26 feet, and had the enclosure be 13x13x13. The volume would be 2197 cubic feet, roughly 16,000 gallons that is.

Seaworld Orlando’s enclosure is approx 6 million gallons, so that statement is off by about 37,500%.

A different wikipedia page (about another of the people Tilikum killed) describes the incident differently. I have not investigated all the citations to explain the difference:

Tilikum became an infamous whale after attacking and killing his trainer, forty-year-old SeaWorld staff member Dawn Brancheau. Tilikum grabbed her arm, scalped the woman, fractured her jaw and killed her by blunt force trauma, the result of which was a contentious and controversial legal case over the safety of working with orca whales and the ethics of keeping live whales and other marine mammals in captivity.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_Keltie_Byrne

> that poor woman

The poor orca who's been abducted at 2 and kept in a swimming pool for decades for fun and profit you mean ?

Not, the woman. Check your priorities.

Could it have been an act of (frustrated) affection instead?

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