Now, if one doesn’t care to bother oneself with ‘time and energy-waisting ethical debates’ one might want frame this in practical terms: financially speaking: The situation has reached the point of diminishing returns. In order to stem the hemorage of profits and minimize exposure to liability, terminating its life is simply logical.

Let’s see which road Sea World takes.

anyway im agains for putting him down,i mean he maybe got panic or something or he was thinking ”man im so tired and mad i just want to rip somebody i half”

he is also not born in captivity,i’d say he maybe needs to get back home where he belongs

What we never should forget is that Orcas are and will always be wild animals. They haven’t gone through centuries of domestication, to expect that an animal will loose all its wild instincts just because of training is wrong. It’s not in their nature.

If Dawn Brancheau was as good as it is being claimed, the entire program needs to be reevaluated.
I’m not for killing Tillikum, but he should be taken out of the program, leave him alone.

As far as punishing Tillikum for what happened; she has no idea she did something wrong. Orca’s aren’t domesticated and even one who grew up in captivity is, essentially, wild. they are unpredictable.

I’m really sorry Brancheau got killed but, like Steve Irwin, she knew the risks and she accepted them.
faith´s last blog ..Pia Beck passes away at age 84

As to what’s best for the animal, I’m not sure, I saw you compare him to a dog, but let’s face it he’s not a dog, nor a domesticated animal like dogs have been for a long long long time so it’s comparing apples to pears in my eyes. I wouldn’t want to see him put down (and from reports I’ve heard on the news so far neither does Sea World) so maybe the best option is to keep him away from the public eye, but is that going to solve the ‘problem’ he will still have to interact with trainers to be fed and since they are highly intelligent animals they need mental stimulations which is also part of what the show provides them. It’s not just only doing stupid tricks for an audience it’s also stimulating them mentally.

I’ve seen videos of a lot of killer whale attacks and to me it seems they got a little caught up in the playing with the trainer kind of thing, apparently they play together in the wild too and if you mistake a human for a ‘playmate’ things like this will happen. After all you’re still dealing with an undomesticated animal.

That doesn’t make it any less horrible of course what happened to this trainer but it might give people something to think about when it comes to keeping animals in ‘cages’

Also, the other deaths he was part of; from what I read online (I think Killer Whales are beautiful and interesting and I love to read up about things like this) the people slipped into the tanks (either fell or deliberate) unexpected to the whales, could this have scared them, or could this have triggered some territorial defence? Who knows, but a lot of the same whales have been part of attacks or accidents (although not always with death as a result) and they are still alive and doing shows, so what makes Tillikum different?