Killer Whale Attacks Trainer at Shamu Stadium

On Wednesday, November 29, a trained killer whale injured a trainer during a show at Shamu Stadium. In fact, the whale was not actually the famous Shamu, but Kasatka. But, as Francis Bacon or Christopher Marlowe-or was it Stephen King-once famously suggested, what's in a name?

The incident occurred during an actual show packed with children who watched as the whale dragged the trainer, whose name is Ken Peters, underwater for up to a full minute. The whale had bit Peters and dragged him down. Fortunately, Peters only suffered a broken foot, but he did require surgery.

The really interesting thing about this whole sordid episode is that it isn't the first time that Ken Peters and Kasatka have had a run-in. In 1999, Kasatka tried to bite Peters during a show.

Kasatka tried to bite another trainer entirely in 1993. Anybody ever watch that Halloween episode of the Simpsons where the king of the dolphins was released from captivity by little Lisa the Liberal? Instead of being thankful, however, the king rounded up his dolphin comrades and launched an assault on the humans, eventually returning homo sapiens to the sea and taking over the earth.

Free Willy may have been just a movie, but it ain't a bad idea. Aren't we a little more sophisticated in 2006 than we were in 1906 when P.T. Barnum could barnstorm around the country and receives oohs and ahhs at the site of an elephant? Are we really so starved for entertainment in this day and age of video games showing heads getting graphically blown apart by gunshots, music made by game show winners, and that comedic impresario Larry the Cable Guy that we need to watch animals that could have looked at the intelligence and figured out Iraq posed absolutely no threat to us all being treated worse than Donald Rumsfeld deserves to be treated?

Ken Peters, clearly, is far less intelligent than Kasatka. Anyone who would do his job really doesn't deserve much sympathy for a little bite on the ankle. After all, he apparently is quite aware of the contentious personality of his captive performer. In other words, as Bacon, Marlowe or King-maybe it was Shakespeare-once suggested: what goes around comes around.

If you want to see actual (home) video of the attack, follow this link. I'm sure it's probably all over the net by now, but this one also includes interviews with spectators.