Killer PR Challenge

In case you missed it on your local news, there has been quite a flap for the last few days over what Sea World should do regarding its killer whales and their public image. While the company has made a very good living showcasing these majestic marine predators over the past few decades, there’s no getting away from the fact that an Orca, no matter how intelligent, fun-loving and vaguely anthropomorphic it might be, is also a six-ton (or larger) apex predator that eats smaller mammals in addition to fish. In fact, there have been some reported cases of Orcas harassing dolphins and porpoises for no apparent reason, and they are quite willing to eat adorable little marine mammals like seals, sea lions and sea otters. However, this isn’t usually much of a problem in marine parks – where the Orcas are seen frolicking with humans and eating small fish out of buckets – until one of them kills somebody, the way one did in Florida this week…

You can check out the story from the Associated Press by way of the Washington Post Online if you want to, but the basic upshot is that at the end of the lunchtime show last Wednesday, a large male killer whale named Tilikum attacked and fatally mauled one of his trainers in front of a large and horrified audience, including a fair number of families with small children. This has sent a lot of people into panic states, and the company into spin control, but no one is trying to deny that the event happened or that it would have been horrific to watch. The real question now is how can Sea World deal with the inevitable firestorm of negative comments, both from people who are against the idea of aquaria and marine parks in the first place, and also from people who are against the idea of anything unpleasant ever happening where children can see it. Or, for that matter, those against placing employees into dangerous working conditions where, for example, they might get mauled or killed by giant apex predators…

Now, I don’t want to suggest that the company has done anything wrong in this case. The trainers who work with the killer whales are all adults who have been briefed on the risks, signed all manner of legal forms, and given extensive training on how to work safely around animals that can kill you anytime they feel like it, and all of them chose to take the job. By the same token, anytime you watch a human “trainer” go into an enclosure with a wild animal (and Orcas can’t really be domesticated, after all), be it a circus lion tamer or a marine park employee, there’s a non-zero chance that he or she will be killed and/or eaten by the animal. In the case of a lion tamer’s act, that sense of danger is what makes it exciting, and in the case of a killer whale show, it’s the fact that these animals could squash the human participants like a grape – but don’t! – that makes the exhibit so fascinating and wonderful. Unfortunately, that also means that sometimes the animals will go ahead and behave like animals – in which case, you usually need to hire a new trainer…

So, if it was your company, and your trademarked tourist attraction had just killed someone in front of hundreds of horrified tourists, what would you tell the media? For that matter, what would you do with the Orca? Before you retire tonight, you might consider saying a brief word of thanks to whoever (or whatever) you believe in that you don’t have to figure out this particular PR nightmare. And, perhaps, that your job does not entail a non-zero chance of being eaten – unless it does, of course…