Kyara, the final calf produced by SeaWorld’s defunct breeding program, died this past Monday of suspected pneumonia in San Antonio. Born on April 19, 2017, her health had recently deteriorated to the point that trainers had to separate her to provide care.
Her mother, Takara, is one of the more attentive and experienced of SeaWorld’s matriarchs — Kyara was her fourth calf despite only being 26-years-old. Wild killer whale females typically begin breeding in their mid-teens and only calve about once every five years, which means that Takara has had twice the number of calves that is normal. As I detailed in a previous diary, her first two calves were separated from her (one lives in the Canary Islands, the other in Orlando).
Kyara is the first calf of captive born male Kyuquot. Both of Kyuquot’s wild born parents, father Tilikum and mother Haida II, were implicated in the death of Keltie Byrne at Sea Land of the Pacific. Like his parents, Kyuquot gained a reputation for aggression against his trainers and fellow whales — in fact, Takara was brought to San Antonio specifically to curb his behavior problems.
Kyoquot refusing to allow his trainer to leave the pool and breaching over him
A full necropsy is planned to determine the calf’s official cause of death.
Kyara’s death is the second to occur at SeaWorld San Antonio in two years, bringing the park’s number of killer whales down to four. It is unknown whether SeaWorld has any plans to move whales from their San Diego or Orlando parks. San Diego currently has eleven killer whales; Orlando has five.
Wednesday, Jul 26, 2017 · 7:12:03 PM +00:00
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The Katwoman
Just checked SeaWorld’s page and caught this interesting tidbit:
While the official cause of death won’t be determined until the post-mortem exam is complete, through monitoring Kyara’s behavior, and a physical examination, SeaWorld’s veterinary and animal care teams identified that she had an infection, likely pneumonia, that they were aggressively treating. Pneumonia has been identified as one of the most common causes of morbidity or illness in whales and dolphins, both in the wild and in aquariums.
I’m not sure how SeaWorld could possibly know that pneumonia is a common cause of death for wild cetaceans, as the vast majority of them die at sea without a trace, and the rare necropsy that is performed on whales or dolphins of any kind is almost always done on animals who have died in a stranding, where the cause of death is typically… stranding. The only “wild” whale I know did die of pneumonia was Keiko, and that was after he lived for decades in captivity.
They never miss a opportunity to make captivity appear “normal.”