Occupational Health & Safety: OSHA has won the appellate case involving its enforcement case against SeaWorld of Florida LLC following the death of killer whale trainer Dawn Brancheau on Feb. 24, 2010. A 2-1 decision issued April 11 by a panel of three judges of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit found that SeaWorld "recognized its precautions were inadequate to prevent serious bodily harm or even death to its trainers and that the residual hazard was preventable."
2 comments:
Personally, I am a mixed bag on the terms of Sea World. On one hand, it's a beautiful park where you can witness magnificent beasts that you wouldn't normally see, even if you went on a whale watch. On the other hand, though, the owners are entrapping the animals in a smaller tank than they would normally live in. Whales like these travel miles and miles each day, and I'm morally against keeping them in tanks such as these. Nevertheless, this situation is very specific, and I'm glad OSHA decided to go ahead and prosecute. That industry is very specific, and although I'm not involved with it, I think that it needs to have some more concrete regulations in order to prevent this situation from happening again.
It's great that this has caught so many people's eyes and, in turn, made OSHA act on it. However, their solution is not the one that I was hoping for. With the case of Tilikum, he is an orca that has been in activity for a long time, being moved around from attraction to attraction, and has a history of violence towards trainers. Simply heightening security and safety around the whales will not impact the whales' health or mental state. It is a crime for Sea World to hold these animals captive in such small enclosures without interaction from their own pod, and without the freedom that they need. I am not against animals in captivity, so long as the captivity is surfing the purpose of rehabilitating injured wild animals, or animals that would not be able to survive without the care of humans. These whales are not thriving in captivity, and are suffering from any and all actions Sea World has made in "attempts" to help keep the whales and the employees "safe".
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