A “killer whale” named Kasatka attacked a trainer during a show at San Diego’s SeaWorld last night. Apparently, the orca grabbed trainer Ken Peters and pulled him twice to the bottom of the tank, breaking his foot. From Reuters:
SeaWorld’s vice president of zoology, Mike Scarpuzzi, said the incident happened when female orca Kasatka was supposed to shoot out of the water upright so that the trainer could dive off her nose.
Instead, Kasatka grabbed the trainer’s foot and dived to the bottom of the 36-foot-(11-metre-)deep tank, Scarpuzzi said. They surfaced less than a minute later, but she ignored other trainers’ signals to draw her to the side.
The orca dived a second time with the trainer for about a minute. The trainer “stayed calm and calmed the whale down. He gently rubbed the whale, stroked her back,” and she let go, Scarpuzzi said.