In light of the recent death of a SeaWorld employee by an orca whale, Dr. Naomi Rose, marine mammal scientist with the Humane Society of the United States took time out of her busy schedule to answer five quick questions about orca whales. Head to the jump for this most important and enlightening interview.

RMP: There have been erroneous reports about the life and death of Keiko, the orca that played Willy in Free Willy, in both Norway and Iceland. As someone that has worked with Keiko, what can you say about these reports?

Dr. Rose:These rumors bother me considerably, because they tend to come from people who weren’t even there, so how could they know? Yet their version, Keiko died upon arriving in Iceland, Keiko died after being attacked by wild whales, Keiko was abandoned and died of starvation, for example, the story that he died of pneumonia was a conspiracy lie to hide what really happened, and they are being repeated ad nauseum as fact.

The fact is that Keiko lived for five years after arriving in Iceland in September 1998, he died in December 2003. The fact is that Keiko was never attacked by any wild whales, let alone dying from such an attack. As an orca biologist, I always felt it was an unlikely behavioral reaction on the part of the wild Icelandic whales and I was proved right. As I suspected, the adult wild whales pretty much ignored Keiko and the juveniles were curious about him and they interacted a bit with him. The fact is that Keiko’s caretaking team was either with him at all times or was tracking him with the tags that were on his dorsal fin. The only time he was out of visual range was during the four weeks he was swimming from Iceland to Norway in August 2002.

Also, Keiko never lost any weight while in Iceland and he arrived in Norway with the same girth measurement as when he left. He showed all signs of good health up until about two days before he died, which was 15 months after he arrived in Norway – this is unfortunately the case with most captive orcas and dolphins. They seem fine…until they are not. By then it’s too late to do anything for them. It’s a common pattern in captivity and so it unfortunately proved with Keiko.

SeaWorld has lost a dozen or more orcas in the past 15 years. These animals ranged from a few months old to the early 20s, but most were in their teen years. Some died of pneumonia. Yet none of these animals were killed by SeaWorld, according to these same people spreading the false rumors about Keiko – these SeaWorld deaths were natural. Keiko was 26 or 27 years of age – very old by captive standards for a male, although only middle-aged in the wild. Where were these critics of the Keiko Project when these SeaWorld whales died?

RMP: Whale experts are advising SeaWorld to release Tillikum to the wild, in light of his inadvertent murder of one of his handlers. Is this the correct move and if so, why?

Dr. Rose: Tillikum would only be released if that’s what he chose – and as with Keiko he would be wearing tags so he could be monitored if he chose independence. This is why I call it a retirement– if he chooses to stay near humans, he can be cared for until his death. This is certainly a realistic option, since the path was pioneered by Keiko. Tillikum is older and larger and there is no doubt the transport and even readjustment to a natural environment would be stressful. However, there is significant risk to keeping him where he is, firstly to him, due to the increased isolation to keep his handlers at a safe distance, in an even smaller space than before, and secondly to his handlers, because they can’t be kept entirely out of reaching distance, if he is to be cared for appropriately. If he is retired and becomes more independent, then he will not need as much interaction with his handlers. He will have more variety, more stimulation, more choices, more to keep him occupied in a natural environment. Without direct human interaction or at least with less direct human interaction, in a tank he will become seriously deprived of social contact. That will diminish his welfare.

RMP: You have a detailed knowledge of Tillikum’s past prior to this incident, is there anything you wish to contribute about his life that might shed light on the intense media scrutiny and backlash?

Dr. Rose: I am somewhat surprised at how intense the scrutiny and backlash have been. However, I think when Tillikum was involved in Keltie Byrne’s death in 1991, the attraction was small and more remote from the media spotlight and so it passed with only local attention, I was aware of it because I was still studying the wild orcas in British Columbia – I might not have heard about it if I wasn’t conducting my research up there.

Daniel Dukes, in 1999, died without witnesses, and because he did a foolish thing by remaining in the park after hours and getting in the tank with Tillikum. SeaWorld was able to spin that incident so that Tillikum wasn’t implicated. But it is simply implausible, given the circumstances and the condition the body was found in, not to suppose that Tillikum did exactly with Dukes what he did with Byrne and Dawn Brancheau – he pulled him around and held him under until he drowned. SeaWorld said hypothermia killed Dukes and Tillikum playing with him was incidental. I think it is more plausible that it was the other way around.

Keto, the former SeaWorld orca who killed his trainer in Loro Parque, the marine attraction in the Canary Islands, was something that happened abroad and again, out of the American media eye. But this is the first time Tillikum, the star attraction at Orlando, deliberately pulled someone, someone well-liked and experienced, someone he knew, into the tank with him and in front of witnesses, killed her. SeaWorld can’t hide this or even spin it easily – and I think that might be why this incident is standing out from the others.

RMP: Whales have been held in captivity for decades with little media hype or scrutiny. Oftentimes it takes a moment such as this one to ratchet up the dialogue about what to do. Being a marine mammal expert, what are your feelings towards keeping them captive? Necessary? Unnecessary? Detrimental? Beneficial?

Dr. Rose: Actually, there’s been more hype and scrutiny than you might suppose – it’s just never sustained. Think about the hype after the movie “Free Willy” came out – think about the scrutiny and debate when the Keiko Project was undertaken!

I think historically there was probably value to putting them on display. Before the 1960s, the first orca was captured and displayed in 1964, killer whales were shot at as nuisances and competitors for fish. They were pests. So their public display changed that image, to one worthy of protection. But the more we learned about their biology, their behavior, their culture, through the 1970s and 1980s, the more we should have realized that the new image was as false as the old one. Orcas are neither mindless killers nor are they cuddly sea pandas. They are complex, social, intelligent, family-oriented predators, with minds and lives and moods of their own, who are inherently unsuited to confinement in concrete tanks. That realization is where we should be now in our own evolution in knowledge and compassion in the 21st century.

RMP: Many media outlets are labeling Tillikum as an untamed beast and honing in on the orca’s oft-used pseudonym, killer whale. Is this an unfair criticism?

Dr. Rose: I do think it’s unfair to say that Tillikum is a killer killer whale. He didn’t kill Dawn Brancheau or either of his other victims, on purpose. I firmly believe that. I do think orcas are perfectly capable of attacking and injuring, sometimes seriously, their trainers – it has happened dozens of times. I think the incident with Keto killing his Loro Parque trainer was an attack, although he too probably didn’t mean to kill the man. But in Tillikum’s case, I think he’s just playing with a novelty in his tank. His behavior isn’t consistent with aggression – although the incident with Brancheau was more like an attack than the previous cases. He deliberately pulled her in and the witnesses say he shook her. That sounds more aggressive.

The only reason anyone has been killed or injured by orcas is because of the unnatural proximity captivity creates between them and people. It is not natural for people to be that close to orcas, period. That’s why no one has ever been killed or injured by wild orcas. This happened because we have insisted on bringing an animal into our world who does not belong there.

RMP: According to the Web site SaveTheWhalesAgain.com, nearly 25 percent of the Southern resident orcas in the Pacific Northwest have died. Moreover, the NoAA website lists them as endangered. What can you say in regards to these statistics? Why are the populations dying off? What can a layperson do to help the cause?

Dr. Rose: The Southern Residents are a unique case. Their numbers, ironically, were decimated back in the 1960s and 1970s by SeaWorld and other marine attractions that captured dozens of juveniles – perhaps an entire generation. All but two of those animals, two females, both now about 44, a decade and more beyond the age record set by any other orcas, are dead now, although several of their siblings and cousins are still alive out in the wild, now in their 40s and 50s. Yet the Southern Residents haven’t recovered from this decimation, because they have to contend with other threats – disappearing salmon (their main prey), pollution, their bodies are highly contaminated, which affects their immune response, harassment from boats, some of them filled with whale watchers who love these animals, whale watching is wonderful, but it can be done poorly as well as responsibly.

Other populations of orcas are simply not as well studied. Some populations seem to be fine, others perhaps not. As top predators, pollution will affect orcas more than other species, all the toxins biomagnify up the food chain. The Northern Residents are doing better, they do not mix much with the Southern Residents, they are less polluted and not as many were captured in the past, but they too are suffering from food shortages as salmon runs disappear.

What orcas need is better habitat protection. The positive education process – teaching people that orcas are magnificent intelligent predators who deserve our protection – took place decades ago. SeaWorld cannot honestly believe that if captivity ended tomorrow, people would go back to shooting them as nuisances and pests! We have learned enough, in fact, to know better now – there is no benefit – at least non that outweighs the costs – of keeping them in tanks for education and entertainment. In fact, by insisting on continuing the charade that orcas are sea pandas, SeaWorld is miseducating people now. It’s time to let the past go and move into the future.

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