For my two cents worth.... Wild Orca's are an extremely intelligent and majestic creature. There is nothing more exciting and beautiful than to have a 10,000 pound Orca sound right beside your little boat. I have had a few great personal encounters with Orca's in the wild while living in the Seattle area and fishing in the Straits of Juan de Fuca. the best and most memorable was that we were in a 13 foot livingston boat bottom fishing off of San Juan state park when a pod of Orca's came by. One decided to check us out and sounded right next to the boat. Within 3 feet. Sounding is when a whale will dive down and slowly come to the surface and stick his head out of the water to check things out. In no way did we feel threatened. There is nothing like a big black and white head half the size of your boat checking you out. For many years, you were allowed to run your boats with the whales. But it was a lot of fun to run circles around a migrating pod and then zip out ahead of them and go dead in the water. They would come up and dive under the boat. Never a threat.
In all the years of written history of Orca's, there has never been a natural attack on a human. Any attack that involved a human was committed by a Orca that had usually a bacterial infection that affected the brain. There are many written records of shipwrecked sailors being rescued by "Killer" whales. They have the intelligence to know when a human is in trouble and will push them towards shore with their nose. But they do not realize that a human cannot hold it's breath as long as they can.
The pods of Orca's that migrate through the Straits of Juan de Fuca have continually grown over the years through natural means with the only help from humans being that we have created laws to protect them in the wild.
Namu and Shamu are probably the most famous of the Orca's captured other than Willy. Namu was a young bull that was captured off of British Columbia, Canada in 1965. He was actually found in a Salmon enclosure. He was sold to the Seattle Aquarium. He lived a year in captivity. An Orca named Moby Doll was the first to be captured and lived 90 days. Namu was the second. The owner of the Aquarium captured Shamu as a mate for Namu but they didn't get along so she was leased to Seaworld in San Diego.
Keiko, the star of the Free Willy movie wa captured off of Iceland and was eventually sold to an aquarium in Mexico. It was there that he developed all sorts of medical problems. In 1996 he was moved to a brand new facility at the Oregon Coast Aquarium where he is brought back to health. It was here that I was able to see him shortly before he was moved to an open ocean pen. He was transported back to Iceland and eventually died in 2003 from what they believe was acute pnuemonia. He was also the second oldest Orca ever in captivity.
These wonderful animals are not natural human killers. I would get in the water, in a natural setting, with these gentle giants any day of the week. Do not blame the whale. Something went terribly wrong and I feel horrible for the trainers family. She was doing a job that she was hired to do and paid the ultimate price. Yes, Orca's in captivity is about money. Where would SeaWorld be without the Orca's and other sea creatures. It would be pretty boring if you paid the $96 to go in and sit and watch just clear water. Yes they do a lot for research and understanding and rehabilitation. But it is still legal to capture Orca's off the coast of Iceland though it is highly regulated.
That is my two cents worth, well actually maybe a nickles worth.
