Just about everyone with access to a 24-hour news channel has seen the home video of a killer whale attacking his trainer at a Sea World facility in San Antonio. The whale, named Ky, is seen repeatedly trying to submerge his trainer of 10 years—in front of a shocked audience which turned out to see a seemingly innocuous event called the Shamu Adventure.

No doubt trying to dismiss the attack as a simple rush of randy hormones, the trainer has publicly labeled it the actions of a teenage whale nearing breeding age.

To which we would say: That's exactly the point.

Ky, like every captive wild animal in the world, whether a circus elephant or a white tiger in Las Vegas, has complex physical and behavioral needs, which can never be fully satisfied in captivity. Breeding is just one of many such needs among killer whales, commonly known as orcas. They also require lots of open water and the life-long companionship of their own family members.

That's one reason why The HSUS is constantly encouraging summer vacationers to avoid marine parks: Visitors only help perpetuate this grim illusion—that orcas and dolphins are perfectly content performing in tanks that can never recreate their natural environment.

"To say that Ky's actions were motivated by his teenage hormones is a bit like saying a lion's hunting instincts are motivated by his appetite," says Naomi Rose, The HSUS's marine mammal scientist. "Well, yeah, maybe that's right. But that's not the point. The point is humans cannot predict, let alone control, these natural behaviors. The danger in thinking we can control these animals is injury, maybe even death."

The Human Factor

As the Sea World incident underscores, captive orcas present real dangers to humans. There are no firm figures on the number of orcas held captive around the world; about 50 of the whales are believed to be held in the United States, Canada, Japan, France, and Argentina. But the pressures to secure more wild killer whales remain, as witnessed by Russia's return to the captive orca business last year. And why not? Some reports say captive orcas are worth $1 million each.

Statistics documenting human injuries and deaths related to captive orcas are hard to come by. But the mainstream press has documented some cases in which humans did not fare well against the appropriately named killer whales.

In 1991, a 11,000-pound orca named Tillikum, along with two female whales, drowned a young part-time trainer named Keltie Byrne at Sealand of the Pacific in Canada. The incident was hauntingly similar to Ky's attack in San Antonio: The earlier attack occurred in front a horrified audience, which watched helplessly as one of the killer whales grabbed Byrne in its mouth and dragged her around the pool, mostly underwater. The entire incident played out over several long minutes. "The whales weren't trying to kill Byrne, but Tillikum and his orca companions didn't know that humans can't hold their breath as long as whales," says The HSUS's Rose.

Tillikum was later shipped to Sea World of Orlando where he would be implicated in another human death. A man, who had apparently stayed in the park after closing hours, jumped into Tillikum's tank in July 1999. He was found dead the next morning, naked and draped across the whale. The man's swim trunks were found in the water, and his body was scraped up, a sign that Tillikum had dragged him around the bottom and sides of the tank. (Tillikum, incidentally, is Ky's father.)

"What all these incidents tell us is what marine parks don't want you to know: captive killer whales are dangerous to people, even those who have worked with these animals for years and years," notes The HSUS's Rose. "In both episodes with Tillikum, the whale wasn't necessary trying to hurt the unintended victims, but his very size and behavior makes him a danger to people, even if the whale were just 'playing' with the people. Simply put, these are wild animals. Taming them is only an illusion; their natural behaviors will always pose a threat to the people foolish enough to interact with them."

By the same logic, people often think they can safely interact with dolphins at so-called swim-with-the-dolphin programs. This is a myth, too, says Rose.

In their joint 2003 report, Biting the Hand that Feeds: The Case Against Dolphin Petting Pools, the Whale and Dolphin Conservation Society and The HSUS wrote, "...[M]edia reports and historic government records reveal a range of serious injuries caused to visitors by captive dolphins in interactive programs, including cuts, bruises, broken bones, bites and rakes. Because of the sheer size of dolphins and their concentration in petting pools, abrupt movements and occasionally aggressive competition for food can put visitors at risk of physical harm."

Nor are dolphins themselves safe in captivity. A four-month-old female dolphin died on Wednesday, July 28, at the National Aquarium in Baltimore; tests revealed she had a serious bacterial infection. While her mother performed in a show earlier that day, the young dolphin was the target of two sexually aggressive male dolphins, who reportedly pushed her under water for longer than she had oxygen. Experts believe the young dolphin, because of the infection, could not handle the routine roughhousing.

As The HSUS's Rose notes, "It's not unusual for male dolphins to do what they did. They do it in the wild. That's why mother dolphins separate themselves. In captivity, however, they don't have that option."

The bottom line: Marine parks are not necessarily safe places for either marine mammal or human. Patronizing these facilities only perpetuates this misconception. If you really want to see marine mammals this summer, consider booking a whale or dolphin watching cruise.

To learn more about orcas and marine mammals in captivity, click on the links below.