The Killer Whale that Killed
Witness History
BBC
4.4 • 1.6K Ratings
🗓️ 7 February 2017
⏱️ 9 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
On February the 20th 1991, the captive bull orca, Tilikum, drowned his trainer, Keltie Byrne at Sealand of the Pacific in British Columbia, Canada. It was the first recorded killing of a human by an orca whale. 19 years later - almost to the day - Tilikum killed another trainer, Dawn Brancheau. Rebecca Kesby has been speaking to Corinne Cowell, an eye witness to the first killing, and biologist Eric Walters, the whale trainer who warned the authorities 2 years before that keeping orcas in captivity could be fatal.
(PHOTO: SeaWorld orca Tilikum performs at SeaWorld Orlando in Florida, in 2009. REUTERS)
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello and |
| 0:05.0 | today we head back to 1991 to Canada and the first recorded killing of a human |
| 0:10.0 | and the first recorded killing of a human by an orca or killer whale. |
| 0:15.0 | It's February the 20th, 1991, and art student Corinne Cowell and her two friends |
| 0:22.0 | have decided to visit |
| 0:23.2 | Sea Land of the Pacific in Victoria, British Columbia. |
| 0:26.9 | They've gone to watch a display of orcas. |
| 0:29.6 | It's the first time she's ever seen a whale, |
| 0:32.2 | but the size of the pool in which the creature is |
| 0:34.6 | expected to perform tricks troubles her. They're so amazing to see up close they're |
| 0:40.4 | just awe-inspiring beautiful, beautiful creatures and |
| 0:43.7 | honestly I couldn't believe that they had these enormous creatures in that tiny little |
| 0:48.4 | pool. I mean it was longer than the length of a whale but not massively so it was a very small |
| 0:55.1 | space. As the show finished and the audience began to disperse Karin and her |
| 0:59.6 | friends stayed to watch the trainers packing up. One of them was Kelty Byrne, a 21-year-old |
| 1:05.9 | marine biology student and champion swimmer. What Corinne saw next was terrifying. |
| 1:12.4 | I don't know why she was inside the guardrail but she |
| 1:16.2 | was just walking along the edge and she slipped and so she went into the pool but |
| 1:22.2 | it didn't seem like a horrible thing. |
| 1:25.3 | And she got mostly out, like she was basically up on the edge again, but her leg was still |
| 1:31.6 | hanging over. And the whale came up and just grabbed her |
| 1:36.6 | foot and pulled her back in and it was so calm like it wasn't menacing it wasn't |
... |
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