I think most people are aware of the incident yesterday where an Orca Whale killed a trainer at an Orlando Sea World after an afternoon show.  If not, here is an article and here is another one, both of which give varying details of what happened.  There are YouTube videos that also include interviews with Jack Hanna.

First and foremost I feel so terribly for the family, friends and co-workers of the woman, Dawn.  It is horrible that she was killed like this.

However, suddenly there's a huge uproar of people who are clamoring and accusing Sea World or other institutions that have these whales about how dangerous and mistreated they are.  I know that the reporters are doing their job, but they are infuriating.  Whales are large creatures, with an amazing strength.  Their normal actions can hurt a smaller creature if they're in the way.  They are also predators.  Now, do I think they should be in captivity?  In a perfect world - no.  They should be free and in their normal habitat and we should study them there.  But this isn't a normal world.  Whales are hunted and killed, they're killed by the actions of a world full of people who don't realize the implications of our needs or desires.  In that light, yes there should be some in zoos or other habitats where we can preserve them and know how to save them if we need to in the future.  With this comes risk, unfortunately.  Animals are animals and as such they can be dangerous.  Heck, a household dog can kill a person and more dog attacks probably happen in a year than whale attacks.

Now, I know I can ramble on at length about this but I won't.  I grew up around horses; I know of many people who died as a result of horse accidents, rodeo accidents, and other animal included activities.  It's a terrible tragedy but when a person chooses to put themselves in contact with an animal you have to embrace that unknown factor.  I had a mare, Star, for many years who was less than friendly with men.  Why?  Because for seven years she was abused by a man.  I had the conscious decision to accept responsibility for her and still ride and use her.  Because of my mindfulness no one was ever hurt by her - except for one idiot who decided that even though I said, "Hey, don't get in that stall, she's not a friendly horse," still got in the stall and got two hind feet to his chest.  He listened after that.

There's such a huge responsibility that comes with putting an animal in a cage and I don't think there's much danger in saying that Sea World does their best to provide the best care and facilities to their animals.  What happened was a tragedy but when dealing with an animal of that size there is risk, and the trainers accept that risk and still choose to do what they do.  I think they're amazing people.

Once, many years ago, a family friend of ours was doing a trick riding performance where she was doing a trick called the one-foot-stand.  Her horse stumbled and as a result she was impaled on the six-inch saddle horn standard on trick riding saddles.  It was a great tragedy but her husband stood up at her funeral with tears in his eyes and said, "She died doing something she loved.  That's all we can ask."  (note - The type of saddle our friend was using was very different and involved being strapped onto the horse, but it looks similar to the picture.)

I just think that people need to step back and think more about honoring a wonderful woman who passed away yesterday than suddenly fearing for supposed lives that might be at risk.  Should things be evaluated? Yes. But it's an animal.  And accidents unfortunately happen.

I'm disabling comments.  If you would like to flame or bash me you'll have to do it some other way.