Sea World Told HBJ in July About Fears Over Rising Injuries

Sea World officials expressed concern in July about an increase in injuries to animal trainers and submitted a “white paper” to higher corporate officials after a particularly severe injury, an industry source said Wednesday.

The report, an in-depth study of training methods used at the park, was read by William Jovanovich, chairman of Sea World’s corporate parent, Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, the source said. The report concluded that it was probably impossible to prevent all injuries to trainers.

Trainers continued to perform alongside Sea World’s killer whales until a highly publicized Nov. 21 accident seriously injured trainer John Sillick.

Injuries Hard to Control

On Tuesday, HBJ announced that, to “avoid the recurrence of the kind of accident that took place . . . Nov. 21,” Sea World trainers will no longer perform in the tanks with the whales.

Sea World’s July report indicated that injuries were hard to control “because of the gymnastics, mistakes by trainers and the aggressive nature of the animals themselves,” according to one aquatic-park industry source who saw the report.

Word of the “white paper” on escalating trainer injuries came as HBJ continued to maintain a wall of silence around the firing Tuesday of Sea World President Jan Schultz and the reported firings of three other employees, apparently as a result of the trainer injuries. The other three are chief trainer David Butcher, zoological director Lanny Cornell and public relations chief Jackie Hill.

Restricting its comments to a two-page statement issued Tuesday in which it said only that “certain” employees had been suspended, HBJ and Sea World executives refused Wednesday to confirm Schultz’s claim that he had been fired by HBJ Parks division President Jack Snyder. In an interview, Schultz said he had been made a “scapegoat” by William Jovanovich.

In a brief interview Wednesday, HBJ Executive Vice President Peter Jovanovich declined to comment on the Sea World issue.

‘Just a Book Publisher’

“I’m just a book publisher,” said Jovanovich, a San Diego resident and son of William Jovanovich. The younger Jovanovich runs HBJ’s San Diego-based publishing operation.

In a related development, a Sea World spokeswoman in Orlando, Fla., said Wednesday that Robert Galt, the president of Sea World’s park there, temporarily has taken over day-to-day operations at the San Diego tourist attraction, now enjoying its best attendance year ever. Galt began his Sea World career in San Diego several years ago and earlier served as president of Sea World’s Ohio park.

The top management shuffle was “a very radical action,” according to Bert L. Boksen, a St. Petersburg, Fla.-based industry analyst who follows HBJ. “It indicates more than just one (injury) incident.”

Boksen suggested that Sea World’s attendance probably would not suffer if trainers remained out of the water because “the whales are the main attraction.”

However, Sea World--which will open its fourth park in May in San Antonio and has been trying to develop Shamu as a cartoon character for a television show--”doesn’t need this (kind of publicity) now,” Boksen said.

Officials at Watson General, a La Jolla-based film producer that has signed a deal to produce the cartoons plus a feature-length film featuring Shamu, said their plans have not been affected by the adverse publicity.

Too Many Serious Injuries

The current controversy centers on what several industry sources have described as an abnormally high incidence of serious injuries during the last year or so at the San Diego park. Sea World’s Orlando and Ohio parks, however, have remained free of serious injuries, sources said.

The recent injuries included “four or five pretty heavy injuries” prior to Sillick’s Nov. 21 accident, which has left him with severe injuries to his ribs, pelvis and leg after one of the huge mammals landed on him as he rode on another whale. Sillick remains in fair condition at UC San Diego Medical Center.

Several sources said accidents increased after two killer whales were imported from Marineland, the now-defunct Rancho Palos Verdes theme park that HBJ acquired in late 1986.

Whale experts have offered several general explanations for why whales might become aggressive. The introduction of new whales, or a variety of other everyday occurrences, can turn a normally playful animal into one that had best not perform, said Sonny Allen, director of marine mammal training at Marine World Africa USA in Vallejo.

Some problems, such as diet, can be relatively straightforward and easy to adjust, Allen said. Others, such as the introduction of new animals into a relatively stable population, the sudden disappearance of a known trainer, or an increase in sexual tensions among whales can cause short- and long-term problems that can result in injuries to trainers, Allen said.

Injuries are “impossible to avoid when you’re dealing with animals of that magnitude,” said a source who helped design Sea World’s training program. “And it becomes increasingly dangerous when people are put in water with them. The (recent) injuries, however, have been more severe in nature.”

Orky Hurt Trainer in 1978

Orky, one of the two killer whales brought to San Diego from Marineland, was involved in a serious accident at the Rancho Palos Verdes site in 1978. The seven-ton mammal held a female trainer underwater for nearly four minutes, nearly drowning her.

Marineland officials said the accident was a result of Orky’s playfulness.

Tim Desmond, Orky’s former trainer at Marineland, said Wednesday that animals cannot be blamed for aggressive behavior, saying that each accident “grows out of a context” influenced by many factors.

“It’s important to emphasize that it’s impossible to comment on one situation,” Desmond said.

But Desmond, who is now a marine park consultant, said the number of serious accidents at Sea World in recent months is “out of the ordinary in my experience.”

Marine World, operating in the Bay Area since 1969, has “not even had much in the way of bumps and bruises” during in-water performances with its two killer whales, according to spokeswoman Mary O’Herron. “We’ve been blessed.”

Trainers there will continue to perform with killer whales in the park’s tank, O’Herron said. “We’re not doing anything differently in our day-to-day operations as a result of (Sea World’s) misfortunes.”

Marine World’s Allen said, “A trainer has to be acutely aware of the animal’s disposition at all times.” Allen has tended killer whales for 24 years and prohibits trainers who are “in a bad mood, have personal problems, are hung over or are grieving” from entering tanks because whales “will pick up on it.”

“People forget that we’re talking about very, very intelligent animals,” Allen said, adding that whales signal their “moods and attitudes” through eye contact with trainers, responses to a trainers’ presence, and many other easy-to-miss characteristics.

“You have to know their little idiosyncrasies,” said Allen, who has been associated with Marine World’s two whales since they were captured. Yacca, a 23-year-old female killer whale, has performed since 1969. Vigga, an 11-year-old male whale, was moved to the park in 1981.

Despite the almost cuddly image that Sea World projects for Shamu, whale trainers have long known that their massive pupils can be dangerous.

In 1971, one of Sea World’s first female trainers--described at the time as a “human co-performer”--was bitten on the leg after a publicity stunt went awry.

Annette Eckis, described in newspaper accounts as “a pretty, bikini-clad scuba diver,” was practicing a new act when the whale failed to respond to a command. The whale sank its teeth into Eckis’ left leg, but she was rescued by two other scuba divers in the tank.

“If Shamu had been vicious, instead of playful, she could have severed the girl’s leg,” a trainer said at the time.

‘Can’t Push Tigers or Whales’

Allen cautioned that trainers “have to remember that whether you’re dealing with tigers or whales, you can’t push them very far because they’ll come back at you.”

A recent Sea World press release, however, downplayed those dangers, saying the whale shows at its parks in San Diego and elsewhere were designed to express “the close relationship between animal and trainer.”

Allen said he “does not force the animals into working if I feel, or my trainers feel, that we should cancel the whale or dolphin show.”

Only six aquatic parks in North America feature killer whales, Allen said. Marine World has two whales, Sea World has about 11 at its three locations, a Miami aquarium has one, a park in Vancouver three and a facility in Niagara Falls about six.

Allen expressed concern that the string of accidents at Sea World in San Diego will help fan support for animal rights activists who argue that whales should not be held in captivity.

“As a professional, I need to know what happened down there, to know that it was an isolated instance,” Allen said. “But right now, I’m at a loss as to what is going on down there.”