The Orange County Sheriff's Office said deputies responded to the theme park after receiving a call that an employee had been attacked and injured in the "killer whale tank."
The woman who was killed was a 40-year-old senior trainer at the theme park.
Jim Solomons of the Orange County Sheriff's Office said she fell into the tank and, "this appears to be an accidental death."
"It is with great sadness that I report one of our most experienced trainers has drowned in an incident with one of our whales this afternoon," park manager Dan Brown said.
The park was closed because of the fatal incident, and the Sheriff's Office is conducting a death investigation at the theme park.
"We have never in the history of our parks experienced an incident like this and all of our standard operating procedures will be under review," Brown said.
Witness Victoria Biniak said she saw the deadly incident from a viewing area.
"The trainer was explaining different things about the whale and then the trainer that was down there walked away from the window. Then Telly (the whale) took off really fast in the tank and he came back, shot up in the air, grabbed the trainer by the waist and started thrashing (her) around," Biniak said. "He was thrashing her around pretty good. It was violent."
Biniak said the attack was so violent that it caused the trainer's shoe to fly off.
Biniak said the whale, named Tilikum, or Telly for short, does not typically have a trainer in its tank because it is too large.
Tilikum is a nearly 30-year-old, 12,300-pound bull orca.
Killer whale expert Nancy Black said the whale could have been playing and the incident could have been an accident.
"They are very intelligent creatures. They have emotions, and feelings. Maybe it was unhappy in the situation, maybe it was bored," Black said.
Obviously there is only one solution to the problem of these savage beasts, and that is for the government to ban them.
Considering their statement on the incident, I am sure PETA would agree:
Wednesday afternoon, internationally-known animal rights organization PETA released this statement: "The death of the SeaWorld trainer following the attack by Telly the whale is a tragedy that didn't have to happen. For years, PETA has been calling on SeaWorld to stop confining oceangoing mammals to an area that to them is like the size of a bathtub, and we have also been asking the park to stop forcing the animals to perform silly tricks over and over again. It's not surprising when these huge, smart animals lash out."
I'm surprised they're not also demanding that killer whales be spayed or neutered. In that regard, they have a new campaign, featuring embattled golfer Tiger Woods:
According to the story, Woods has not consented, but PETA says they're sure he'll be appreciative:
[Virginia Fort, a campaigner with PETA] said the billboard isn't meant to offend the golfer, his family or fans, but to prevent millions of cats and dogs from being euthanized at shelters each year.
"The world has been transfixed on Tiger's life after Thanksgiving. We're putting the focus where it needs to be," Fort said.
It's uncertain when the billboard would go up in Windermere but "the soonest would be in two weeks," she said.
Woods is not affiliated with PETA and has not endorsed the ad, Fort said.
"We're sure Tiger will appreciate our attempt -- from a story that's distracted the world and followed Tiger -- to turn it into something positive for little tigers," she said.
Woods' agent, Mark Steinberg, and spokesman, Glenn Greenspan, did not return phone calls seeking comment.
Greenspan can hardly be blamed. I'd say that "when gonads are outlawed, only outlaws will have gonads" (and "when killer whales are outlawed, only outlaws will have killer whales") except I'd sound like a broken record.
The root cause of this problem is the name "killer" whale. What attitude would you expect someone to develop when constantly told he is a "killer"? Sea World should immediately change the name to something like "performing" whale, or "celebrity" whale, or maybe "superstar" whale and begin sensitivity training sessions to repair the wounded self-image of these abused animals.
Might the same logic be applied to the name "Tiger"?
Anyone remember this campaign?
It is obvious that the woman in the front seat is the victim of a power imbalance, aggravated by the hegemonic and patriarchal "Tiger" meme.
Case closed.
UPDATE: Veeshir reminds me how far behind I am on my research:
It's even worse than you think, via the Puppy Blender, we find out he was a Tea Partying Killer Whale!
That is not laughing over a dead trainer, and neither is the post Glenn links. No one that I can see has laughed at the dead trainer. The laughter is being directed at the whale, and at the left (by ridiculing the relentless opportunistic attempts to tie things to the Tea Party movement).
Is calling lawyers "sharks" laughing at their victims?
As to the dangerous whale (which has killed three people now), animal rights activists are already trying to blame the victim:
PETA has long been asking SeaWorld to stop taking wild, ocean-going mammals from their families and ocean homes and confining them with no semblance of a life to an area that, to them, is the size of a bathtub. No wonder these huge, intelligent animals, like the beaten elephants in the Ringling Bros. circus, lash out after being forced into subservience and forced to perform stupid circus tricks for their food for so long.
Using PETA's logic, I suppose it could be argued that Telly is feeling taxed enough already and wants to join the Tea Party movement. But even that would not constitute laughing at someone's death.
They probably go after Instapundit for two reasons, it makes the poo-flinging monkeys in the comments happy. They hate him the way I hate...uhhh... nothing. Maybe Arafat when he was alive.
And if Glenn notices it and links it, they get a lot more hits than a link from anybody except maybe Drudge.
It must bother them that this little hit job wasn't even worth a "Good grief".
The Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler
Don?t bang your head!
It's even worse than you think, via the Puppy Blender, we find out he was a Tea Partying Killer Whale!
http://www.thenoseonyourface.com/animal-rights/photo-emerges-of-murderous-killer-whale-at-tea-party-rally/
Ohnoes!