place and in thinking it through. partly because we know less overall about marine mammals than we know about certain terrestrial mammals because of the length of time we've been studying them. i don't know if you would agree with that. but it seems to me if you look at the the very best of the zoos, they are really in a different world in designing entire facilities. that the seaworld of 20 years from now will probably have significantly different conditions. >> and also the relationship between keeper and animal is like. it's not like this. they are participants. >> thanks to tim zimmerman and gary stafford. go to facebook or twitter to weigh in on our fireback question. would you take your kids to seaworld? right now, 39% of you say yes. 61% say no. >> the debate will continue online at cnn.com/crossfire as well as on facebook and twitter. from the left. i'm van jones.

>> on the right, i'm newt gingrich. www.vitac.com fire rescue? >> 6600 sea harbor drive, sea world stadium. >> okay. >> we actually have a trainer in the water with one of our whales, the whale they aren't supposed to be in the water with. >> we'll get somebody in route. >> gate number three sea world stadium. >> gate three.

>> sheriff's office. >> we need a respond to a dead person at sea world. a whale ate one of the trainers. >> a whale ate one of the trainers? >> that's correct. do you believe? >> my parents first brought me to a sea world park when i was very young. from that point forward, i was hooked. it meant everything to me because, you know, i never wanted anything more. >> i remember, you know, being probably in first or second

grade watching national gee graphic specials or specials and seeing whales and dolphins and as a little kid, just being really incredibly inspired to it. i never went to sea world. i grew up in new york so i went to the bronx zoo. >> i grew up around the ocean. >> i came from the middle of the country in flat land kansas. >> from virginia traveled down, did the theme park thing in orlando and i was 17. and saw the night show at the stadium music, and i was driven to want to do that. >> and i saw what the trainers did. and i said that's what i want to do. >> one of the trainers there, he goes what are you doing out there? you should be a trainer. i said i don't know how to train animals. i've never trained animals in my life. >> how do you prepare yourself with an encounter with an 8,000 pound orca. >> i thought you needed a masters degree in marine biology

to be a trainer. >> it takes years of study and experience to make the strict requirements necessary to interact in the water with shamu. >> come to find out, it is more about your personality and how good you can swim. >> i went and tried out and got the job right away. i was so, so excited. >> i really wanted to be there. i really wanted to do the job. i couldn't wait to get in the water with the animals. i really was proud of being a sea world trainer. i thought this was the most amazing job. >> i showed up there on my first day not really knowing what to expect. i was told to put on a wet suit and get in the water. >> hi, mom. >> i was scared out of my whits. >> first of all, i put my wet suit on backwards because i was raised on a farm in virginia. my first thought and memory of that time was that dolphins are a lot bigger than they look when you get in the water next to them.

>> well, i watched this show and this guy mike moracco comes out during the show with a dress on, as dorothy in a dress with the sea lion, the coward sea line and walking along with a basket and go i will never ever do that, you know. two months later, hi, i'm dorothy. walking out on stage with the sea lion. >> i was overwhelmed and i was so excited. i mean, just seeing a killer whale is breathe taking. >> i was just in awe. it's shocking to see how large they are and how beautiful they are. >> being, you know, in the presence of the killer whales was inspiring and amazing and i remember seeing them for the first time, not just being able to believe how huge they were. you're there because you want to

train killer whales and that's your goal. i didn't know it was going to happen, so i wasn't expecting it and one day they say okay, sam, you're ready to go. you're going to stand on the whale, you're going to dive off the whale. the whale will swim under you and pick you up again and you'll do a perimeter ride around the pool. they just told me to go do it and i did it. wow, i did -- i just rode a killer whale. >> when you look into their eyes, you know somebody is home. somebody is looking back. you form a very personal relationship with your animal. >> there is something absolutely amazing about working with an animal.

you are a team. and you build a relationship together, and you both understand the goal, and you help each other. >> i've been with this whale since i was 18 years old. i've seen her have all four babies. we've grown up together. >> that's the joy i got out of it is a relationship lake i never had. >> i have to know, are you nervous? >> no. >> nice hair. [ laughter ] >> jeff ventre will go over there. >> don -- >> that's don. >> wow.

>> i knew dawn when she was new. she was a great person to work with and obviously blossomed into sea world's best trainers. this is dawn brancheau, the senior training. >> i guess you can say i knew dawn in a past life. >> we do go through a lot of physical exertion. you do a lot of deep water work, breath holds, high-energy behavior. they are giving out energy, too, but we're working together and having fun. >> she's beautiful, blonde, athletic, friendly, everybody loves dawn. >> watching you perform yesterday, you are amazing. >> thank you. >> you really are. >> she captured what it means to be a sea world trainer. she had so much experience that it made me realize what happened to her really could have happened to anyone.

>> this is detective rivera with the sheriff's office. in the room with me is thomas george tobin is that correct? >> correct. >> did you see any blood in the water or anything like that? >> she was scalped and there was no blood. >> okay. >> so pretty much we knew then the heart wasn't beating. >> once they were able to pull her away, how did he let go? >> he didn't. >> he never let go -- >> of the arm. >> he swallowed it. >> so the arm is nowhere -- >> right. >> on behalf of the federal government, he is basically suggesting with orcas is dangerous and you can't predict the outcome when you enter the water or their environment. >> the crux of the case, stay out of the proximity of the animals ask you won't get killed.

>> it will have a ripple effect through the industry. this was national news. >> sea world whale performances may never be the same. >> they want to keep whale trainers in the water, something osha says is dangerous. >> these are wild animals and unpredictable because we don't speak whale. we don't spring whale, tiger, a monkey. >> tempers flared when osha's attorneys suggested sea world only made changes after dawn brancheau's death. >> they don't want trainers going back in the water without a physical barrier between them and the whales. >> being in close proximity between them is dangerous. >> they won't get on the water, riding, things like that. >> if you were in a bathtub for 25 years, don't you think you would get a little irritate, aggravated, maybe a little psychotic? >> the situation with dawn brancheau didn't just happen. it's not a singular event. you have to go back over 20

years to understand this. >> it was a really exciting thing to do until everybody wanted to do it. >> what were they telling you you were going to do? >> capture orcas. >> they had aircraft, spotters, speedboats, bombs they were throwing in the water. they were lighting their bombs with a settling torches and their boats and thoughing them as fast as they could to heard the whales into codes. but the orcas had been caught before, and they knew what was going on, and they knew their young ones would be taken from

them so the adults without young went east into a cul-de-sac and the boats followed them thinking they were going that way while the mothers with babies went north but the capture teams had aircraft and they have to come up for air eventually and when they did the capture teams alerted the boats and said no, they are going north, the ones with babies so the speedboats caught them there and herded them in. >> they had fishing boats with same nets that would stretch across so none could leave and then they could just pick out the young ones. >> we were only after the little ones, and the little ones, you know, big animal still but i was told because of shipping costs, that's why we only take the little ones. >> they had the young ones that they wanted in the corrals, so they dropped the same nets and

all the others could have left but they stayed. >> they were trying to get the young orca in the stretcher and the whole family is out here 25 yards away maybe in a big line communicating back and forth. well, you understand then what you're doing, you know. i lost it. i mean, i just started crying. i didn't stop working, but i, you know, just couldn't handle it. just like kidnapping a little kid away from a mother. everybody is watching, what can you do? but the worst thing i could think of, you know, i can't

think of any worse than that. you know, this really sounds bad but when the whole hunt was over, there were three dead whales in the net, and so they had peter and brian and i cut the whales open, fill them with rocks and put anchors on the tail and sink them. well, really, i didn't even think about it being illegal at that point. i thought it was a p.r. thing. >> they were finally ejected from the state of washington by a court order in 1976. it was sea world by name that was told do not come back to washington to capture whales. without missing a beat, they went from washington to iceland

and began capturing there. >> part of revolution and two change of presidents in central and south america and seen some things that it's hard to believe, but this is the worst thing that i've ever done is hunt that whale.

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sea land has been a part of victoria for over 20 years. we specialize in the care and display of killer whales. >> by the time i started he was four, he was up to 16 feet long and weighed 4,000 pounds. i had actually seen tilikum quite a number of times. he was right across the street here in victoria. all sea land was was a net hang income a marina with a float around it.

tilikum was the one we really loved to work with. he was very well behaved and he was always eager to please. >> when he was first introduced, everything went fine and dandy but the previous head trainer used techniques that involved punishment. he would team a trained orca with tilikum untrained and send them to do the same behavior. animals were punished. deprived of food. kept them hungry this caused a lot of frustration with the larger animal, established animal and would in turn get frustrated with tilikum and rake him with his teeth. >> there would be times during certain seasons that tilikum would be covered head to toe with rakes. rakes are teeth on teeth and raking you could see blood and scratches and he would just be raked up. >> both females would gang up on him. tilikum was the one we trusted. we never were concerned about tilikum.

the issue was we stored these whales at night in a modular 20 feet across and probably 30 feet deep. as a safety precaution because we were worried about cutting the net and letting them go and no lights out. so there is no stimulation, just in a dark metal 20 foot by 30 foot pool for 2/3rds of their life. >> when we first started, they were quite small and quite young so they fit in there quite nicely, but they were immobile for the most part. >> it didn't feel good. it just didn't. and it -- it was just wrong. >> we started having difficulty getting them all into this one small steel box, to be honest. that's what it was. it was a floating steel box. >> that's where food deprivation could come in. we would hold back food and they knew if they went in the modular they would get food so if they were hungry enough they went in

there. >> during the winter 5:00 at night until 7:00 in the morning. >> teeth rakes and blood. >> closing that door on him and knowing that he's locked in there for the whole night is like -- it's a stab. it's whoa. >> if that is true, it's not only inhumane and i'll tell them so but it probably led to what i think is a psychosis that he was on a hair trigger. >> an employee is dead after an encounter. >> at a canada park called sea land of the pacific. >> the victim was a championship swimmer and a part-time worker at sea land. >> as scene in this home video, rescuers used a huge net. >> efforts were hindered by the

agitated whales. >> i would like to use this summer but my moore immediate goal is to swim fast at nationals. >> it was sort of a cloudy gray day and we were looking for something to do, so we thought why not go to sea land? it was kind of like this dingy pool with whales. >> it just felt a little bit like an amusement park kind of on the last legs and everything was gray. >> yeah, it was like a swimming pool. >> yeah. >> three whales in a swimming pool. >> yeah. and they would come up and touch the ball, and there was -- i think there was some tail splashing and there was some -- >> jumping. >> with the fish -- >> they hold the fish in the whales jump up. i remember saying, oh, what a fun job, you know. she's so lucky.

and then i saw her walking with her rubber boots and she tripped and her foot just dipped into the edge of the pool and she lost her balance and fell in and she was pushing her way up to get out of the pool and the whale zoomed over, grabbed her boot and pulled her back in. at first, i didn't think it was that serious because you see -- you see the trainer in the pool with the whale and you think, oh, well, you know, the whales are used to that, you know, then all of a sudden it started getting -- there was more swimming, more activity, more thrashing and she was starting to get panicked and then as it progressed, you started to realize well, something is not right here. >> she started to scream. and she started looking around and her eyes were like bigger and bigger and realizing that i really am in trouble here. >> and then they would pull her under, and then they would come up and when she -- when they came up she would be help me, help me and they would take her down again. >> and she would be submerged

for several seconds up to, i don't know, maybe a minute. you don't -- you're not keeping track. >> so, you know, it was harder and harder for her to, you know, to, you know, get the air in because she was screaming and my sister remembers her saying i don't want to die. >> the family. >> that we couldn't help her. it was pretty watched. >> it closed. probably a good thing. 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 whole affair, too. >> the blush was gone from the business, and he decided that that was it, we should shut down. >> no one ever contacted us. there was an inquest. no one ever asked us to say what

happened. you know, we just left. >> there was no big lawsuits afterwards and there is no memorial and, you know, the only thing remaining of her is, you know, what's left in the folk's minds who recall the case. >> so in the newspaper articles, the cause of death is that she drowned accidently, but, you know, she was pulled under by the whale. >> well, there is a bit of smoke and mirrors going on. one of the fundamental facts is none of the witnesses are clear about which whale pulled her in. >> it was the large whale tilikum, the male is the one that went after her and the other two just kind of circled around but he was definitely the instigator and we know it was him because he had the flopped over fin. like it was very easy to tell. >> sea land of the pacific

closed its doors and was looking, i guess, to make a buck on the way out and these whales are worth millions of dollars. >> when sea world heard tilikum was available after this accident at sea land of the pacific, they really wanted tilikum because they needed a breeder. so i don't even think that anybody even was questioning like is this a good idea? >> my understanding of the situation was that tilikum and the others would not be use in shows. they would not be performance animals. our understanding of their behavior is it was such a highly stimulating event for them, they were likely to repeat it. >> we were young and sea cowboys and not so technical and we had this vision they knew more than us and they were better than us and tilikum would have a better pool and better life and better care and better food and be a great life for him. so it was like okay, tili, you're going to disneyland. lucky you.

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plus, free same-day delivery, set-up, and removal of your old set. when brands compete, you save. mattress price wars are on now at sleep train. ♪ your ticket to a better night's sleep ♪ intelligence may be superior to mans. as parents they are better than many human beings and like human being they have an instinct for vengeance. presents "orca". >> if you go back only 35 years, we knew nothing in fact less than nothing what the public had was superstition and fear.

>> a sight to the death. between the two most dangerous animals on earth. >> these were the vicious killer whales that, you know, had 48 sharp teeth that would rip you to shreds if they got a chance. >> what we learned is that they are amazingly friendly, and understanding and intuitively want to be your companion. >> are you recording this? [ laughter ] >> and to this day there is no record of an orca doing any harm to any human in the wild. ♪ >> they live in these big families, and they have life spans very similar to human life spans.

the females can live to about 100, maybe more. males to about 50 or 60, but the adult offspring never leave their mother's side. each community has a completely different set of behaviors. each has a complete vocalizations with no over lap. you can call them languages, the scientific community is reluctant to say any other animal uses languages than humans but there is every indication they use languages. >> the orca brain just screams out intelligence, awareness. we took this tremendous brain and put it in a magnetic residence imaging scanner. what we found was just astounding. they have a part of the brain that humans don't have, a part of their brain has extended out right adjacent to their system

that processes emotions. the safest inference would be these are animals that have highly elaborated emotional lives. it's becoming clear that dolphins and whales have a sense of self-, a sense of social bonding they have taken to another level, much stronger, much more complex than another -- other mammals, including humans. the fact they stand by each other. everything about them is social, everything. it's been suggested that their whole sense of self-is distributed among the individuals in their group. >> five of them. these orca are going to attack this sea lion. they have been breaking the ice off and swimming around and -- oh, here they come two of them

look. you can see them underneath. they made a big wave. look at that. big wave. oh, yeah. >> oh, god, no, no, no. >> if you can't watch the bullfight, you better leave. >> here they go, look at this, three of them. >> oh, god, oh, no, oh, god. >> it's all over. >> no, not yet. >> yeah, it's all over. it's all over. ♪ >> the old fishermen on the coast, they call them blackfish. they are an animal that possesses great spiritual power, and not to be mettled with. i've spent a lot of time around killer whales, and they are

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 the pool hall. keep one foot on the floor at all times. you can actually see them thousands of times. you see them and you still, you know, wake up. ñn

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he arrived, i think in 199. i was at whale and dolphin stadium when he arrived. he's twice as large as the next animal in the facility. >> right at about 12,000 pounds. incredible. looks fantastic. >> when tilikum arrived at sea world he was attacked viciously repeatedly by katina and others. in the wild it's a very mate society.

males are kept in the perimeter. in captivity, animals are squeezed into very close proximity. tilikum, the poor guy is so large he couldn't get away because he just is not as mobile, relative to the smaller and more feels. >> he spent time in isolation. sea world claims he's always with the females but from what i saw he was mostly put with the females for breeding purposes and he didn't spend a lot of time with the other whales. >> it's for his own protection, you know, he gets beat up, and so by segregating him, it provides a physical barrier so the females can't kick his butt. >> 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. >> hi. >> there we go. >> good boy. >> because because he was alone. maybe because he was hungry. maybe because he liked you. who knows what was going on in his head. >> want to whistle? >> yes? >> that was really loud. >> come on. >> 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. >> he, for me, was a joy. he really responded to me, and i, you know, every day i went to work, i was happy to see tili. >> that's cute. [ laughter ] >> you're being too cute. >> i never got the impression of him, while i was there, that,

you know, oh my god, he's the scary whale, not at all. >> maybe some of its just our naivety or whatever. because we weren't given the full details of keltie's situation. >> 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 odd at first was the way they were acting around this whale and what they told us seemed to be two different things. the first day he arrived, i remember a senior trainer, tilikum was in a pool and she was walking over a gate and had her wet suit unzipped tied around her waist and making cooing noises and tilikum, what a cute whale and play talking at him and one of the supervisors said get her out of there and just screamed at her like get her away from there like they were so worried something would happen and i remember thinking why are you guys making such a big deal out of this when he didn't actually kill her? well, clearly management thought there was some reason to exercise caution around him. clearly, they knew more than they were telling us. >> ladies and gentlemen, the next to be scene, you can only see right here at sea world. >> jeff was out in the audience filming one of the shamu shows. it was a perfect shoe. all the hot dog sequences, water sequences went off great. >> 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 time liz was wor tha editing equipme responsib mom

guest that was filming it.

>> at the very end of the show, liz was working tilikum and apparently tilikum lunged out of the water at her. >> and i had captured tilikum coming out of the water kind of turning side ways and appeared to me to try to grab liz and at that moment, the tape became unusable. i was just kind of basically instructed to get rid of the tape. ordinary rubs don't always work on my arthritis.

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wanting to kind of preserve the tape, i actually used the it's pretty outrageous sea world claimed kill tilikum would come out of the water and it's writ in a his profile. he lunges at trainers. >> shamu is a safe and comfortable habitat. >> natural behavior. >> i spewed out the party line during shows. i'm totally mortified now there is like something like, look at namu is not doing that because she has to. namu is doing that because she really wants to. oh my gosh. like some of the things i'm embarrassed by. so embarrassed by. at the time i think i could have convinced myself that the relationships that we had were built on something stronger than the fact that i'm giving them fish. you know, i liked to think that.

but i don't know that that's the truth. i had been there a while, and i had seen a few other things along the way that made me question why i was there and what we were doing with these animals. >> on november 4th, 1988, the killer whale at seaworld give a performance of a lifetime. ♪ don't miss this small miracle. come see our new baby shamu. >> i know it was naive of me, but i thought that it was our responsibility to do as much as we could to keep their family units together, since we knew that in the wild that's what happened. ♪ yes, sir that's our baby

>> kolina was the first baby shamu. >> baby shamu, seaworld's biggest star. >> she had become quite disrupting and challenging her mom and disrupting some shows and that kind of thing. ♪ she's got the whole place jumping shamu she's our baby whale ♪ >> it was decided that she would be moved to another park when she was just 4, 4 1/2 years old. to me it would never cross my mind that they might be moving the baby from her mom. the supervisors basically was kind of mocking me. oh, you're saying poor kolina. what's she going to do without her mommy? and that of course just shut me up. so the night of the move we had to deploy the nets to separate them and get kolina the baby into the pool. and she was generally a quiet

whale. she was not an overly vocal whale. after kolina was removed from the scene and taken to the airport and katina, her mom was left in the pool, she stayed in the corner of the pool, like literally shaking and screaming, screeching crying like i had never seen her do anything like that. and the other females in the pool maybe once or twice during the night would come out and check on her. and she would screech and cry, and they would just run back. there was nothing that you could call that watching it besides grief. >> those are not your whales. you know. you love them and you think, i'm the one that touches them, feeds them, keeps them alive, gives them the care that they need. they're not your whales. they own them. >> they were very close.

kasatka was the mother. takara is the calf. takara was special to me. they were inseparable. when they separated kasatka and takara it was to take takara to florida. once takara had been stretchered out of the pool, put on the truck, driven to the airport, kasatka continued to make vocals that had never been heard before. they brought in the senior research scientist to analyze the vocals. they were long range vocals. she was trying something that no one had even heard before looking for takara. that's heartbreaking. how can anyone look at that and think that that is morally acceptable. it's not.

it is not okay.

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standby. >> let's go live to seaworld where dan is joining us for a sneak peek. hi, dean. tell us about the new show. >> good afternoon, richard. the new show is whale and dolphin discovery. it shows the relationship that we have with all of our animals here. >> there's so many things that were told to us. they tell you so many times that you start believing it, you know. >> all the animals here get along very well. it's just like training your dog really. >> i was blind really. i was a kid. i didn't know what i was doing really. >> nice. good job. you did a real good job. ♪ >> this is david from maryland. go ahead and wave at everyone, david. >> i just really bought into what they told us. i learned to say what they told us to the audience. >> hello out there. children are some of shamu's biggest fans. >> i thought i knew everything about killer whales when i worked there and everything about the animals. i really know nothing about killer whales. i know a lot about being a

killer whale trainer, but i don't know anything about these animal's natural history or their behavior. i really in some ways believed a lot of what i was learning from them because why would they lie? >> because the whales in their pools die young, they like to say that all orcas die at 25 to 35 years. >> 25 to 35 years. >> they're documenting in the wild living to be about 35, mid 30s. it's longer in this environment because they have all the veterinary care. >> and of course that's false. we knew by 1980 after a half a dozen years after the research they live equivalent to human life spans and every other potentially embarrassing fact is twisted and turned and denied one way or another. >> like the floppy