Blackfish Page #4

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and weighed 4,000 pounds.

Tilikum, up again.

Thank you.

I had actually seen Tilikum

quite a number of times.

He was right across the street here in Victoria.

Now, this show

can get a little bit soggy at times.

All Sealand was was a net hanging in a marina

with a float around it.

Tilikum was the one

we really loved to work with.

He was very well behaved

and he was always eager to please.

When he was first introduced,

everything just went fine and dandy,

but the previous head trainer

used techniques that involved punishment.

He would team a trained orca up

with Tilikum who was untrained.

He would send them both off

to do the same behavior.

If Tilikum didn't do it,

then both animals were punished.

Deprived of food to keep them hungry,

this caused a lot of frustration

with the larger animal,

the established animal,

and would in turn get frustrated with Tilikum

and would rake him with his teeth.

There would be times during certain seasons

that Tilikum would be covered

head to toe with rakes.

Rakes are teeth on teeth and raking the skin.

And from head to toe you could see blood

and you could see scratches,

and he would just be raked up.

Both females would gang up on him.

Tilikum was the one we trusted.

We never were concerned about Tilikum.

The issue was really that we stored

these whales at night

in what we call a module,

which was 20 feet across

and probably 30 feet deep as a safety precaution

because we were worried about people

cutting the net and letting them go.

And the lights were all turned out,

so there was really no stimulation.

They're just in this dark,

metal 20x30-foot pool

for two-thirds of their life.

When we first started,

they were quite small and quite young.

So they fit in there quite nicely,

but they were immobile for the most part.

It didn't feel good.

It just didn't.

And it was just wrong.

We started having difficulty getting them all

into this one small steel box, to be honest.

That's what it was.

It was a floating steel box.

That's where food deprivation would come in.

We would hold back food,

and they would know if they went in the module

that they would get their food.

So if they're hungry enough,

they're going to go in there.

And during the winter that would be

from 5:
00 at night

till 7:
00 in the morning.

When you let them out,

you'd see these new tooth rakes

and sometimes you'd see blood.

Closing that door on him

and knowing that he's locked in there

for the whole night is like...

it's a stab, it's a "whoa."

If that is true, it's not only inhumane,

and I'll tell them so...

but it probably led to what I think

is a psychosis that...

he was on a hair trigger.

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