 Julie Fletcher / Orlando Sentinel file via AP |
SeaWorld trainer Dawn Brancheau is shown while performing on Dec. 30, 2005. Brancheau was killed during an encounter with an orca at SeaWorld on Wednesday. |
Experts on marine mammals say that dolphins – including “killer whales,” which are more properly called orcas – rank among the most intelligent species on the planet. So what was that orca thinking when he dragged his human trainer into the water and killed her?
“I have no way of knowing what the whale had in mind,” Richard Ellis, a marine conservationist at the American Museum of Natural History, told The Associated Press. “But I can tell you that killer whales, because they’re supposed to be so intelligent, don’t do things accidentally. This was not an insane, uncontrollable act. This was premeditated. And the whale, for whatever whale reasons, did this intentionally.”
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