'Blackfish' Orca Dies: How Tilikum Compares to Wild Cousins

The killer whale "Tilikum" performs in a present at SeaWorld on March 30, 2011, in Orlando, Florida.

Credit score: Gerardo Mora/Getty Photographs

Tilikum, a 36-year-old killer whale greatest identified in recent times from the documentary "Blackfish," died in the present day (Jan. 6), in line with SeaWorld.

The male orca was concerned in three human deaths throughout his roughly 34 years in captivity, together with the 2010 killing of SeaWorld coach Daybreak Brancheau. The occasion was made well-known by 2013's "Blackfish," which criticized SeaWorld for its dealing with of the incident.

"Blackfish" was additionally massively influential in altering public notion of protecting orcas in captivity. In March 2016, after nice public backlash, SeaWorld introduced it was ending its orca breeding program, making the 22 people presently held in Orlando, San Antonio and San Diego the group's final technology. [Orca Gallery: See Gorgeous Photos of Killer Whales]

However what of the whale Tilikum himself? Here is how he stacked up towards his wild kin:

Age: Roughly 36

Life span within the wild: Based on the Nationwide Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, male orcas usually dwell about 30 years within the wild, however can typically survive for as much as 50 or 60 years. (Females dwell longer, with typical life spans of round 50 years and outliers who can dwell for as much as a century.)

Size: 22.6 toes (6.9 meters)

Most size within the wild: 32 toes (10 m) for males, 28 toes (eight.5 m) for females. (Based on SeaWorld, Tilikum was on the excessive aspect of common size for an Icelandic killer whale, which is the area the place the orca was captured, in 1983. The common size for a wild Icelandic orca is between 19 and 22 toes, or 5.eight and 6.7 m.)

Weight: 12,500 lbs. (5,600 kilograms)

Most weight within the wild: 22,000 lbs. (10,000 kg) for males, 16,500 lbs. (7,500 kg) for females

Time with mom: Roughly two years. Tilikum was captured together with two different juvenile whales off the coast of Iceland in 1983 and transported to a marine zoo in Reykjavík, Iceland, earlier than being purchased by Sealand of the Pacific, a now-defunct marine park in Canada. He was concerned within the loss of life of a part-time coach at that park in 1991, in line with reporting by Exterior journal. After that, Tilikum was transferred to SeaWorld.

Time with mom within the wild: A long time, if not for all times. Orca pods are matrilineal, which signifies that little children stick with their moms for a lifetime. That is true of most resident killer whales, that are teams that keep in a single area. Some killer whales are transient, nevertheless, and journey lengthy distances in smaller teams, and even solo. Even transient males often stick with their moms, although, in line with the conservation group Wild Whales; when one male orca is solo, it often means his mom has died. Male killer whales do not attain full sexual maturity till about age 25, in line with the Heart for Whale Analysis.

Weight loss program: Between 1 % and three.5 % of his physique weight in herring, smelt and squid per day, in line with SeaWorld. For a giant whale like Tilikum, that interprets to between 125 and 438 lbs. (57 and 199 kg) per day.

Weight loss program within the wild: The diets of killer whales fluctuate by area, in line with NOAA. The animals might eat something from seabirds to seals to fish to different whales.

Human deaths related to Tilikum: Three. Tilikum was considered one of three orcas in a tank at Sealand of the Pacific in 1991 when a part-time coach named Keltie Byrne fell into the enclosure. The three attacked and drowned her. In 1999, at SeaWorld Orlando, a person named Daniel Dukes entered Tilikum's tank after closing; it is not identified whether or not Tilikum killed Dukes, however the man was discovered drowned, mutilated and draped over the whale the following morning. Most notoriously, Tilikum dragged SeaWorld coach Brancheau into the water after a present in February 2010, inflicting the girl's loss of life by drowning and trauma.

Human deaths from killer whales within the wild: None

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