Attacks | Orchive

Attacks and accidents

A trainer swimming with Corky, who has no record of aggression in over fifty years of living closely with humans, including an event in 1987 when two park guests stayed behind at Marineland at night and swam with Corky and Orky, and left completely unscathed. Photo by Kevin H.

“Killer whales have never attacked people in the wild, the fact that they kill and injure trainers proves that they have gone crazy”

This is a complex topic where I will go fairly deep into history and animal behavior, but there is a TL;DR at the bottom.

The main point of this claim is false. Killer whales have attacked people in the wild on several occasions, but no deaths have been recorded. One of the most important reasons for how rare killer whale attacks are, is because we rarely share the same waters. Interest in swimming with wild killer whales is very new, and they don't frequent the same beaches we do, like some sharks.

Some attacks on record include people being pushed, bitten, and dragged to a depth - just as they have done in human care.

There are different reasons for why these things happen, however. Worth remembering is that killer whales are highly intelligent (quite possibly the most intelligent animal in the sea), curious top predators with an appetite for a variety of sea life, and with known sadism where they will harass and kill animals that are not part of their diet, or torture to death animals that they do eat - you know, for fun.

They are also very proud and will not be offended or disrespected. The only way to train and direct a killer whale is by becoming its best friend, so that it genuinely loves you and wants to do things with you. That it looks to you for direction and "What should we do next?"

In the early years, in the words of one of SeaWorld's first trainers Thad Lacinak, they didn't interact with the whales much and so, the whales did not like them. According to Mark Simmons in the book Killing Keiko, he has witnessed a whale happily accept a fish from a trainer it did not like, only to spit it back, "almost perfectly fileted", directly onto the unwanted trainer.

I describe this to bring home how much relationship matters to these animals. If a trainer makes a mistake, the whale may be offended or upset. We're all human, we make mistakes - and in the early years, swimming with and training killer whales was as alien as walking on the moon, completely uncharted territory, so mistakes were bound to happen much more often.

They are also animals with intact instincts of wanting food, safety, company, and sex hormones and a hundred other things can interfere with that whale's mind. Since they are highly intelligent creatures, their behavior depends on far more factors than with a more simple animal, like a snake or shark.

Think of dangerous a horse can be if it's angry or if we just ended up in the wrong situation. People are killed or crippled for life by horses, even by pure accident because of their size and strength. And while an average horse weighs 400-550 kg (900-1200 lbs), an adult killer whale weighs 2-6 tons (4700-13200 lbs), that's the ones we have in human care anyway. And completely unlike horses, they are aquatic top predators.

I am not a marine mammal professional, I have never worked with them, I can only take information about specific cases from what I've gathered from online sources and books, to the best of my abilities.

And so for example, regarding the incident in late 2006 where Kasatka pulled a trainer under for several minutes, the best information I have is that her calf Kalia, barely two years old, was behind a gate at the time. Older files (from well before Kalia's birth) said that Kasatka's behavior depended greatly on where Takara (her then calf) was at the time.

So, perhaps this waterwork with Kasatka when Kalia was calling for her, was just another mistake. Kasatka got upset and was telling him as much. If she really wanted to hurt or kill him, she could have, with ease, but she kept bringing him up to the surface to breathe, seeming to know exactly how much time he had.

It is not victim blaming, it is just a fact of life. When a tiger keeper was killed at the Palm Beach Zoo in 2017, it turns out the reason was a forgotten lock. A pure, unfortunate human error that anyone could have made, and it cost a life.

I don't want to put words in people's mouth, but from what I've seen from other animal professionals who have experienced attacks, I think if you were to ask any of these trainers "Why did that whale pull you down? Why did it break your arm?" the trainer wouldn't say "I don't know, it came out of nowhere", or "It was management's fault", and definitely not "It was the animal's fault, it's mean". Please correct me,

if you're one of these trainers and are reading this, but I'm sure they would say "I made a mistake."

In earlier decades, a famous case was in 1987 when Orky landed on a trainer who was riding Nootka around the pool, and so, said trainer was crushed between the two whales (but fortunately survived). This was after many experienced trainers had been alienated and left, meaning SeaWorld had been forced to hire many new trainers. The cause of the accident was human error by the trainer sending out Orky on a breach.

The trainer with the longest experience of all at the scene that day, was the one riding Nootka, and he had just two years experience, and three of the five trainers present had only three months experience. As of 2008, a trainer needed two years direct experience before ever setting foot in the water, and all qualifications and safety measures were much stricter.

Orky, who never injured a person in aggression and even let strangers ride on his back after dark, but fell on a trainer at SeaWorld by his own

trainer's (not the victim) mistake.

So we've established that the whales can get offended or upset, and this may lead to events like holding a trainer underwater. But there have been four deaths, and what people like to forget is that only one of those happened with a whale that was actually ever trained for waterwork.

The deaths are as follows:

Keltie Byrne, trainer at Sealand of the Pacific, drowned by Haida 2, Nootka 4 and Tilikum on February 20th, 1991.
Daniel Dukes, park guest who stayed after closing at SeaWorld Orlando on the 5th of July 1999 and jumped in the pool with Tilikum, and was found dead the next morning.
Alexis Martinez, trainer at Loro Parque, killed by Keto on December 24th, 2009.
Dawn Brancheau, trainer at SeaWorld Orlando, killed by Tilikum on February 24th, 2010.

Out of these, only Keto was trained for having people in the water with him. I have not seen in-depth information like Alexis' autopsy report, but the best information I can find is that Keto got upset for some reason, and pushed Alexis when the concrete wall was just behind him, so he was crushed between the whale and the wall. He then sank to the bottom and was under for several minutes before he could be brought up, but it is mentioned that Keto dove down and picked up Alexis with his rostrum before being moved into a back pool, and the other trainers had to dive down and retrieve Alexis again. He had bite marks, broken ribs and collapsed lungs.

Keto was known to push and swim into trainers as early as three years old, and perhaps he just meant to do the same, not realizing what the wall would do to Alexis. The bite marks are difficult to explain, since sources mention both him being pushed into the wall or bottom, as well as Keto then returning to "pick him up" by his rostrum. The latter behavior may be similar to Tilikum carrying Daniel Dukes' body around on his back, which was likely an attempt to get him to live, as that is the only case where a cetacean will bring another being to the surface. However, those should not cause bite marks.

The other three were all killed by whales who were never supposed to have people in the water with them under any circumstances, but they got in the water anyway. Keltie slipped and fell. Daniel jumped into the pool, who knows why, but perhaps he thought he could just swim with the whales like the trainers (and had he jumped in with Kalina, he would have gone out unscathed, like that event with Orky and Corky). Dawn was in the shallows with Tilikum where she was not supposed to be, and he got hold of her hair and pulled her in.

Tilikum was likely not the instigator in killing Keltie, since the females were dominant over Tilikum and bullied him. Witnesses have pointed out the "floppy fin", but the females also had floppy dorsals. Keltie slipped and fell, and one of the whales grabbed her when she tried to climb back out. After ten minutes of being repeatedly pulled under, she was unconscious, and it took another two hours to retrieve her body.

Daniel Dukes had water in his lungs, many bruises and abrasions and his scrotum was avulsed. It is supposed to take several hours to die in water of that temperature and he had no drugs in his system, so given that and Tilikum's history, it is by far most likely he drowned the man. The majority of the injuries to the body however, happened after death, according to the autopsy report.

Dawn's death is by far the most well-known, both due to it being in more "modern times" than 1991, as well as being at SeaWorld, in the United States. Personally, I had no interest in whales at the time, but remember seeing it on international news, while I did not know about the Loro Parque incident until I saw Blackfish in 2013. I elaborate on her case much more in my article about Tilikum. [link]

Screenshot from this video by Dylan Brayshaw. This falls under fair use, under commentary and teaching.

The reason for wild whale attacks are different, since the relationship is nonexistent. They are generally uninterested in humans when we enter the water with them at a respectful distance, except for some juveniles that may come up to investigate. But if you see how killer whales treat other animals, even those who are not their prey item, you see what they are capable of doing purely for amusement.

So when a wild whale is habituated to humans - and this is not like the trained whales, this is a wild animal with no connection to or history with humans, and thus doesn't understand the "rules" of interacting with humans that the trained whales do - you're just a little fish in the ocean with a top predator, and it can do what it wants to you, as a toy.

It is an oversimplification, but compare this to a tame bear or wolf that has lived its entire life around people and has a strong relationship to its humans who have a professional level understanding of animal behavior and training (accidents with these are rare but can happen), to a wild animal that is not habituated (it prefers to stay away), and to a wild wolf or bear that has become habituated and is looking to people for food - the latter is extremely dangerous, and does not care if it gets food from your bags, your pockets, or your flesh. No relationship to or respect for people, it is a completely different animal from the trained animal, even if they are the exact same species.

As more and more drone footage appears of people swimming with wild killer whales, and those whales taking a strong interest in the diver (notably often from New Zealand - might there be something going on there, such as, possibly, a researcher who pets the whales from boats and habituates them to people and boats?), a fatal attack is beginning to look more and more as just a hair's breadth away.

Attacks that have occured in the wild already, include a surfer having his thigh bitten to the bone and requiring over 100 stitches, a boy swimming in Alaska and being bumped in the shoulder, a researcher in 1989 was nearly grabbed by a whale as he was standing on the beach, several occasions of teams of people in Antarctica being "wave-washed" (how those killer whales get seals off of ice floes to kill them), and more recently, a man being grabbed and dragged down into the depths for 40 seconds (and notably, this was in New Zealand) [link].

In 1972, a 45 foot schooner was completely wrecked 200 miles west of the Galapagos islands, by three killer whales. Douglas Robertson, the oldest son, has said he suspects the whales mistook their ship for a whale that they wanted to eat. [Link] [Link]

In 2022-2023, reports started coming in of killer whales off Spain and Portugal attacking boats, with over 40 known attacks, and at least three boats sinking. [Link] [Link]

There is an unconfirmed rumor that an Inuit man was killed by a pod of killer whales in the 1950s.

Most of these sound so insignificant - "Being bumped in the shoulder, really?!" But if you look at the vast majority of zoological killer whale "attacks", they are just like that. A bump. An open mouth, not even touching the person. Swimming into. Swimming over. Refusing to let a trainer exit a pool.

The latter is behavior that is dangerous and unacceptable since interactions with any large, powerful animal needs to be strictly controlled, but those most likely just meant "I don't want you to leave, I want to keep playing", since the whales love their trainers and find interactions with them so enriching. I have a parrot who sometimes doesn't want to go back to her cage, and may bite hard when she realizes (she almost never bites otherwise). Or think of a toddler that doesn't want to go to bed, or leave the playground. Only the toddler is a 3+ ton killer whale.

A famous case liked this was filmed, when Kyuquot (one of two instances with him) refused to let a trainer exit the pool. He wasn't violent, he didn't bite or try to drown the trainer, but he was visibly upset at the trainer trying to leave. When they got to the center of the pool, he calmed down (a common pattern with this behavior), resumed normal behavior to the applause of the audience, and allowed the trainer to exit. Those are not the cases that bring headlines, and are only shown out of context, only the worst 2.5 second clip you can cut from it.

This link has the most extensive list of zoological killer whale "incidents" online, and they use it to fuel their anti-zoo/aquarium arguments.

It stretches all the way back to 1967, and while it can't possibly list every incident that ever occured, you keep seeing the same words: Pushing, snapping, baring teeth, butting, slapping, mouthing.

Don't do this and then claim the whales are "aggressive and dangerous".

All forms of attacks and accidents were much more common in the 1960s-80s, because it was, as described, uncharted territory, and they did not really know what they were doing. Jumping into the pool with newly caught, adult or subadult whales, repeatedly asking for the same behavior over and over again and not paying attention to the whale's changing mood, even putting their head in the whale's mouth, letting strangers with no marine mammal experience or relationship with that animal into the pool wearing strange clothes - the list goes on with human behavior that would be unthinkable by the 1990s and later.

The only actual injuries I can find across this record of (as of writing) 56 years, are...

Cheek stitches after a trainer deliberately put his head in a whale's mouth, 1970 (like the old tiger taming trick in circuses), and the whale was mistakenly cued to close his mouth prematurely - not aggression.
An unspecified attack by an unspecified whale on an unspecified person in an unspecified facility - second-hand rumor or hearsay, no better than the supposed Inuit man killed by wild whales.
Another minor head wound from the "tiger taming trick", because the unknown whale at an unknown SeaWorld park (San Diego or Orlando) was startled by a camera flash - not aggression.
An unknown whale at an unknown SeaWorld park didn't want a trainer to leave the pool, like described above, and grabbed her leg. The trainer panicked and tore her leg on the teeth, so she needed stitches. Likely "possession" or simply not wanting the fun human to leave, rather than aggression.
A supposed broken leg by being hitten with the tail fluke by Hyak 2, poorly documented. While killer whales may use their tails against their prey (from sea lions to herring), they don't attack other whales with their tails, so it sounds far-fetched to have been "aggressive" - it sounds more like a pure accident or tail slapping out of frustration, hurting the trainer accidentally.
Two trainers bitten in the head (one laceration over the eye, the other no injury specified) by Nootka on separate occasions in 1972.
An accidental broken nose when the "kiss" behavior from Cuddles was too forceful. (Meaning he did as instructed. My dog has done this to me, I might add. No fracture but quite a bit of blood.)
Biting the leg causing "several small puncture wounds" by Winston at SeaWorld.
Another case of the "head in the mouth" trick, where Skana closed her mouth and then let the trainer go, with bleeding wounds.
A rumor of bite marks from Kotar, second-hand by a woman who is a known liar and anti-aquarium activist featured in Blackfish, no further specification.
A trainer at SWSD pinned against the glass by two whales suffered some bruises (and I would hesitate to call bruises "injuries").
Newspapers in 1987 described at least 14 injuries at SeaWorld San Diego during that year - notably, the very same year when Orky landed on the trainer, described above, when most of the trainers had practically no experience.
An incident in 1987 (again) at SWSD describes how the two females Kandu 5 and Kenau ganged up on a trainer and hurt him severely.
A woman at SWSD suffered head, neck and arm injuries (again in 1987) when a whale jumped out of the water and dove down straight on top of her, according to the article "the whale had been forced 'out of sequence' by another whale in the pool that was exhibiting erratic behavior." Severe injury, but an accident, not aggression. The list says "fractured neck", but she got out of the pool herself, walked immediately after, and later returned to work, so we are not talking "broken neck".
A trainer at SWSD (again, and in 1987, again) was rammed in the stomach by a whale he was not working with at the moment, and was hospitalized with minor, unspecified injuries.
The aforementioned accident when Orky 2 landed on top of a trainer riding Nootka around the pool - error on the part of Orky's trainer, not aggression.
A trainer at Sealand required stitches on her hand after Nootka 4 closed her mouth on her hand while being petted, 1989. After this, injuries almost disappear from the record.
Reported only by John Hargrove, which immediately puts doubt into this (as he is a known serial liar), but supposedly Shouka struck a trainer who needed hospitalization from internal bleeding.
A trainer at Nanki Shirahama Adventure World had her leg broken when Goro suddenly turned to avoid another whale, a pure accident, in 2001.
A trainer at SeaWorld San Diego was spending time with Orkid and Splash without a spotter, directly against safety regulations, and put her foot on and off Orkid's face. Orkid grabbed the trainer by the foot, and pulled her in. The two whales ganged up on her, and the trainer's arm was broken, but she got out.
Orkid grabbed a trainer by the foot and held him to the bottom of the pool for under half a minute, then responded to a stage call. The trainer suffered a torn ligament.
Same month, late 2006, the above described incident where Kasatka pulled a trainer under over and over, occured. He suffered puncture wounds to both feet, and one was broken.
Orkid swiped her head onto a trainer who was on land, leading to the trainer falling to the ground and suffering "minor injuries".
Tekoa "crashed into" a trainer at Loro Parque in 2007, dragged her under, then returned her to the surface. She suffered a collapsed lung and broken arm.

Tilikum at Sealand of the Pacific, photo by Bob Crosby

That 2007 incident with Tekoa is the last I can find that led to injury, of course excluding the two deaths in 2009 and 2010. Notice how numerous they are in the early decades, and then trickle to nearly nothing towards the present day? Naturally, not everything is reported. Perhaps it was easier for newspapers to get hold of these stories in those days.

We can not know every single thing that ever happened, just as we can't know every time a zookeeper was nipped in the finger or pushed over by a large animal. But considering we are talking of around 200 whales each the size of twenty tigers over the course of more than half a century, the records are not that bad. Just see how many people are killed by dogs, horses and livestock each year. Or people killed at work or in other random accidents, from situations they did not put themselves in. This is in no way victim-blaming, but every trainer knew they were getting in the water with an oceanic top predator, and still got in willingly, so they knew there was an inherent risk, as with any large animal.

What is certain, is that safety protocols have improved vastly over the decades, and each severe incident (like a severe injury or a trainer held underwater) led to further restrictions, either around the entire practice (having more people around, for example), or at least around that particular whale (only allowing senior trainers, ending waterwork with that whale).

SeaWorld ended waterwork across its three parks immediately following Dawn's death, originally as a temporary measure, and the intention was to return waterwork for several years (eventually resulting in a false rising floor in the Dine with Shamu-pool, and a special safety vest with air supply), but with change in leadership and direction, those plans seem to have been scrapped forever. Following the two deaths in 2009 and 2010, all but two parks across the world ceased waterwork, and as of 2023, only Kamogawa Sea World in Japan still does waterwork with its killer whales, including in shows (after Florida banned Miami Seaquarium from swimming with Lolita).

An interesting quote from that list I linked is "Kandu 5 took a trainer in her mouth and momentarily refused to let go." So, she did let go. That exact same event could be phrased as "Kandu 5 took a trainer in her mouth for a moment, then let go." Same thing, doesn't sound as scary. Pay attention to how things are phrased.

The TL;DR is that

Killer whales are intelligent, proud top predators that thrive on positive attention
They have intact instinct like any animal (including us) and can get offended, angry, or fearful
Human error is a sad fact of life, it is unavoidable that it happens occasionally
Killer whales have attacked people in the wild, causing injury, and there is a possible unconfirmed death
Killer whales in human care have relationships with their humans, and there are many variables to their behavior, such as mood of the day or moment, instincts and urges that any animal has, relationship to another whale in the pool, trainer behavior, actions by other humans nearby, and more
Training whales and reading their body language and behavior has only improved with every passing decade
Wild killer whales have no relationship with or respect for humans, and thus have no behavioral barriers against using us as playthings
Wild killer whales usually ignore people in the water, but if they are habituated, they can become extremely dangerous
Considering the roughly 200 whales and 50+ years, millions upon millions of interactions in the water, the track record is not bad
Keltie's death at Sealand could have been prevented by a safer pool edge, an actual rescue plan and system which was only implemented after her death, and actually properly trained whales (they were not trained for waterwork)
Daniel's death could have been prevented with proper surveillance around the pool of a dangerous whale - again, implemented later
Alexis' death is harder to speak of since there is less information about it in English, but probably Keto should have been taken out of waterwork earlier, or it's possible there were cues in Keto's behavior before the accident that they failed to act on in time - call it "victim blaming" if you want, I call it unfortunate human error, if it happened, same as forgetting to lock that tiger cage
Dawn's death could have been prevented by not having her lay down in the shallows with Tilikum who was a known killer and never trained for having people in the water with him, or having a false rising floor or other improved rescue system, same as with Keltie

Kayla at SeaWorld Orlando, photo by David Tribble

In the end, "this could have been done" won't bring them back, it's not to blame the people around these events, it's just to make a point that interactions with zoological killer whales can be done safely. Not 100% guarantee against death or injury, because there never is, but as vastly improved against the 2000s as the 2000s was against the 1970s.

Whether or not the trainers get into the water with the whales should only be a decision made by them, or other relevant animal experts that actually know killer whales, not as it is now, by higher-ups in the companies or bureaucrat legislators. Banning waterwork is like banning Formula 1 drivers from sitting in their cars.

They could just control their cars remotely, and they would be safe (28 Formula 1 drivers have died in the same time we have been training killer whales, and a whopping 57 professional motorcycle racers). But people don't want that, and the drivers don't want that, even knowing the risk. And no one is banning them from doing what they love, because they don't have animal abolitionists working every day with countless millions in funds to destroy their passion. That's what it is, in the end - it has nothing to do with safety, and all to do with hurting the marine parks and the practice of training and keeping cetaceans.

That's why, when Florida banned Lolita's trainers from swimming with her - because of what Tilikum did, years earlier - the animal abolitionists cheered. They don't care about the safety of the trainers who had swum with a very sweet whale, Lolita, for nearly half a century, they cheered because Lolita would now be deprived of one of her most important forms of enrichment. In her tiny pool and lack of killer whale companionship, human companionship was the most precious thing she had. This article is not about Lolita, but this is to illustrate how the animal "rights" activists think and behave.

Waterwork with killer whales needs to be handled intelligently, by actual cetacean training experts, who know which whales to handle in what way. Kalina and Corky are not like Orkid and Keto are not like Tilikum and Haida. They are all different. With this in mind, and the improved safety precautions that came in recent years (it's sad, but it's only because of previous incidents that they learned how to improve), the most dangerous part of a killer whale trainer's career is getting in the car to go to work.

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