SAN DIEGO — Some days, killer whales just wake up on the wrong side of the pool.
A 2 1/2-ton orca that dragged a trainer underwater during a show at SeaWorld may have been put out by a spat with another whale, grumpy because of the weather or just irritable from a stomachache, according to marine mammal experts.
"Some mornings they just wake up not as willing to do the show as others," said Ken Balcomb, director of the Center for Whale Research in Friday Harbor, Wash. "If the trainer doesn't recognize it's not a good day, this will happen."
The whale, Kasatka, was back Thursday for a lunchtime performance that went off without a hitch. But the show was limited to tricks that did not involve trainers getting in the water.
Meanwhile, experts from other SeaWorld parks and marine centers converged in San Diego to review Wednesday's incident and figure out what set the whale off.
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The trainer, Ken Peters, 39, underwent surgery Thursday on a broken bone in his foot but was in good spirits, said Mike Scarpuzzi, vice president of zoological operations at SeaWorld San Diego and a former killer-whale trainer.
Kasatka, a 30-year-old orca about 17 feet long and well over 5,000 pounds, twice held Peters underwater for less than a minute during the finale of a show at Shamu Stadium.
The act called for the orca to leap out of the water so Peters could dive off her nose. Instead, as several hundred spectators watched, Kasatka grabbed Peters' foot in her mouth and dragged him toward the bottom of the 36-foot-deep tank.
When they came up, Peters tried to calm the animal by stroking its back, but it grabbed him and plunged again. The whale finally released him and Peters was able to surface and swim away. He emerged from the tank with one leg of his wet suit torn.
Kasatka and Peters had a scrape in 1999, when the whale tried to bite the trainer during a show, Scarpuzzi said. Peters hopped out of the tank and was not injured. The whale also tried to bite a different trainer in 1993, Scarpuzzi said.
