Thursday, February 25, 2010

Just wondering

BBC News - Whale kills SeaWorld trainer during Orlando show

The first report of this I saw this morning said it wasn't during a show. This more detailed report seems to confirm it was, and will presumably affect some of the witnesses for some time:
Park guest Victoria Biniak told a local TV channel that the trainer had just finished explaining to the audience what they were about to see.

At that point, she said, the whale "took off really fast, and then he came back around to the glass, jumped up, grabbed the trainer by the waist and started shaking her violently. The last thing we saw was her shoe floating."

However, officials say the trainer apparently fell into the tank whilst addressing an audience of guests, and was killed accidentally by the killer whale.

I am curious as to how much money a killer whale trainer is paid. Surely it would be worth a hell of a lot in danger money.

And for that matter, will they finally give up on training these animals at all? Sound like they are too dangerous to bother with.

Update: go to the Orlando Sentinel for more confusion over exactly how it happened, as well as a line which I think they should change to avoid very black humour jokes:
Other eyewitnesses who were in the park for the Dining with Shamu told the Sentinel that a female trainer was petting a whale when it grabbed her and plunged back into the water. The whale reappeared on the other side of the tank.
There's also a photo of the deceased trainer, doing something you wouldn't get me to do for a million bucks.

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