Tilikum ( – January 6, 2017), nicknamed Tilly, was a captive male orca who spent most of his life at SeaWorld Orlando in Florida. He was captured in Iceland in 1983; about a year later, he was transferred to Sealand of the Pacific in Victoria, British Columbia. He was subsequently transferred in 1992 to SeaWorld in Orlando, Florida, where he sired 21 calves throughout his life.
Tilikum was heavily featured in CNN Films' 2013 documentary Blackfish, which claims that orcas in captivity suffer psychological damage and become unnaturally aggressive. Of the four fatal attacks by orcas in captivity, Tilikum was involved in three: Keltie Byrne, a trainer at the now-defunct Sealand of the Pacific; Daniel P. Dukes, a man trespassing in SeaWorld Orlando; and SeaWorld trainer Dawn Brancheau.
Description
Tilikum was the largest orca in captivity. He measured long and weighed about . His pectoral fins were long, his fluke curled under, and his dorsal fin was collapsed completely to his left side.
His name, in the Chinook Jargon of the Pacific Northwest, means "friends, relations, tribe, nation, common people".
Life
Origin
Tilikum was captured when he was two years old, along with two other young orcas, by a purse-seine net in November 1983, at Berufjörður in eastern Iceland. After almost a year in a tank at the Hafnarfjördur Marine Zoo, he was transferred to Sealand of the Pacific, in Oak Bay, a suburb of the city of Victoria on Vancouver Island, Canada. At Sealand, he lived with two older female orcas named Haida II and Nootka IV. As a result of their matriarchal social structure, Tilikum was abused by Haida II and Nootka IV who behaved aggressively towards him, including forcing him into a smaller medical pool where trainers kept him for protection.
Fatalities
While orca attacks on humans in the wild are rare, and no fatal attacks have been recorded, as of 2022 four humans have died due to interactions with captive orcas. Tilikum was involved in three of those deaths.
First death
Keltie Lee Byrne (December 6, 1970 – February 20, 1991) was a Canadian student, animal trainer and competitive swimmer. She had been working with orcas Tilikum, Nootka IV, and Haida II at Sealand of the Pacific to earn extra money. On February 20, 1991, Byrne was working a shift when she slipped and fell into the whale pool. Witnesses recalled that Byrne screamed and panicked after realizing that one of the whales (later identified as Tilikum) was holding her foot and dragging her underwater. One witness described the theme park as looking unkempt, like a "gray theme park on its last legs, a kind of dingy swimming pool", and claimed to have heard Byrne screaming "I don't want to die!" while her eyes went wide in the water. According to the coroner's report, rescue attempts were thwarted by the whales, who refused to let Byrne go even after she was believed to have fallen unconscious in the water. Her corpse was later retrieved with a large net, after which she was determined to be deceased. Her death was ruled an accident.
Sealand of the Pacific went defunct in 1992, largely as a result of Byrne's death and allegations surfacing of physical and mental abuse of the whales in the park. Tilikum was sold to the United States' SeaWorld theme park chain for performance shows and breeding. The whale's semen was collected and used for artificial insemination to breed a number of captive orcas for SeaWorld's shows and also for its sister park, Loro Parque in Spain.
Byrnes's death attracted renewed attention after the 2010 death of SeaWorld trainer Dawn Brancheau and the 2013 documentary Blackfish, when it was revealed that Tilikum had killed Byrne before later killing Daniel P. Dukes and later Brancheau; the two deaths occurred after Tilikum had been sold by then-defunct Sealand of the Pacific to SeaWorld's parks in the United States. Blackfish also revealed it is still unclear exactly what drove Tilikum and the other whales to attack Byrne, but suggested that years of abuse and cruelty towards Tilikum, including the act of allowing the other whales to "rake" Tilikum's skin with their teeth until he bled, had made him an aggressive whale. Steve Huxter, head of animal training at Sealand at the time, said "They never had a plaything in the pool that was so interactive. They just got incredibly excited and stimulated." No official motive of the three whales has ever been established, as the case was over twenty years old by the time it resurfaced in relation to the death of Dawn Brancheau.