Sea World Expected to Permit Trainers in Whale Tanks Again

Sea World animal trainers, who in December were prohibited from entering tanks alongside the park’s giant killer whales, could be back in the water by the end of the month, Sea World of San Diego President Robert Gault said Thursday.

Trainers were ordered out of the tanks at parks in San Diego, Ohio and Florida when William Jovanovich, chairman of Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, Sea World’s corporate parent, seemingly pledged that trainers would “never again enter” the pools.

Newly formulated safety procedures could allow trainers at Sea World in San Diego to return to killer whale tanks late this month, when the park begins a yearlong 25th anniversary celebration with a new killer whale show, according to Gault, a long-time Sea World executive who became president of the San Diego park in November.

However, “there’s no sense of urgency, and there’s no schedule for returning trainers to the tanks,” Gault said Thursday.

“But we are interested in doing it in a relatively short period of time,” he said.

Sea World banned trainers from entering the water with the whales after the park disclosed that San Diego trainers had been involved in 14 accidents, some of which produced severe injuries.

San Diego Sea World President Jan Schultz, chief trainer David Butcher and marine biologist Lanny Cornell were fired in the wake of the disclosure.

When killer whale trainers do return to the water, they will do so under severe restrictions, Gault said.

Only trainers with suitable experience will enter the tanks, and only with “an animal that we’re comfortable with,” Gault said.

“There will be some procedures where a trainer will be in the water and others where they will not be in the water,” he said.

By the end of next week, three of the seven whales that have been in San Diego will have been shipped to parks in Ohio and Texas. That will leave the San Diego park with four whales: Orky, Corky, Shamu and Kandu. Orky was the whale involved in a highly publicized accident Nov. 21 that left a trainer hospitalized with serious injuries.

The transfers “will get our (whale) population down to a more manageable size,” according to Gault. With the smaller population, Sea World’s remaining whales should behave with “more predictability and consistency,” according to Gault.

In addition to the smaller whale population, Sea World’s executives have spent the last three months “working on an evaluation of our training staff and their experience level,” Gault said. “We’ve been ensuring that we have the proper trainers” working with the large whales.

During the last month, trainers have returned to the water in Sea World’s dolphin and sea lion and otter shows. However, trainers have not been in the water with killer whales for training sessions or performances.