The video captured by Carlo De Leonibus, showing a stranded whale struggling to get back into the water, has gone viral on the Internet, sparking outrage among patrons. It was taken at SeaWorld in Orlando, Florida.
The De Leonibus family said it took several minutes for trainers to step in and help the pilot whale. It took about 25 minutes for the whale to get back into the water. Carlo and his wife Ashley visited the theme park ten days ago for their daughter Catiana's 11th birthday but it turned out to be a distressing day when the incident happened.
Carlo De Leonibus said, "After about 10 minutes, I realized it was in distress. I felt very concerned, so I went down and told one of the employees who just dismally responded and said 'it's having fun, it's playing.' He didn't even bother to look at the whale, so I went back to the crowd. I began recording. In that time you can hear people upset, people were screaming."
"The crowd was really upset and panicking," he said. "My daughter was screaming."
The audience were yelling but the SeaWorld employee tried to calm down the crowd by announcing that the dolphins slide up on their own and will make their way back into the pool. Over the loud speaker, he assured the audience the beached pilot whale was fine.
SeaWorld Orlando spokesperson Nick Gollattscheck told WTSP that "the pilot whales come out on the ledge all the time and always get back into the deeper water without any problem."
"The animals seem to enjoy it" he said, "and it has no effect on their health or wellbeing. The younger and more inexperienced animals - like the one on the video - sometimes take a little longer, because they haven't completely mastered the technique yet. The whale was never in danger."
Even if SeaWorld assures the public that the pilot whale was never in any danger, the video causes uproar for animal-lovers.
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