Before he killed Ms. Brancheau, Tilikum, who weighs 12,000 pounds, was involved in the death of a trainer at a marine park in Canada in 1991. The next year SeaWorld bought Tilikum and brought him to Orlando. But trouble appeared to follow. In 1999, park employees found a dead man draped across Tilikum’s back in the pool. The man had hidden from security personnel after the park closed and entered the pool somehow. He died of hypothermia, and Tilikum’s role in the death was undetermined.

Koontz said the breeding program enriches the lives of the whales "by allowing them to experience, interact with and help raise another member of their pod." Kalia, he said, was artificially inseminated but also had relations with a male whale, Ulises. http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2014-04-29/features/sns-rt-us-usa-orca-seaworld-20140429_1_killer-whale-kasatka-seaworld Orcas' brains contain structures that human brains do not have. Ken Balcomb of the Center for Whale Research states that the part of the orca brain that integrates information is much greater proportionally than that of humans, and that "the recent discovery that cetaceans have a special type of cell (called a spindle cell) previously found only in humans and the great apes implies that they aren't just intelligent: Those cells are associated with our deeper emotions and social bonds." http://www.lexisnexis.com/hottopics/lnacademic/ The OSHA rule followed the Feb. 24, 2010, death of Dawn Brancheau, a trainer