Tilikum (orca)

Tilikum

Tilikum during a 2009 performance at SeaWorld
Species	Orcinus orca
Breed	Icelandic
Sex	Male
Born	c. December 1981
Died	January 6, 2017 (aged 35) Orlando, Florida
Years active	1983–2016
Offspring	21 (10 alive as of Jan. 2017)
Weight	12,500 pounds (5,700 kg)

Tilikum (c. December 1981 – January 6, 2017), nicknamed Tilly, was a notorious captive killer whale or orca. He was captured in Iceland in 1983 at Hafnarfjörður, near Reykjavík. About a year later, he was transferred to Sealand of the Pacific in Victoria, British Columbia. He was subsequently transferred in 1992 to SeaWorld Orlando, Florida.

Tilikum was involved in the death of three people: a trainer at the now-defunct Sealand of the Pacific, a man trespassing in SeaWorld Orlando, and a Seaworld Orlando trainer. Tilikum was heavily featured in CNN Films' 2013 documentary Blackfish.

He sired 21 calves, of whom eleven are still alive.

Tilikum was a large bull orca; the largest in captivity. He measured 22.5 feet (6.9 m) long and weighed about 12,500 pounds (5,700 kg). His pectoral fins were 7 feet (2.1 m) long, his fluke curled under, and his 6.5-foot-tall (2.0 m) dorsal fin was collapsed completely to his left side.

In the Chinook Jargon of the Pacific Northwest, his name means "friends, relations, tribe, nation, common people".

Tilikum was captured when he was two years old, along with two other young orcas, by a purse-seine net in November 1983, at Berufjörður, Iceland. After almost a year in a tank at a zoo in Reykjavík, he was transferred to Sealand of the Pacific, in Oak Bay, a suburb of the city of Victoria on Vancouver Island, Canada. At Sealand, he lived with two older female orcas named Haida II and Nootka IV. Tilikum was at the bottom of the social structure, and Haida II and Nootka IV behaved aggressively towards him, including forcing him into a smaller medical pool where trainers kept him for protection.