SeaWorld Restarts Killer Whale Show, Tillikum Won't Be Punished

Feb. 26, 2010— -- SeaWorld will resume killer whale shows Saturday, three days after the show's largest orca dragged a trainer underwater and killed her, the park's president said today.

Tillikum, the 12,000 pound whale that grabbed trainer Dawn Brancheau by her ponytail and held her underwater, will continue to be involved in SeaWorld shows and will not be "subject to punishment in any form," said Jim Atchinson, president of SeaWorld Parks and Entertainment.

Atchinson said SeaWorld had video of the attack, but would not describe details of the incident or wounds that Brancheau may have suffered.

He confirmed that Brancheau had been grabbed by her long ponytail, but would not say if her hair length or her interactions with the animal in the moments before her death violated park protocols.

He said trainers will not be permitted to swim with the animals until an independent review of Brancheau's death is completed.

Former trainers have said Brancheau likely broke protocol by putting her face so close to that of the whale and letting her hair brush the whale's face.

"He pulled her in by the ponytail," Thad Lacinak, former head trainer at SeaWorld and Brancheau's teacher, told "Good Morning America." "I'm pretty sure it was her breaking protocol. ... Sometimes we get too comfortable working with these animals. Sometimes we forget what they are."

Despite being connected to the deaths of two other people -- a Canadian trainer in 1991 and a man who snuck into SeaWorld in 1999 -- Atchinson said there is no intention to euthanize Tillikum and each of the three deaths were unrelated, isolated incidents.

"The events surrounding those other incidents that Tillikum was involved with are quite varied," he told reporters in Orlando. "Those incidents and the nature of them had nothing to do with this event… they were a very different circumstance and events."

Atchinson said the 22-foot whale, the largest of the company's 25 orcas, will continue to be displayed and appear in shows.