SeaWorld is challenging a ban that has limited interactions between trainers and the killer whales that are the stars of the entertainment giant’s shows.
The company has challenged the ban, which was imposed by the Labor Department after the February 2010 death of Orlando trainer Dawn Brancheau, in federal court. The Occupational Safety and Health Administration investigated Brancheau’s death and found that SeaWorld was “willfully” violating safety laws that require employees be kept from “recognized hazards,” according to USA Today.
SeaWorld believes that Administrative Law Judge Ken Welsch handed down a penalty based on OSHA’s report was too tough. Welsch had actually downgraded “willful” to “serious,” but he still fined the company $7,000. He also put a stop to “close contact” between trainers and the killer whales.
CNN reports that the ban has put the park’s survival in danger. “SeaWorld offers the public an opportunity to observe humans' interaction with killer whales,” the complaint reads. “This brings profound public educational benefit, is integral to SeaWorld's care of the whales, and responds to an elemental human desire to know, understand, and interact with the natural world.”
For its part, OSHA said that the very fact that SeaWorld has continued to exist since 2010 suggests that the park does not need to rely on the kind of interaction that lead to Brancheau’s death.
OSHA has also cited several other dangerous incidents with killer whales. Captive killer whales have killed four people - the one that killed Brancheau had killed a trainer in Canada in 1991.
SeaWorld has been under mounting criticism since a 2006 incident of a near-death experience with a whale surfaced last year and a documentary called Blackfish was released. The documentary, which looks at the history of killer whales and other accidents, aired on CNN.
image: Wikimedia Commons
