SeaWorld Curator: Trainer Dawn Brancheau’s Ponytail Likely Caused …

SeaWorld Curator: Trainer Dawn Brancheau’s Ponytail Likely Caused …, More than a decade before a killer whale drowned a SeaWorld trainer by pulling her into a pool by her ponytail, the Florida park had chosen to “desensitize” the animals to dangling hair rather than ban it, an employee testified at a federal hearing on Thursday.

The decision came after a trainer from a different SeaWorld park was pulled into the water by a killer whale that grabbed her loose-fitting sweatshirt in 1997, said Kelly Flaherty Clark, curator of animal training at SeaWorld Orlando.


As a result of the sweatshirt incident, the Florida park ordered trainers to wear skin-tight wetsuits around the whales. Recognizing that trainers’ ponytails also were susceptible to being grabbed, the park opted to expose whales daily to the hairstyle to get them accustomed to it, Clark said.

But after the 12,000-pound bull orca Tilikum dragged 40-year-old trainer Dawn Brancheau in a pool and killed her last year, SeaWorld began requiring trainers to secure their hair in buns, Clark said.

Clark’s testimony came during a hearing in which SeaWorld is challenging workplace safety charges filed by the U.S. Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA).