Sea World to settle with the feds...?

If there is one thing I wanted to be when I was little, it was a whale trainer at Sea World (and, I’ll admit…this dream carried on throughout high school). However, once I was exposed to the reality of captivity vs. whales free in the never-ending ocean, my dream occupation quickly changed.

On February 24th, a SeaWorld trainer named Dawan Brancheau was killed during an accident at the park, where a 12,300 pound captive orca/killer whale named Tilikum (meaning ‘friend’ in Chinook Jargon) ‘charged through the pool with the trainer in its jaws’, dragged Dawan under the water by her ponytail, where she then drowned.(CSNBC News Article)



Long before this incident happened, in 2007 Cal/OSHA investigators seemed to predict the future…

‘SeaWorld hopes to avoid a repeat of 2007, when OSHA’s state-level counterpart in California broadly criticized the company after an investigation into the injury of a SeaWorld San Diego trainer who was bitten on the legs while performing with a killer whale. In a report issued after that probe, Cal/OSHA investigators wrote that "swimming with captive orcas is inherently dangerous" and recommended that SeaWorld be prepared to kill one of its animals to save a trainer’s life.

"If someone hasn’t been killed already, it is only a matter of time before it does happen," the agency warned.’ (Boston Herald Article)

News today broke that even before a safety inquiry is finished, SeaWorld Orlando might negotiate a settlement with OSHA involving worker-safety changes after the death of a killer-whale trainer.

Thoughts...?