SeaWorld’s “69 Reasons you Shouldn’t Believe Blackfish” – My Rebuttal – Page 2

Reason 11

John Jett: OSHA’s conclusion to halt waterwork with killer whales “will have a ripple effect through the whole industry,” and various clips are used to imply that SeaWorld only suspended waterwork after being cited by OSHA and as a result of public outrage. Film incorrectly states that OSHA stopped the waterwork at SeaWorld.

For the film to “incorrectly state that OSHA stopped the waterwork at SeaWorld”, the film would firstly have to state that, which it doesn’t. Regardless of whether SeaWorld stopped waterworks before OSHA’s ruling or not is relevant. SeaWorld’s decision to stop waterworks was only ever supposed to be temporary. They fought to get their trainers back in the water and it failed. OSHA made the waterwork ban (during performances) permanent, not SeaWorld.

It’s also important to note that two months earlier, when Alexis Martinez was killed at Loro Parque by a SeaWorld orca, SeaWorld only stopped waterworks at its parks for a few days. There was no OSHA investigation following the death of Alexis Martinez, or much public attention, indicating OSHA’s investigation did have an impact on SeaWorld’s decision before it announced the citation.

Determination: Lie & Hypocritical

Reason 12

Film implies, through David Duffus (“it’s not a singular event”) and Howard Garrett (“Without missing a beat they went from Washington to Iceland and began capturing there”), that SeaWorld continues to capture whales in the wild. This implication is false. SeaWorld has not captured whales in nearly 34 years. The last such collection by SeaWorld took place in 1979.

Duffus’ statement (“it’s not a singular event”) refers to the attack on Dawn Brancheau, not wild captures. There is absolutely no implication that SeaWorld continues to capture whales to this day. Blackfish includes “39 years earlier” for a reason. Any viewer with half a brain cell would be able to recognise what is discussed next will be in the past. If Blackfish wanted to imply that SeaWorld continues to capture whales to this day the director wouldn’t have included this important detail.

Determination: Invalid / Debunked

Reason 13

Garrett states: “They [SeaWorld] were finally ejected from the state of Washington by a court order in 1976.” This is false. There is no court order ejecting or banning SeaWorld from the State of Washington. To the contrary, the court dismissed the case because of a stipulated settlement between the parties in which SeaWorld voluntarily agreed not to exercise its rights under the valid permit issued to SeaWorld by the State of Washington to capture whales.

SeaWorld have a fair point here. There is no court order ejecting them from the State of Washington, however such an order came very close to becoming a reality. As SeaWorld notes, the court dismissed the case because of a stipulated settlement between the parties that required the company to “not exercise its right under Permit 22 or successor permits to take any killer whales within the waters of the State of Washington.”. When initially presented with this condition (and two others), SeaWorld refused, and were only persuaded to agree to the conditions by the threat of being taken back to court.

Ultimately, it was due to public outcry and ongoing legal action that SeaWorld chose to no longer operate in Washington State waters and began capturing killer whales in Iceland instead. They did not decide to stop capturing whales in the U.S out of the goodness of their heart. They were influenced to do so by multiple PR damaging factors.

Determination: Agree & Invalid / Debunked

Reason 14

Discusses training technique of punishing whales by food deprivation. The Film implies that all institutions with captive whales, including SeaWorld, use this technique. For example, later in the Film, when discussing the incident involving Dawn Brancheau, the issue of food is brought up (1:08:47. 1:09:13) (the sound of ice at the bottom of the bucket means that food is running out) with the misleading implication that SeaWorld deprived Tilikum of food or otherwise used a deprivation type of training technique. This implication is false.

This another example of SeaWorld misleading its audience into believing something is implied by Blackfish when it’s not. The film never once “implies that all institutions with captive whales, including SeaWorld” use food deprivation. The only cast members who talk about food deprivation are former Sealand employees when discussing the practices that were used at Sealand of the Pacific. SeaWorld claiming that the former employees were implying that at all institutions use food deprivation is another blatant lie.

As for the example SeaWorld provides, the former SeaWorld trainers were describing the details in the video they watched. Buckets cannot hold infinite amounts of fish; of course, the food in the bucket was going to run out eventually. Tilikum would’ve been more than aware of this which could’ve contributed to the change in his behaviour, thus causing the former trainers to deem it significant enough to discuss. Describing a detail and accusing SeaWorld of depriving Tilikum of food are two very different things, of which SeaWorld tries to manipulate to play the victim. It’s pathetic. It really is.

Determination: Lie

Reason 15

Further discussion of food deprivation at Sealand of the Pacific.

Why is this listed as “misleading and/or inaccurate content”? This “reason” is evidence of the fact SeaWorld acknowledged that Blackfish talks about food deprivation when discussing Sealand of the Pacific, not SeaWorld, or any other institution for that matter. Despite this acknowledgment, they still go on to claim “the film implies that all institutions with captive whales, including SeaWorld, use this technique [food deprivation].” It’s a blatant lie and they know it.

Determination: Lie & Invalid / Debunked

Reason 16

David Duffus is identified as “OSHA Expert Witness, Whale Researcher.” Duffus lacks requisite expertise to opine about the behaviour of whales in captivity.

The fact that Blackfish identified David Duffus as an “OSHA Expert Witness” and “Whale Researcher” is not misleading or inaccurate. Judge Welsch accepted Dave Duffus as OSHA’s expert witness, and Duffus is a whale researcher. Those are both facts. I’ve gone through everything Duffus said in Blackfish and not a single statement required him to be an expert in the behaviour of captive whales to say accurately. This is due to the fact Duffus doesn’t talk about the behaviour of whales in captivity. The closest he comes to it is when he describes what Kasatka did to Ken Peters. Describing (quite basically) what happened in a video does not require expertise in the behaviour of whales in captivity.

Determination: Invalid / Debunked

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Evidence:
Quote 1: In surplus of the OSHA case (inaudible…) Stay out of proximity with the animals and you won’t get killed.

Quote 2: The situation with Dawn Brancheau, it didn’t just happen, it’s not a singular event, you have to go back over 20 years to understand this…

Quote 3: Sealand closed, well it’s probably a good thing, I mean it was a little pond and I think the owner made the right decision for whatever reasons. I don’t believe he’s a bad guy, a bad man, I think he was shocked by the (inaudible) too.

Quote 4: There’s no big law suits afterwards and there’s no memorial. The only thing remaining of Keltie Bryne is what’s left in the folk’s minds who recall the case.

Quote 5: There’s a bit of smoke and mirrors going on, one of the fundamental facts is that none of the witnesses were clear about which whale pulled Keltie in.

Quote 6: The first nation’s people and, you know, fishermen from the coast, they call them blackfish. They’re an animal that possesses great spiritual power and they’re not to be meddled with. I spent a lot of time around killer whales. They’re always in charge. I never get out of the boat. I never mess with them. The speed and the power is quite amazing. Rules are the same as (inaudible) one foot on the floor at all times. Even after seeing them thousands of times. You see them and you still, you know, wake up.

Quote 7: For some reason, the whale just took a different approach to what it was going to do with a very senior, very experienced trainer, Ken Peters, and dragged him to the bottom of the pool and held him in the bottom, let him go, picked him up, took him down again. And these periods he was taken down were pretty close to the mark, you know, a minute, a minute 20. When he was at the surface, he didn’t panic. He didn’t thrash. He didn’t scream. Maybe he’s just built that way, but he stroked the whale. And the whale let go of one foot and grabbed the other. That’s a pretty deep pool. And he took him right down.

I think that’s to two atmospheres pressure. Apparently, Mr. Peters is an experienced scuba diver. And I think that knowledge probably contributed to how he was able to be hauled down there that quickly and stay calm and know what to do. He knew what he was doing because when — you can see him actually in the film. The depth is so good, you can see him ventilating. You can see him ventilating really hard. So, he knows about swimming and diving and being underwater. He may have been assuming he was going under again. I did not walk away unimpressed by his calm demeaner during that whole affair. I would be scared shitless. He was near to the end. Presumably, Ken Peters had a relationship with this whale. Maybe he did. And maybe that’s what saved him, but Peters got the whale to let him go. And they strung a net across, and Ken Peters pulled himself over the float line, swam like a demon to a slide-out because the whale was coming right behind him. The whale jumped over it and kept right after him. He tried to stand up and run, of course, but his feet were damaged. He just fell. He scrambled. And they take this as a prime example of their training working. And they say, well, just stand back and stay calm. And that did work. They claim this is a victory of how they do business, and maybe so, but it can also be interpreted as a hair’s breadth away from another fatality.

Quote 8: Those were SeaWorld’s whales. They were trained using SeaWorld’s techniques, and their training was being supervised at the time of the fatal accident by one of their senior trainers from San Diego.

Quote 9: For somebody to get up and say in a court of law they have no knowledge of the linkages between SeaWorld and this park in Tenerife, well, either she doesn’t know and is telling the truth, or it’s just a boldfaced lie.

Quote 10: Evulsion, laceration, abrasion, fractures, fractures and associated haemorrhages, blunt-force traumas to the main body, to the extremities. To see this beating against a trainer, and I cannot fathom the reason, is shocking. The lawyer for OSHA asked me what I thought we’d learned, and I’m sitting in the courtroom, and I’ve got the Keltie Byrne case file in one hand, and I’ve got Dawn Brancheau in the other, and they’re almost to the day 20 years apart. And I’m looking at these two things and my only answer is, “Nothing. The fact is not a damn thing. We have not learned a damn thing for something like that to happen 20 years apart.”

Quote 11: I feel sad for Tilikum. A regal thing like him swimming around a tank with his fin flopped over like that, you know, compared to a wild bull killer whale that size, which is one of the most kinetic and dynamic things you can imagine. I feel sad when I see him.
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Reason 17

Interview of Corrine Cowelle and Nadine Kallen, interspersed with interview of David Duffus. Cowelle/Kallen purport to provide eyewitness account of Keltie Byrne incident, stating unequivocally (22:08) that Tilikum went after Byrne while the other two whales “kind of circled around”… Contrary to the account of Cowelle/Kallen in the film, Duffus and his fellow jurors did not find that Ms. Byrne was pulled into the pool by a whale, that Tilikum was the instigator, or that Tilikum was otherwise more to blame than the other two whales for the death of Keltie Byrne.

Dave Duffus quite literally says before Kallen’s comment that “none of the witnesses were clear about which whale pulled Keltie in”. This indicates to the audience to take what Cowelle/Kallen say lightly. Ultimately, it’s the witnesses that have the potential to mislead the audience and Blackfish counteracts this by including Duffus’s comment to ensure the audience are not misled. How can SeaWorld complain about that?

Additionally, it’s stupid on SeaWorld’s part to constantly refer to the Coroner’s Inquest to criticise the film as Blackfish and the Coroner’s Inquest did not have access to the same witnesses. The Coroner’s Inquest had no access to eyewitnesses who claim it was Tilikum who pulled Keltie Byrne in, unlike Blackfish. Therefore, the Coroner’s Inquest and Blackfish are unlikely to come to the same conclusion – this is not a valid reason to criticise the film.

Determination: Invalid / Debunked

Reason 18

Cowelle/Kallen: “No one ever contacted us. There was an inquest. No one ever asked us to say what happened.”

This is true. SeaWorld literally provides evidence for this being true including “Ms. Cowelle nor Ms. Kallen were called to testify under oath at the 1991 Coroner’s Inquest.” Why is the on a document pointing out “inaccuracies” in Blackfish when it’s true?

Determination: Invalid / Debunked

Reason 19

Cowelle/Kallen: “So, in the newspaper articles the cause of death was that she accidently drowned, but she was pulled under by the whale.” This account, which implies both a cover-up and that one whale (Tilikum) was to blame, is inconsistent with the official Verdict of the Coroner’s Jury, of which Duffus was the foreman, which found that Ms. Byrne drowned as the result of “forced submersion by killer whales.”

Whether the statement implies a cover up is debatable. The more immediate implication is that there were some inaccuracies in the initial newspaper reports which is highly likely and common. However, I do agree with SeaWorld when they say that Kallen’s statement implies only one whale was to blame.

Determination: Agree & Invalid / Debunked

Reason 20

Duffus: You know there’s a bit of smoke and mirrors going on. One of the fundamental facts is that none of the witnesses were clear about which whale pulled Keltie in… Duffus implies here that a particular “whale pulled Keltie in” however, Duffus’ own verdict as foreman in the Coroner’s Inquest was that Ms. Byrne fell into the pool, and was not “pulled in”

Regardless of whether she initially fell in the pool or was pulled in, the whales intervened when Keltie attempted to exit the pool. There had to have been some pulling action at some point for Keltie to have been moved away from the edge of the pool. Duffus does not make it clear whether he is talking about the first potential instance of pulling or the second, so SeaWorld just assumes he’s referring to the first instance without any evidence to back this assumption…

Determination: Invalid / Debunked

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