Tilikum Research Paper

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"In 1983, a male killer whale was captured in the North Atlantic. At two years of age, he was already 11.5 feet long. They named him Tilikum."Eric Walters a former trainer at Sealand claims that at the age of 4 Tilikum was 16 feet long and 4,000 pounds. Sealand was just a net hanging in a marina with a float around it. The trainers from Sealand said that Tilikum was fun to work with and he was well behaved. Everything was good in the beginning. But the previous head trainer used punishment. When trying to train Tilikum, it would be another whale and him, when asked to do the same task if Tilikum didn't do the correct thing both whales would be punished. They were deprived of food, this lead to Tilikum getting bullied, other Orcas would rake him. Tilikum was trusted …show more content…
The issue became at 5pm when the whales had to go into a 20 feet across and 30 feet deep box. They were in this dark metal pool for 2/3s of their lives. And with Tilkium already 16ft at the age of four he was very immobile. It eventually got to be very difficult for the whales to go in the box, so they would get deprived of food. This is probably led him to do the things he did. For example, February 20, 1991 Victoria, BC, Keltie Byrne is dead. Corinne Cowell and Nadine Kallen went to Sealand of the Pacific. According to Kallen, Byrne was walking around the side of the pool, ended up slipping and falling into the tank. No one thought it to be serious because the trainers were in the water with the whales all the time. But moments later everyone and even Byrnes realized she was in trouble. In the newspapers her cause of death was because she drowned. But Cowell and Kallen both saw she was pulled under by the whale. There was no memorial, no questions were asked and no lawsuits. Nadine Kallen believes it was Tilikum who had killed her.No one really knew about what happened in Sealand. The directors would say one thing, but then act a totally different way.
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