SeaWorld San Diego closes Shamu show after deadly whale incident in Orlando

SeaWorld in San Diego has canceled its Shamu whale show at least for Wednesday after an Orlando SeaWorld employee was killed in an encounter with a whale at that theme park.

"We're terribly saddened by the loss of the member of our SeaWorld family, it doesn't matter what park," said SeaWorld San Diego spokesman David Koontz. "We have canceled our afternoon Shamu show here today."

Koontz said park officials had yet to make a decision about to whether to cancel Thursday's show.

Orlando SeaWorld officials are not revealing the identity of the victim, although a local TV station is reporting that a female employee was killed after she was grabbed by one of the theme park's whales at the start of a public show. Park guest Victoria Biniak told the station that the trainer was a veteran of SeaWorld and had just finished explaining to the audience the show they were about to see.

At that point, Biniak said, the whale came up from the water and grabbed the woman.

"He was thrashing her around pretty good. It was violent," Biniak said.

Read more on the story from the Orlando Sentinel.

-- Amina Khan

Photo: Dolphins at SeaWorld San Diego. Credit: EPA

Comments

[Sonya]

Sad about the deaf of the lady. But hope the show will go on. They need to see what happen to the whale. Maybe the running of the last show was to long. They shouldn't bought him to the dinning area so soon. Hopefully that whale will still perform and seaworld would learn form their mistakes. Remember it's a whale!

[Sonya]

Sad about the lost of the trainer . Seaworld needs to look in to see what made the whale mad. Was it from the show that lasted to long & should the whale been bought into the dinning area right after the show. Hopefully nothing want happen to the whale and it will be performing. The trainer know those whale what they can handle. They know the danger of working with them.

[Bluejeans]

Not sure why, but Orlando has had problems in the past.

[Chiyo]

Free Willy!

[Michael Scarborough]

They better not lay a hand on that animal. Somebody there was either taking a picture or making a video, and the truth will come out about what really happened. Where Seaworld gets off thinking they have a right to drag intelligent animals out of the wild and exploit them for entertainment is beyond me. I'm not one of those PETA fanatics, but I am sick and tired of seeing this kind of abuse.

[Andy]

I would say its more the consequences of containing wild animals to make money off of them. This is not the first case of a so called "tame" animal killing its handlers. Pretty sad people have to die so Disney cam make a buck..The show will go on. Sad day.

[Natasha]

If they would stop using non-human animals for entertainment, there would be no problems like this. When are we intellectually superior humans going to figure out that one??

[Todd]

I remember this is not the first time of such accident, someone should review the safety rules in Sea World.

[Cris]

I fail to see what San Diego has to do with Orlando, but I guess they are doing it as a sign of respect? Anyhow, perhaps that will make us less inclined to enslave these wonderful and highly intelligent animals. Obviously this particular Orca got fed up with something and decided to take it out on the employee in front of the audience for maximum effect. Oh, and stop calling Orcas whales already, "Killer Whale" is fine, that's a name, but they are not whales, they are dolphins, and the most majestic mammals of all (short of perhaps some humans).

[peter wolf]

PHEW !! I read the headline thinking that this was cancelled in SD because it was yet another casualty of our lousy economy. So conditioned am I to bad news about our 'Golden State' that I automatically assumed the worst.

[SteveinNYC]

These are wild animals.. their whales not circus freaks beings used entertain u.. If i was that whale id prob be pissed too... set them free

[Kyle]

Maybe the whale was sick of being penned up at a theme park in a small tank?

[mrcubbins]

Sad the trainer died. Perhaps it will cast a spotlight on the fact that these whales belong in the wild. The whole thing of keeping an animal captive who otherwise would spend it's entire life in a sea without barriers.

[Mary]

The last time I went to Sea World was over 20 years ago. I had the realization that these huge mammals did not belong in a "cage" and should be free in the ocean. It is cruel to keep them as "performers" and virtual pets. Close all those places!!!!

[Ryan]

Often I would agree with the comments about it being wrong to keep these animals in enclosures, and I don't like many zoos. But Sea World is a rescue group, and without the funding from its parks they wouldn't be able to do the amazing amount of good work they do.

In addition, most of the animals they have now are either rescued or bred in captivity - these whales would die if they put them back into a 'natural' habitat. They are well taken care of, fed, nurtured, loved, and adored. And learned from.

And perhaps most importantly, so many children (and adults!) learn to love and cherish underwater animals like whales and dolphins, in great part thanks to Sea World and similar facilities. Without such places, people would have virtually no way to see these animals at all. And when they learn to appreciate them, they can do everything from learn more about them to donate money to rescue groups, become marine biologists or fight for animal rights. Sea World does a tremendous amount of good, though I freely admit sometimes the 'caging' seems a bit uncomfortable. I think in the end there's more positive that comes.