#kandu 5

[teamorkid]

Newborn Orkid <3

Kandu V & Orkid

• News-Press, Sun, Sep 25, 1988

• Photo Credit: News-Press

Credits: Orca Base

[orcinus-ocean]

September 30th

Today it's 46 years since Kandu 2 was shipped from a temporary stay in Germany, to Marineland Ontario. He was their first killer whale, and at first only lived with dolphins.

Exactly 40 years ago today, Kandu 5 and Kona 2 were caught off Ingolfshöfdi, Iceland.

And 26 years ago, in 1991, Bjossa gave birth to her second calf, K’yosha. This was the first and only calf of Hyak 2, who passed away seven months before.

[orcinus-ocean]

August 21st

Today it is 28 years since the death of Kandu 5, Orkid's mother. Sources vary, but it is believed Corky had been performing with Orkid in the show in the previous segment, and since Corky had been overly curious in the calf (having lost her own calves), Kandu the matriarch might have been jealous and angry at Corky because of this.

So when Corky and Orkid came back in from the show pool, Kandu was supposed to do her thing in the show pool, but instead she swam right for Corky, and hit her broadside with her jaws open.

Corky escaped with just minor scrapes and bruises, while Kandu behaved strangely, swimming into a corner of the show pool and staying there. When the surfaced, blood spewed out of her blowhole, and the trainers panicked.

She had fractured the thinnest and most delicate part of her skull, just in front of the eyes and blowhole, and it had severed arteries in her head.

After getting her into the medical pool and examining her, it was decided nothing could be done, and she was left to swim in one of the back pools with Orkid, and sank to the bottom of the pool about forty minutes after the accident. (In the video, there is one other adult in the pool as it happens, and I guess that would be Knootka and not Corky.)

After Kandu's death, Knootka, Corky and Orkid were the only whales remaining in San Diego, and Corky became Orkid's adoptive mother, if you will. Corky had lost all her calves and Orkid lost her mother, and they have been very close in all these years since.

Anti-SeaWorld activists love to use this event as fuel for their agenda, and calls it "whales going crazy from close confinement, they hate each other and fight to the death". But you really have to spin and distort the truth in order to make that case.

Kandu went after and raked Corky. Unusually aggressive, yes, probably, and witnesses said she swam extremely fast before she hit Corky. But this was in no way two whales fighting.

Corky did nothing, Kandu caused her own death as an accident. This could just as well have happened in the wild, or she could have swam into a rock or sea bottom (in the wild), or a pool wall (at SeaWorld).

It was a tragedy and an accident.

[orcinus-ocean]

A bunch of photos I either haven’t seen at all/in this quality, all taken by Flip Nicklin.

Haida, Kenau, Kandu 5 and Finna at Sealand, SeaWorld and Vancouver Aquarium.

[orcinus-ocean]

January 31st

32 years ago today, shortly after the death of Baby Shamu 2, Kandu 5 gave birth to a stillborn calf, sired by Winston.

[the-cetacean]

New Friends: Kandu V and Kenau performing in a show (SeaWorld

[aleksiann]

Orkid and Kandu 5

This was a mother’s day gift for my mom. 

[aleksiann]

//I've been trying to upload this on deviantart but it won't let me haha

"Supporting Kandu"

Mothers often help support their calves during their first breath, so I turned the tables a little bit and did a piece of Orkid trying to help her dying mother Kandu breathe. I know this isn't exactly how this would have played out, but you could think of it more as just a last moment of touching between the mother and daughter pair before Kandu sunk to the bottom, never to take another breath.

Kandu's death is really burned in my brain. 

I swear, I'll draw these two without any blood one day

One day