Julie Fletcher, Orlando Sentinel, MCT / Newscom As tragic as Sea World trainer Dawn Brancheau's death is, nobody should be surprised by it. Mansfield Frazier on the dangerous idiocy of putting nature's predators in watery zoos. 
 
 Maybe I’m missing something here, but they are called killer whales, aren’t they? Now, I know that some people are going to get pissed at me because I’m not all choked up and weepy over the death of 40-year-old Dawn Brancheau, who was just killed by an orca at Sea World. But there’s a lesson that needs to be learned here: Don’t imprison God’s creatures, even in watery zoos. 
 
 Of course I’m terribly sympathetic in regards to the ending of any human life too soon. But, on the other hand, when people flagrantly ignore the universal rules that govern the interactions between man and other creatures on the planet and fail to comprehend there will sometimes be a price to pay, I’m dumbfounded. 
 
 Orcas are feral animals, not like the domesticated ones God gave us dominion over. 
 
 This incident is being characterized by the folks at Sea World as an “accident,” which it certainly is not, since this particular orca, named Tilikum (isn’t that cute? they’re given names, just like pets!), has caused the death of two other humans in the past. Why? Because they don’t want the public waking up to the fact that such exhibits are inherently dangerous — and cruel to boot. They don’t want their meal tickets cancelled. 
 
 Orcas are feral animals, not like the domesticated ones God gave us dominion over. They are supposed to be swimming free in their natural environment, not imprisoned in a tank and reduced to mere things that folks pay to gawk at. And no matter how much “training” they receive, their nature can never be changed; they can always, like lions and tigers and bears, revert back to their instinctive behaviors where anything that is not of their species is either a threat … or lunch. 
 
 According to published reports, “In September 1906, William Hornaday, director of the Bronx Zoo in New York—with the agreement of Madison Grant, head of the New York Zoological Society—had Ota Benga, a Congolese pygmy, displayed in a cage with the chimpanzees, then with an orangutan named Dohong, and a parrot. The exhibit was intended as an example of the "missing link" between the orangutan and white man. It triggered protests from the city's clergymen, but the public reportedly flocked to see it.” 
 
 Man has been imprisoning other species for as long as there have been wars … and, yes, there is an evil connection between the two behaviors: Call it Karma, bad juju, call it whatever you want, but every now and then Mother Nature extracts her price. Dawn Brancheau just paid it. 
 
 Mansfield Frazier is a native Clevelander and former newspaper editor. His regular column can be seen on CoolCleveland.com. An avid gardener, he resides in the Hough neighborhood of Cleveland with his wife Brenda and their two dogs, Gypsy and Ginger. 
 
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 For inquiries, please contact The Daily Beast at editorial@thedailybeast.com. ||||| A Sea World trainer was killed in Orlando, Fla., Wednesday by a 'killer whale.' Animal rights groups say the tragedy shows why the giant orcas do not belong in theme parks. 
 
 Dan Brown, general manager of SeaWorld Adventure Park, speaks to the press today regarding a trainer who was killed at SeaWorld in Orlando, Fla., Wednesday, Feb. 24, 2010, by a killer whale. 
 
 The death of a veteran Sea World trainer in Orlando, Fla., Wednesday has spotlighted the campaign of several major animal rights groups to keep marine mammals out of theme parks altogether. 
 
 Dawn Brancheau was killed when a 12,300-lb. male orca “killer whale” grabbed her in front of an audience at the Orlando theme park. 
 
 Now, animal rights activists say that many questions should be asked in the wake of Ms. Brancheau's death. Sea World has said that the very same orca is responsible for human deaths in 1991 and again in 1999. The Humane Society of the United States has long campaigned for marine mammals to be removed from theme parks. 
 
 “These behemoths are denied all of their natural, instinctual inclinations, and we humans tend to think, ‘Well, this is just a bad animal.’ But it is a wild animal, used to running free in an entire ocean, but now confined to a very small space,” says Joyce Tischler, founder of and general counsel for Animal Legal Defense Fund. She compares an orca’s life in captivity in a tank to keeping a human being in a bathtub for his entire life. She says most Americans have romanticized notions of sea life perpetuated by such TV series as “Flipper.” But even dolphins are known to aggressively run their teeth down the backs of humans in hundreds of incidents that are not reported outside the conservation community press, she says. 
 
 SeaWorld closed its Orlando park immediately after the tragedy, and suspended its orca show in San Diego. “We've initiated an investigation to determine, to the extent possible, what occurred,” SeaWorld President Dan Brown said in a brief statement to reporters. 
 
 
 
 Ms. Brancheau had worked at the park since 1994. Mr. Brown said no SeaWorld park had ever before experienced a similar incident and pledged a thorough review of all of the park's standard operating procedures. 
 
 
 
 “This is an extraordinarily difficult time for the SeaWorld parks and our team members. Nothing is more important than the safety of our employees, guests, and the animals entrusted to our care," Brown said. “We extend our deepest sympathies to the family and friends of the trainer and will do everything possible to assist them in this difficult time.” 
 
 The orca is the largest member of the dolphin family and is known as a favorite at Sea World. Killer whales are a highly social species. 
 
 But “the vast majority of the orca whales in captivity would be far better off to be returned to the wild. Orcas are unbelievably ill-suited to life in theme parks and can be successfully returned to the wild. We know, because we have done it,” says David Phillips, director of the International Marine Mammal Project for the Earth Island Institute, who led the effort to rescue, rehabilitate, and release the killer whale Keiko, made famous in the movie “Free Willy.” “Orcas deserve a better fate than living in cramped pools. 
 
 Mr. Phillips recalls that Keiko went from languishing in small pool in Mexico City all the way to swimming with wild whales in his native waters in Iceland. He ended up swimming to Norway and living there in a bay with some human care until he died. Phillips says the public would be better served by seeing orcas in the wild and ensuring their protection there. 
 
 “This isn’t the first time that stressed-out orca whales have injured or killed people, and unfortunately, it is not likely to be the last,” says Phillips. “It is high time that the marine park industry get out of the captive orca business.” 
 
 Tisch takes on the argument most often given by defenders of such captivity: That it is educational and spotlights the need for conservation and protection of such creatures: “The people who run these theme parks are not interested in conservation or protection, they are interested in making money,” Tisch says. “I would be asking, ‘Why was this animal kept after the first death?’ ” 
 
 “This is a giant warning sign that society needs to rethink this question of holding large predators in captivity,” says Chris Palmer, author of “Shooting in the Wild,” a book about wild animals in captivity, who also teaches at American University. “Having a trainer killed this way can’t justify whatever benefits we get from conservation or protection.” 
 
 
 

– The death of a SeaWorld trainer is being met with the inevitable calls to free Willy, and end orca captivity once and for all. “These behemoths are denied all of their natural, instinctual inclinations,” one tells the Christian Science Monitor. “We humans tend to think, ‘Well, this is just a bad animal.’ But it is a wild animal.” The writing is on the wall, says another. “This isn’t the first time that stressed-out orca whales have injured or killed people, and unfortunately, it is not likely to be the last.” The blogosphere was also quick to weigh in on the issue, and few failed to point out that killer whales are called “killer whales.” Sea World says it “will conduct a thorough review of its procedures,” Joe Weisenthal writes on the Business Insider, but it should really “end these ridiculous spectacles once and for all.” Mansfield Frazier is more philosophical on the Daily Beast. “When people flagrantly ignore the universal rules that govern the interactions between man and other creatures on the planet and fail to comprehend there will sometimes be a price to pay, I’m dumbfounded.”