But Cowperthwaite’s film suggests it was more than that.I saw my first whale in the unlikely surroundings of Windsor Safari Park in the early Seventies. Read his story hereOn February 24 2010, news channels across the world reported that Initially, there were calls for the “rogue” whale to be put down. Additionally, SeaWorld stock prices dropped by 33%.In September 2014, the Rosen Law Firm PA announced an investigation into "potential securities claim" on behalf of SeaWorld investors.SeaWorld said in August 2014 that the film had hurt revenues at its park in San Diego.In August 2015, SeaWorld announced a 3% drop in revenue and an 84% drop in net income for the second quarter of 2015 when compared to the previous year. When it did, the story went global. As the whale grabbed it, Brancheau broke free. I remember feeling uneasy as they balanced balls on their beaks, jumped through hoops, and caught their reward, a fresh fish. Analysed by experts, they were found to be long-distance calls: she was trying to reach her calf, now hundreds of miles away in another oceanarium.Namu died within a year, but that did not deter Don Goldsberry, Griffin’s partner. It is a terrible notion: that those generations of captives were sacrificial animals, doomed to accomplish that enlightenment on behalf of the whales to come.People are wiser, in this internet age, Jett hopes. According to members of the audience, it was Tilikum who “went after her”, easily identified as “the one with the floppy fin”.In 2009 another trainer, Alexis Hernandez, died at a marine park in Tenerife after a whale exhibited unusual behaviour, but it was Byrne’s death that should have rung alarm bells. It was there, in 1983, that Goldsberry caught the young whale that would kill Brancheau.Tilikum – which means “friend” in Chinook, the language of the North-West Native Americans – was kept in a tank near Reykjavik for a year. But the dealer went too far when he used explosives to drive orca into his nets at Olympia, Washington state, in 1976. He could hear no ocean sounds, only the mechanical rush of filtration.” It was the equivalent of solitary confinement for a human – and probably the start of the whale’s psychosis.In 1984 Tilikum was shipped to Sealand, Vancouver Island, along with two females, Haida and Nootka. But Jett was soon disabused of his idealism.He claims SeaWorld was more concerned with training its staff in how to respond to “sceptical guests” than in encouraging scientific research. The company, he said, “used us to craft their image. Parents need to know that Blackfish is a documentary about captive whales that perform at theme parks and sometimes attack and kill humans. Public outcry at reports of the terrified whales and their screams led to a lawsuit, filed by the State of Washington, contending that Goldsberry and SeaWorld had violated permits that required humane capture and, as the bad publicity built, Goldsberry switched operations to Iceland, where killer whales were plentiful. In the wild, orca swim in close-knit family pods. It was nominated for the BAFTA Award for Best Documentary. Grabbed by one of the whales, she surfaced twice, then drowned. “A blunt, hard-driving man”, he saw a business opportunity. Tilikum, the orca that killed a SeaWorld trainer in 2010 and was featured in the documentary "Blackfish," which cast a harsh light on killer whales in captivity, died early Friday. But the “attraction” lost money, and Sealand sold its whales to SeaWorld. The audience were quickly led away as the horror played out.Tilikum scalped Brancheau.
Nevertheless, Jett was so appalled by what he witnessed at SeaWorld that he resigned in 1996.Despite SeaWorld’s news management, there was a disturbing undercurrent to its corporate image of happy animals working in harmony with their trainers. Blackfish is not a balanced film, and its ending, implying we should watch whales in the wild instead, is problematic, since too many whale-watching boats have a … But not as much as what came next. He actually dragged his flukes on the floor of the pool – he was longer than the pool is deep.SeaWorld admits Tilikum has tooth problems but says he is only given antibiotics “when his condition requires it”. “They could drain my bank account in half a day!” Yet, as she points out, it is money that gives opponents the ultimate power of protest. “The same thing happened with circuses; people just stopped going to them.” As he says, it’s taken 40 years of keeping cetaceans in captivity to educate the public. Prior to making “Blackfish,” Ms. Cowperthwaite was unknown to the wider anti-captivity movement, including PETA. Her fellow trainers had to prise open the whale’s jaws to release her body.