Actually, he wasn't captive born. ;) He was collected in Iceland in 1983. But then you get orcas like Katina who are also wild-caught and never show a shred of aggression. It all depends on their personality.

It is very sad about what happened to that whale.
I think that it is in that whale's best interest to be left alone for now. Maybe, possibly in the future he can be integrated back into the wild. Not all whales are able to do that, but he might.

Hmmmm definitely not him sadly :/ The orca populations up in Iceland where he is from are not as well-studied as those around Alaska, Canada, and Washington. We have no clue where his family is, and they wouldn't remember him.

He was captured around two years old, and he's been in captivity around thirty years. The kindest thing is to allow him to do what he is used to doing. Putting him back in the ocean after so long would be a death sentence, as it was for Keiko. Keiko hardly made it a year out there before dying of pneumonia.

Oh really? I don't know much of the history behind Tilikum, which I guess adds to my own ignorance on this subject, but yes, that makes sense. I really love these whales. I just hope it doesn't get too dangerous for him in captivity. There have been several threats to the whale's life already, and I'm scared for him.

Keiko needed people. I don't think it was a good idea for him to be set free. I don't think he wanted it, personally.

No Keiko didn't want to be out there. He used to swim around Norway's beaches, playing with children.

Considering all that's happened at the parks this year (VERY bad year), security is very tight. He is plenty safe. They work with him from behind a curb and away from his mouth. He still gets lots of attention though. Hopefully he will be back doing shows in the next few months. Such an interruption in his routine doesn't help anything.

It was scary, because in Norway they still did whaling, and all Keiko wanted to do was hang out around the boats and play with people. Such a playful whale! They made it seem like such a great thing to set Keiko free... sigh. It's very sad.

I personally have never visited SeaWorld. Ever since I even knew what an Orca was, I've been dying to go, but we just don't travel, like at all. I'll go someday, it's a personal dream of mine.
I don't doubt security is top notch there, even if I've never been myself. But that's good to hear.

Well keep checking in, I'm planning to visit the new baby orca there this week. Will post photos.

Yes! I'd love to see the new little guy. Looking forward to it.

Booing him? Seriously? Common ordinary people would be able to recognize an individual orca? I call shenanigans, generally the only people who can tell them apart are the people who know better than to blame an animal for behaving like an animal.

Even a moron could ID him since he's the only mature male orca at the park. His mug has been all over the news (Hell they even stole my video of him to use at CNN.com). I'm at the park a lot and he is usually down in the underwater viewing area. People IMMEDIATELY recognize him and start asking the educator dumb and insensitive questions about him and about the incident. After all the bad press, he's unmistakable.

Wow, that's really different from my experience anywhere, most of the time I consider people a step ahead if they can even correctly identify the proper Class of the animal they're looking at. I'm a little surprised that people even still remember the incident, especially with the number of close calls that have occurred over time. I mean, it'd seemed like people had forgotten about Kasatka's incident relatively quickly, but I suppose that near death doesn't have as much impact as actual death. Still, I'm amazed that people can hold a grudge against an animal like that, especially when it was a relative stranger. I can understand the family being upset, even though they should have understood that she was well aware of the risks she was taking. I mean, I figured out very early on despite my love for marine mammals, that I did not want to work with them, because I am not willing to take that level of risk. Most large animals have a high chance of killing you by accident, but that's a little more than I want to risk, primarily because they almost never get sedated and there aren't very many effective means of immobilizing/restraining them.

Most other animals you at least have a strong option for getting up close and personal in a means where they can't maul you. With large marine mammals you are trusting entirely upon your understanding of the animals behavior, your ability to communicate with the animal, their understanding of your training, and sheer dumb luck. Most notably, I recall an incident where an orca accidentally gave his/her trainer a concussion after losing balance during a medical exam and clocking the trainer with their tail as they tried to correct.

And then there is the gulf of uncertainty on the motives of an attack, in some cases it seems like the animal is innocently trying to play, other times it's clearly an issue of dominance. I think I'd quote homicide statistics at those people myself.

People have been so rude at SeaWorld about the recent deaths, I've come close to wanting to break some noses for things said to employees. Every time there's an article about ANYTHING to do with SeaWorld, they find SOME way to work in a sentence or two about Tilly and Dawn. The whole incident has completely overshadowed the death of Loro Parque's trainer Alexis who was killed by Keto last December. People just...forgot about him.

Yeah, well, you know what they say about our 'wonderful' country, if it didn't happen in America(to Americans), it didn't happen at all. I was mentioning the huge chemical spill in Hungary today and no one had heard about it. A good example is wtfcnn.com. I think CCN has improved the quality of their front page slightly since wtfccn became common, but there's still a whole lot more about celebrities rather than relevant real world issues. I don't know how much I can blame Americans for being such idiots, when this is all the 'journalism' they're fed.

...there are actually people who didn't hear about that spill??!!

*headdesk*

Yep. Hell, I only heard about it because someone on FA mentioned it. If you want real news you have to look for it yourself most of the time. And even the article I read, was just one short blip of an article. Meanwhile, Justin Bieber Getting into a fight with a 12 year old got a two page spread.

it's sad people can't appreciate the orcas as individuals; what happened wasn't even Tilli's fault, for heavens sake he was on suicide watch afterwards. Animals don't feel regret or guilt, it just happens, but people won't listen to that.

One of the trainers was down there when I took this, and a lady kept asking her really ignorant and potentially hurtful questions. She didn't mean any harm, but if I'd been the trainer I would have had a difficult time not getting emotional.

yes, it's like defending a child almost.