The orca Hugo

The image shows a man who had become trapped in Hugo’s pool being helped out by a couple of trainers, including Scott Amsel (the man on the right). Simka said, “Scott (and his wife Kathy, who was a dolphin trainer) left Miami Seaquarium shortly after this incident, realizing quickly that the relationships between these captives and their human oppressors is not all happiness and roses.” Sadly, Hugo had become so traumatized by his time in captivity that he was attempting to pull the man to the bottom of the pool … just as the famed SeaWorld orca Tilikum did to his trainer Dawn Brancheau many years later, on Feb. 24, 2010.
Simka explained, “This is the true nature of my childhood friend, Hugo the killer whale. What I did not know about Hugo, at the time, was that he was at one point a wild animal (a gentle southern resident), captured, taken from the Salish sea and coincidentally, turned psychotic.”
Mental health issues are rife among captive orca populations, as are unusual bacterial and fungal infections, unpredictable bouts of aggression, dental problems, collapsed dorsal fins (in males), and a significantly shorter life expectancy than they could expect to have in the wild.
Sadly, Hugo’s story came to a tragic end in 1980, when he committed suicide by ramming his head repeatedly into the wall of his tank. Since then, his old tank mate Lolita has been held in solitary confinement in the smallest orca tank in North America. Astoundingly, however, she still remembers the calls and vocalizations that were made by her family, referred to as L25 subpod by whale watchers.