SeaWorld’s “69 Reasons you Shouldn’t Believe Blackfish” – My Rebuttal

SeaWorld VS Blackfish

After the release of Blackfish in 2013, SeaWorld produced a 32-page document listing 69 reasons why the documentary is “misleading and/or inaccurate“, including an explanation for each reason. After reading this document in-depth, I can confidently claim SeaWorld’s “69 reasons you shouldn’t believe Blackfish” is nothing more than a gish gallop and yet another example of SeaWorld’s terrible attempt at damage control.

I should clarify my intentions are not to portray Blackfish as a perfect documentary (it’s not, no documentary is), I simply wish to highlight how terrible SeaWorld’s response to Blackfish truly is, and how it actually further damages their public image. SeaWorld relies on manipulation and lies to keep the public sweet and this document is the perfect epitome of that.

I recommend following along with this analysis while watching Blackfish (found on Netflix or YouTube) so you can see exactly what SeaWorld are critiquing and what my responses are referring to.

Note: SeaWorld’s critiques can be found in red. To prevent this being longer than it needs to be, I’ve shortened SeaWorld’s points to what’s relevant (they include a lot of waffle). You can view SeaWorld’s response in its entirety here.

Reason 1

The opening sequence is cobbled together (under actual 911 calls regarding Dawn Brancheau) to mislead the audience into believing it is viewing footage of the fatal incident between Ms. Brancheau and Tilikum on February 24, 2010. However, the Opening Sequence does not contain footage of an attack, and neither Ms. Brancheau nor Tilikum are depicted in the Opening Sequence.

Rather than the deception suggested in the analysis, Blackfish merely employs simple cinematography, much like SeaWorld does in many of its adverts and PR videos. At the request of Dawn Brancheau’s family, footage of the attack could not be shown. Since narrating a black screen wouldn’t make for very good viewing, a compilation of footage showing orca performances was the logical choice. Attacking such a minor detail of the documentary is quite frankly pathetic and hypocritical of SeaWorld, as they themselves have used the same techniques in the past, along with almost anyone else who’s ever made a documentary.

Assuming the opinions of the audience, as if Blackfish is some kind of brainwashing tool, is ridiculous and insulting to viewers. If viewers were to assume that footage of the attack was being shown, this assumption would immediately be disproven when the video ends with the successful performance of a water work behaviour. If Blackfish had wanted its audience to believe they were watching an attack, the director could’ve easily inserted a clip of Kasatka’s attack on Ken Peters – or any other similar footage of an orca attacking their trainer.

In addition, the Opening Sequence casts SeaWorld in a false light, misleading the audience into believing that SeaWorld trainers, including Ms. Brancheau, swam with Tilikum, which never occurred.

This is another flaky assumption on SeaWorld’s part. Not once does Blackfish suggest that any trainer swam with Tilikum. The exact words of the featured 911 call are as follows: “We actually have a trainer in the water with one of our whales. The whale that they’re not supposed to be in the water with.” Assuming the audience would immediately believe that a trainer just jumped in a pool to have a swim with a whale the trainer would know not to swim with, rather than leaning towards a more obvious possibility like the trainer slipped and fell (or was dragged in…), is absurd and yet again insulting to the audience.

First SeaWorld is critical of Blackfish for using cinematography to provide a visual representation of footage that is not available (which would suggest they would’ve preferred the use of “real” footage), and now they’re criticising Blackfish for using the recording of the actual 911 call that followed the attack, which was initiated by one of their own employees. If anyone is misleading anyone, SeaWorld is misleading its audience into believing this is a fair or valid criticism, which it absolutely is not.

Determination: Hypocritical

Reason 2

Introduction to cast member John Hargrove, who throughout Film speaks about Tilikum… Hargrove never worked at SeaWorld Florida, and never worked with Tilikum.

I’m not entirely sure what film SeaWorld were watching but John Hargrove never once speaks about Tilikum in Blackfish. I’ve read through the entire transcript and Hargrove speaks about five topics: his childhood, Kasatka and Takara’s separation, Orkid and Splash’s attack on Tamarie, the announcement of Dawn Brancheau’s fatal incident at the Texas Park, and SeaWorld’s mouth piece Thad Lacinak blaming Dawn. The only time Hargrove refers to Tilikum is when he quotes what he was told about the incident when he says “and he still has her”. As you can see by looking at all of Hargrove’s quotes listed below, SeaWorld just blatantly lied whilst trying to correct a documentary they claim is full of “lies”. Nice one.

Determination: Lie

Reason 3

Introduction to cast member Samantha Berg, who throughout Film speaks about Tilikum… Ms. Berg has not worked at SeaWorld in over 20 years. Ms. Berg was not assigned to Tilikum’s team and did not work with Tilikum.

Samantha Berg is featured speaking in Blackfish 25 times (excluding two instances from old videos of her working at SeaWorld). Yes, Ms Berg does speak about Tilikum (11 times) but not a single statement of what she said required her to have direct hands on experience with Tilikum to state accurately. In fact, the vast majority of what she says is based on her own experiences of what she saw whilst at SeaWorld and her impressions/thoughts of various situations. She had experience working at SeaWorld and she had experience working with killer whales. The fact that she hasn’t worked at SeaWorld in over 20 years or that she wasn’t assigned to Tilikum’s team does not discredit Berg’s input in the documentary.

Determination: Invalid / Debunked

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Evidence:
Quote 1: “When SeaWorld heard that Tilikum was available, after this accident at Sealand of the Pacific, they really wanted Tilikum because they needed a breeder so I don’t even think anyone was questioning “is this a good idea?””

Quote 2: “I think he spent a lot of time in isolation. And SeaWorld it claims, “No, no, he’s always in with the other — with the females,” but I mean, you know, from what I thought he was mostly put with the females for breeding purposes. And he didn’t spend a lot of time, you know, with the other whales.”

Note: Visitors to SeaWorld can confirm this, especially in the 11 months following Dawn Brancheau’s death.

Quote 3: “He seemed to like to work, he seemed to be interested, he seemed to want to learn new things. He seemed to be enjoying, you know, working with the trainers.”

Quote 4: “I never got the impression of him while I was there that, you know, “Oh, my God.” You know, he’s the scary whale, you know, not at all.”

Quote 5: “I was under the impression that Tilikum had nothing to do with her death specifically that it was the female whales responsible for her death. What I found really odd at first was the way they are acting around this whale and what they had told us seemed to me to be two different things. On the first day he arrived, I remember one of the senior trainers at, SeaWorld, she — Tilikum was in a pool and she was walking over a gate and she had her wet suit unzipped and was tied around her waist. And she was making cooing noises and going, “Hey, Tilikum, you cute little whale.” You know, she was like just, you know, come play talking at him and one of the supervisors said, “Get her out of there.” And just screamed at her, you know, like “Get her, get her away from there.” Like they were so worried that something was going to happen. And I remember thinking why you guys making such a big deal out of this when he didn’t actually kill her. Well, clearly management thought there was, there was some reason to exercise caution around him. You know, it’s clear they knew more than they were telling us. Jeff was out in the audience filming one of the Shamu shows. It was a perfect show all of the hotdog sequences, the water works sequences went off great.”

Quote 6: “At the very end of the show, Liz was working Tilikum and apparently Tilikum lunged out of the water at her”.

Quote 7: “Over the years, Tilikum has been one of the main breeding whales at SeaWorld, which is brilliant because they can inseminate way more female whales because they can just get his sperm and freeze it and then he’s basically operating as a sperm bank. In a reputable breeding program, rule number one is you certainly would not breed an animal that has shown a history of aggression towards humans. Imagine if you had a pit bull who had killed. I mean, that animal would have likely been put down, but in the entire SeaWorld collection, it’s like 54 percent of the whales in SeaWorld’s collection now have Tilikum’s genes. “

Quote 8: “Likely she saw what had gone on during the main show and so she had probably felt more pressure to do a good show. When you watch the whole video, you can see that Tilikum is actually really with Dawn in the beginning of the video. There’s a couple of behaviours that she asks him to do, where Tilikum just jumps right in, and he does exactly what she asks him to do.”

Quote 9: “She asked him to do a perimeter pec wave, where she asked him to basically go all the way around the pool and wave his pectoral flipper, and she blows her whistle, which is a bridge, which tells the animal that, OK, you’ve done a good job. Come back and get food. But he missed that cue. And he went all the way around the pool on this perimeter pec wave.

Quote 10: “So not only did he not hear the bridge, then he went and did a perfect behaviour and came back and what he got was what we call three-second neutral response, which is just a way to let the animal know, no you didn’t do the correct thing. You’re not going to get rewarded, and then we’re going to move on. And you can also see through the video that Dawn is running out of food.”

Quote 11: “When you see the difference between the beginning of the video and the end of the video, you can see he’s just not quite on his game anymore.”

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Reason 4

Introduction to cast member Kim Ashdown, who throughout the Film speaks about Tilikum. Ms. Ashdown was not assigned to Tilikum’s team and did not work with Tilikum. Ms. Ashdown never performed waterwork with killer whales.

SeaWorld lies again. Just like John Hargrove, Kim Ashdown did not speak about Tilikum. Ashdown discusses her childhood, her first dream job, her impression of what is needed to become a trainer, what it felt like to see a killer whale for the first time, and her friend, Dawn Brancheau. She never says Tilikum’s name nor does she even refer to him.

Determination: Lie

Quote 2: “And I saw what the trainers did and I said: “That’s what I wanna do.”

Quote 3: “I always thought you needed a masters degree in biology to be a trainer. I come to find out it really is more about your personality and how good you can swim.”

Quote 4: “I was overwhelmed and I was so excited. I mean, just seeing a killer whale is breath-taking.”

Quote 5: “I left in January of 2010, a month before Dawn passed away. She was like a safety guru. I mean, she was always double-checking and making sure that everyone was doing the right thing. So, I remember she would record every show that she did and she would watch it and critique herself. And she was constantly trying to be better. When I found out it was Dawn, I was shocked. That could have been me. I could have been the spotter. What if I was there and I could have saved her? All these things go through your mind.”
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Reason 5

Introduction to cast member John Jett, who throughout the Film speaks about killer whales and Tilikum. Mr. Jett has not worked at SeaWorld in over 17 years. Mr. Jett worked at SeaWorld… and had limited interaction with killer whales. Mr. Jett was never the trainer in charge of any session with Tilikum, and had no decision on how or when Tilikum would be worked.

I’m genuinely baffled as to why John Jett’s involvement in Blackfish is listed as “Misleading and/or Inaccurate content”. Up until this point, SeaWorld has criticised Blackfish for featuring former trainers who had never worked with Tilikum. Now they’re criticising Blackfish for featuring a former trainer who did work with Tilikum. John Jett was Tilikum’s team leader and is more than capable of discussing him. Most of what Jett discusses is based on his own experiences and interpretations. SeaWorld’s weak attempt to discredit him by stating that he hasn’t worked at SeaWorld in over 17 years is pathetic considering Jett mostly focused on events which occurred during his career at SeaWorld.

Determination: Invalid / Debunked

Quote 3: I saw that there was just a lot of things that weren’t right. And there was a lot of misinformation and something was amiss. And I sort of compartmentalized that part of it and did the best that I could with the knowledge that I had to take care of the animals that were there. And I think all the trainers there have the same thing in their heart. They’re trying to make a difference in the lives of the animals. They think that, if I leave, who is going to take care of Tilikum? That’s why I stayed. I felt sorry for Tilikum. I mean, if you want to get down to the nuts and bolts of it, I stayed because I felt sorry for Tilikum. And I couldn’t bring myself to stop coming and trying to take care of him.

Quote 4: Now, whether that was post-death or pre-death, I don’t know, but all I can comment on is that the guy definitely jumped in the wrong pool. So why keep Tilikum there? This guy, he has a proven track record of killing people. He’s clearly a liability to the institution. Why keep him around? Well, it’s quite simple to answer, and that is that his semen is worth a lot of money.

Quote 5: I’ve been expecting it since the second person was killed. I’ve been expecting somebody to be killed by Tilikum. I’m surprised it took as long as it did.

Quote 6: There’s no food left. She kept asking him for more and more behaviours. He wasn’t getting reinforced for the behaviours that he was doing correctly. He probably was frustrated towards the end.

Quote 7: Tilikum at some point grabbed ahold of her left forearm and started to drag her and eventually did a barrel roll and pulled her in. May have started as play or frustration, and clearly escalated to be very violent behaviour that I think was anything but play. In the end, you know, he basically just completely mutilated that poor girl.

Quote 8: Now Tilikum is spending a great deal of time by himself and basically floating lifeless in a pool.

Note: This isn’t everything Jett said, I’ve just listed what I’m referring to in my rebuttal.
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Reason 6

Introduction to cast member Dean Gomersall, who throughout Film speaks about killer whales and Tilikum. Mr. Gomersall worked at SeaWorld Florida with sea lions, beluga whales and dolphins, and never worked with killer whales. He never worked with Tilikum.

Dean Gomersall is featured 8 times in Blackfish (excluding one-time he was shown being a mouth piece for SeaWorld as a trainer). SeaWorld’s analysis suggests what he contributed to the documentary required experience of working with killer whales which is not true. Gomersall mostly talks about his own experiences as a trainer, the impressions SeaWorld gave him on various topics and his opinion on John Sillick’s incident after watching the video. Gomersall did not need experience working with killer whales to contribute to Blackfish in the way that he did. He just needed experience of being a SeaWorld trainer, which he had. What Gomersall says about Tilikum is something any regular guest could also tell you so SeaWorld’s attempt to discredit him just because he didn’t work with Tilikum is weak.

Determination: Invalid / Debunked

Reason 7

Using Ms. Ashdown, Film suggests that the only qualifications to become a killer whale trainer are to be a good swimmer and have a good personality. This is false and highly misleading. The path to becoming a killer whale trainer is lengthy and demanding, and the Film ignores the ladder of employment — the many beginning and intermediate steps necessary to be promoted through the ranks to attain the level of killer whale interaction trainer.

I can agree with this point to an extent. Although being a good swimmer and having a good personality are important qualities for a killer whale trainer, there is more to it than that. However, Kim Ashdown does not specify that these are the only requirements to become a killer whale trainer. She says “I always thought you needed a master’s degree in biology to be a trainer. I come to find out it really is more about your personality and how good you can swim.” Regarding her statement, she’s not exactly wrong, as proven by a clip in Blackfish from one of SeaWorld’s behind the scene videos. The clip in question features a killer whale trainer stating “I’ve been with this whale (Kalina) since I was 18 years old”. Clearly, this trainer did not need a master’s degree to work with orcas which is consistent with Ashdown’s point.

Determination: Agree / Invalid & Debunked

Reason 8

Introduction of Jeff Ventre. Ventre has not worked for SeaWorld for over 18 years.

Yet again SeaWorld reverts back to the old “this trainer hasn’t worked at SeaWorld for a long time” line as it’s the only defence SeaWorld has against many of the trainers, including Jeff Ventre. Just like many, if not all of the other trainers, Ventre discusses events which occurred during his career, the impressions SeaWorld left him with, and his interpretations of events. The fact that Ventre “has not worked for SeaWorld for over 18 years” is completely irrelevant as it has absolutely no impact on the topics he discussed.

Determination: Invalid / Debunked

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Evidence:
Quote 1: He arrived I think in 1992. I was at whale and dolphin stadium when he arrived and he’s twice as large as the next animal in the facility.

Quote 2: Tilikum is pretty much kept in the back and then brought out at the very end as like the big splash. He was always happy to see you in the morning. Maybe because he was alone, maybe because he was hungry and maybe because he just liked you, who knows what was going on in his head.

Quote 3: Maybe some of us just are naive or whatever, you know, because we weren’t given the full details of the Keltie situation.

Quote 4: I was really excited just to be capturing this because it was kind of turning out to be a great show. A show that’s kind of complete. It doesn’t — it probably only happens a few times a week.

Quote 5: And I had captured Tilikum coming out of the water kind of turning sideways and appeared to me to try to grab Liz. And at that moment that the tape became unusable, I was just kind of basically instructed to get rid of the tape. Wanting to kind of preserve the tape I actually used the editing equipment and like snipped out that little half second or a second when he did that and stitched it back together. So, it just kind of looks like a glitch in the tape and I’m like, “Look at this.” And it was like no. This is no longer usable, you know. And so we had to destroy the tape.

Quote 6: It’s pretty outrageous that SeaWorld would claim there was no expecting Tilikum to come out of the water because they had witnessed him coming out of the water and it’s written into his profile. He lunges at trainers.

Quote 7: Dorsal collapse happens in less than 1 percent of wild killer whales. We know this. All of the captive males, 100 percent have collapsed dorsal fins.

Quote 8: You got animals from different cultural subsets that have been brought in from various parks. These are different nations. These aren’t just two different killer whales. These animals they’ve got different genes, they use different languages.

Quote 9: Can you imagine being IN a small concrete enclosure for your life, when you’re used to swimming 100 miles a day?

Quote 10: I think it was 1988, Kandu trying to assert her dominance over Corky rammed Corky. It fractured her jaw, which cut an artery in her head, and then she bled out. And that’s got to be a hard way to go down.

Quote 11: I actually started at SeaWorld like five days after that event occurred. And we didn’t — we weren’t told much about it, other than it was trainer error. And, you know, especially when you’re new into the program, you don’t really question a whole lot.

Quote 12: I have seen animals come out at trainers. I have seen people get slammed.

Quote 13: Well, all I know is the public relations version of it. He was a young man that had been arrested not long before he snuck into SeaWorld. Maybe he climbed the barbed-wire fence around the perimeter and stayed after hours.

Quote 14: He was not detected by the night watch trainers who were presumably at that station.

Quote 15: One of the employees, I don’t know if it was a physical therapist or somebody, was coming in, in the morning, and there was Tilikum with a dead guy, a dead naked guy on his back, kind of parading him around the back pool. The public relations spin on this was that he was kind of a drifter and died of hypothermia, but the medical examiner reports were more graphic than that. For example, Tilikum stripped him, bit off his genitals. There was bite marks all over his body.

Quote 16: Tilikum was in the back pool, set up to do a Dine with Shamu performance with Dawn.

Quote 17: There seemed to be a point in the session where things went south, so to speak, and in my humble opinion, it was at that missed bridge, whistle bridge on the perimeter pec wave.

Quote 18: My interpretation is that he didn’t hear the whistle.

Quote 19: The animals can sense when you’re getting to the bottom of your bucket of fish, because they can hear the ice clanging around and the kind of fishy soupy water at the bottom, and the handfuls of fish that they’re getting delivered by the trainer are all getting smaller. So they know that they’re coming down to the end of session.

Quote 20: Then she walked around the perimeter of G-pool. He followed her. And then continued over into the rocky ledge area, where she laid down with him to do a relationship session, which is quiet time basically.

Quote 21: The ponytail in all likelihood is just a tale. The safety spotter, who apparently didn’t actually see the takedown, came up with that.

Quote 22: This is a multibillion-dollar corporation that makes its money through the exploitation of orcas.

Note: This isn’t everything Ventre said, I’ve just listed what I’m referring to in my rebuttal.
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Reason 9

Voice of Ms. Berg over Film showing female trainer riding a whale… This sequence misleads the audience into believing that Ms. Berg is the trainer depicted as riding the whale.

We’ve already established that Blackfish employs cinematography in the absence of available footage, as does SeaWorld in its promotional videos, therefore SeaWorld cannot be critical of the use of such methods without being hypocritical.

It’s also rather insulting to the audience for SeaWorld to claim the “sequence misleads the audience into believing that Ms. Berg is the trainer depicted as riding the whale”, when Berg’s face is shown multiple times before this clip and is easily distinguishable throughout the film. It’s not difficult to realise Sam and the women riding the whale are two different people. Plus, the difference in video quality from when Sam was a trainer and the clip in question is another aspect which gives the game away.

Determination: Hypocritical

Reason 10

Interview of George Tobin, who states that Tilikum ate Ms. Brancheau’s arm. This is false. Tilikum did not eat Ms. Brancheau’s arm; The Coroner’s Report is clear that Ms. Brancheau’s entire body, including her arm was recovered.

SeaWorld criticises Blackfish when it uses cinematography and they also criticise Blackfish when it uses raw footage… how is that fair?

It’s true that Tilikum did not eat Brancheau’s arm but that mistake stems from Tobin. Had Blackfish edited one of the few examples of raw footage it has, it would’ve likely been criticised just as severely. In fairness, Blackfish made no attempt to correct Tobin’s mistake so I can somewhat agree with this point.

Determination: Agree & Hypocritical

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