SeaWorld Challenges Trainer Whale Contact Ban

Three years after the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) banned contact between trainers and orca whales following the death of a trainer, SeaWorld is challenging the ban in court. After trainer Dawn Brancheau was dragged under the water by its star whale performer, Tilikum, during a public performance, OSHA ruled that SeaWorld had not followed proper safety precautions to prevent such a tragedy from happening in the workplace and banned all future contact in performances between trainers and whales.
“On rare occasions, killer whales can be dangerous,” Sea World wrote. “Sea World has taken extraordinary measures to control that risk.”

The attorney for SeaWorld is basing his main argument on the fact that interaction between trainers and killers whales forms the foundation of SeaWorld’s business model and is an essential part of the entertainment it offers visitors at its theme parks located around the world. SeaWorld has been previously fined thousands of dollars by the safety regulatory agency for exposing its workers to what OSHA considers is hazardous working conditions. SeaWorld’s appeal of the ongoing trainer-whale contact ban has been filed in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. So far, orcas held in captivity at SeaWorld theme parks have been responsible for the deaths of four individuals, three of them trainers, the last fatality being Dawn Brancheau.

“Forty-plus years of history at the SeaWorld parks have yielded occasion after occasion where captive killer whales have not responded as their trainers intended,” the attorneys wrote in OSHA’s legal brief. “The hazard in this case was well-known to SeaWorld and fully capable of being prevented.”

On The Web:
SeaWorld challenges ban limiting interaction between whale and trainer
http://www.cnn.com/2013/11/12/us/seaworld-court-challenge/