Tilikum the killer whale has died - Best known for being the subject of documentary "Blackfish"

SeaWorld has announced that Tilikum the killer whale has died. He lived to be 35 years old (wild orcas often live to be 70, btw). Tilikum was linked to the deaths of three people and was the main subject of the anti-SeaWorld documentary Blackfish.

http://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/06/science/tilikum-dead-seaworld-whale-blackfish.html?_r=0
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news...-whale-linked-to-three-human-deaths-has-died/
http://wfla.com/2017/01/06/seaworld-announces-death-of-orca-whale-tilikum/

Honestly, this comes a relief to me. Yeah, Blackfish is biased as hell, but it does contain actual facts. Tilikum was captured and separated from his mother at a very young age- if you didn't know, orcas (especially male orcas) usually spend their entire lives with their mothers and orcas have one of the strongest familial bonds in the animal kingdom (along with humans and elephants). After he was separated from his mother, he was placed in a small marine exhibit (Sealand of the Pacific) with two older female orcas who relentlessly bullied him. The small size of the exhibit made it so he couldn't escape from them and so had to endure their abuse. By the time SeaWorld got him the poor thing was damaged for life.

It's not really surprising that Tilikum snapped. I remember some commentator saying "If you were stuck in a bathtub for 20 years, you'd probably go crazy, too." Orcas travel as much as 120km a day in the wild, making it impossible to provide them a good quality of life in captivity. I'm actually okay with most animal species being kept in captivity for conservation purposes, but orcas are too damn smart and big to keep contained.

Tl;dr- Dicks out for Tilikum.

 

[0xDEADBEEF]

don't worry

Willy's free now

 

[Oh Long Johnson]

Are killer whales all blubber like other whales? Would they be tasty? Has Grorius Nippon already served them as sushi in non-gaijin restaurants?

 

[Sailor_Jupiter]

That's really interesting, @Cosmos. So sad. I don't think animal captivity is ALWAYS a bad thing, but there are some species that just don't do very well with it. Most large cetaceans fall into that category, I think. We just can't build enclosures big enough to really be good for the welfare of the animals. Whales are really intelligent, too- so treating them badly will mess them up more.

 

[Varg Did Nothing Wrong]

The older I get, the more jaded I become about zoos and other places like that.

Even when I was a kid I felt sorry for animals in enclosures more than happy to see them for the most part... I guess for lower forms of life like snakes and crabs it probably doesn't matter but mammals and shit - I dunno. It's just sad to see the life some of these animals live.

 

[Trans Fat 41g]

He will never die till I cum for him

 

[CWCchange]

If they killed the whale, shit would have hit the fan because he's black. Nevermind the fact an animal with the word "KILLER" in its common name ends up killing three people and dies peacefully, while some Shenequa welfare queen's living shit gets a gorilla whose species is on the verge of extinction shot and killed.

Are killer whales all blubber like other whales? Would they be tasty? Has Grorius Nippon already served them as sushi in non-gaijin restaurants?

No, because Orca aren't true whales and Japan doesn't eat them much anymore. It's minke whales which are hunted because they're overpopulated and eat all the fish, hurting the industry. The body is used for scientific research, and meat is either used for dog food, sold as niche product, and/or exported to Norway and Iceland, where whale is still a mainstream delicacy. It sort of tastes like deer.

 

[TheImportantFart]

Are killer whales all blubber like other whales?

Killer Whales are actually the largest members of the dolphin family

 

[Ntwadumela]

Tilikum has died today,
A shiny, black and white torpedo speeding away.
With all of his brethren at heaven's seas
He will forever be at peace.

 

[RI 360]

This is the best tweet I've seen so far. RIP

 

[melty]

I really wish we would stop doing this to whales, dolphins, elephants etc.
I'm pretty sure octopus aren't happy either.
I'm glad people are speaking out about it more now, because it's horrible. I don't even care if it sounds like some hippie bullshit.

 

[RI 360]

I really wish we would stop doing this to whales, dolphins, elephants etc.
I'm pretty sure octopus aren't happy either.
I'm glad people are speaking out about it more now, because it's horrible. I don't even care if it sounds like some hippie bullshit.

I think it's retarded when people throw the entire institution under the fucking bus for finding out the animals are more sentient than previously thought. The attitude of "they're spiritual animals that ought not be meddled with" also gets an eye roll out of me and interestingly seems to be shared by populations that didn't figure things out like inventing the fucking wheel for themselves.

 

[melty]

I think it's retarded when people throw the entire institution under the fucking bus for finding out the animals are more sentient than previously thought. The attitude of "they're spiritual animals that ought not be meddled with" also gets an eye roll out of me and interestingly seems to be shared by populations that didn't figure things out like inventing the fucking wheel for themselves.

Sure; there's some educational value in keeping these animals, but they could at least bother to give them decent living space.

 

[RI 360]

Here's a video that would impress me if it was satire because it will summarize like 99% of all the tweets and mentions of Tilikum today.

 

[Johnny Bravo]

Tilikum knows what he did. He was put in a shitty situation, sure, but if we accept that orcas are on the same intellectual level as great apes (which they probably are) with individual personalities and minds of their own, then it's not all that surprising that one of them decided to lash out against his trainers. Any orca could destroy it's trainer. They're smart enough to know this and Tilikum decided to take advantage of it. He should have been put down a long time ago.

I'm not saying that putting Tilikum into captivity was the right thing to do. We never should have gone down this road of putting killer whales into parks. The fact remains that Tilikum was a bad animal. If he had been put down after the first incident no one else would have had to die.

 

[Cosmos]

Tilikum knows what he did. He was put in a shitty situation, sure, but if we accept that orcas are on the same intellectual level as great apes (which they probably are) with individual personalities and minds of their own, then it's not all that surprising that one of them decided to lash out against his trainers. Any orca could destroy it's trainer. They're smart enough to know this and Tilikum decided to take advantage of it. He should have been put down a long time ago.

I'm not saying that putting Tilikum into captivity was the right thing to do. We never should have gone down this road of putting killer whales into parks. The fact remains that Tilikum was a bad animal. If he had been put down after the first incident no one else would have had to die.

I have mixed feelings on this. I think Tilikum should have been placed in some kind of marine sanctuary and kept away from human contact. I don't believe he deserved to be killed for killing his trainers; after all, it's possible that Tilikum didn't mean to kill anyone. It's just that orcas are such gigantic, powerful creatures that it's very easy for them to cause serious harm to a human even if they were just messing around.

I just don't think it's fair to call Tilikum "bad" because, despite their extreme intelligence, we can't really judge orcas by human morality and standards. I blame the higher-ups at SeaWorld who decided to keep using Tilikum in shows despite the fact that it was clear doing so would put the trainers in danger.

 

[RI 360]

I don't blame Tilikum for murdering his trainers tbh.

 

[Cuck Norris]

Who cares it's just a whale.

 

[Tranhuviya]

At least they'll stop jerking him off now.

 

[Johnny Bravo]

I just don't think it's fair to call Tilikum "bad" because, despite their extreme intelligence, we can't really judge orcas by human morality and standards.

IIRC he was violent toward other orcas as well. If that's the case then yeah, he was a bad orca.

I don't believe he deserved to be killed for killing his trainers; after all, it's possible that Tilikum didn't mean to kill anyone. It's just that orcas are such gigantic, powerful creatures that it's very easy for them to cause serious harm to a human even if they were just messing around.

>just messing around

That's a sea lion btw.