[11][12] Away from work, she volunteered at a local animal shelter,[4] looked after two chocolate Labradors,[13] and kept various stray ducks, chickens, rabbits, and small birds at her home.

[4]: 347 [5][11] In 2000, she appeared on NBC affiliate WESH and discussed staying physically fit to deal with the intense rigor of working with orcas.

In 2006, her decade of work with orcas was profiled, including her leadership role in a two- to three-year revamp of the Shamu show.

[4] Judge and later Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh, a dissenting judge in a legal case involving her death (see below), stated that "To be fearless, courageous, tough – to perform a sport or activity at the highest levels of human capacity, even in the face of known physical risk – is among the greatest forms of personal achievement for many who take part in these activities.

[8][12] As part of the end-of-show routine, she was at the edge of the pool rubbing Tilikum's head, and was lying next to him on a slide-out when she was pulled into the water by either her left arm or her hair.

This led SeaWorld to repeatedly seek the lifting of various aspects of OSHA's citations and rulings until 2014, when it decided not to go to the Supreme Court.

[4][6][32][28][33] After a 2006 attack,[32][34] an OSHA investigation in 2007 concluded that, "The continuing factors to the incident, in the simplest of terms, is that swimming with captive orcas is inherently dangerous, and if someone hasn't been killed already, it is only a matter of time before it does happen."

[4] On December 24, 2009, two months before Brancheau's death, another SeaWorld-owned orca, Keto, killed trainer Alexis Martínez at Loro Parque in the Canary Islands.

Welsch stated it is "implausible" and "difficult to reconcile" with comments repeatedly made by management and with the litany of trainer incidents and injuries that have occurred over the years.

C-15, p. 10)," the court found otherwise: "As noted in the section addressing the recognized hazard, SeaWorld's own incident reports demonstrate that its safety program, either due to misplaced faith in operant conditioning or due to human error in implementing operant conditioning, exposes its trainers to the risks of death or serious physical injury."

The court amplified this, aligning itself with the OSHA expert witness: "Dr. Duffus stated, '[T]he training program that SeaWorld uses is influential.

SeaWorld looked at rising pool floors and "spare air" systems in an attempt to get their staff back in the water during shows.

[12] The documentary's director, Gabriela Cowperthwaite, argued that the claim that Tilikum had targeted Brancheau because she had worn her hair in a ponytail was conjecture and that "there had to be more to this story".

[58][47] In March 2016, SeaWorld announced it was discontinuing its program of breeding captive orcas[46][47][50][51][53] and was partnering with the Humane Society of the United States to work against commercial whaling and seal hunts, shark finning, ocean pollution and increasing its focus on rescue operations.

[58] In 2011, Florida passed Statute 406.136, which provides for confidentiality of media obtained by public agencies that depicts or records the killing of a person.

[59] Local government investigators and OSHA had obtained SeaWorld's video surveillance footage, which captured her death, as well as photographs, which showed the effects of the attack.

News organisations tried to obtain these media items as records in public custody, but her family expressed privacy considerations and sought to limit "voyeuristic gawking".

[59] On behalf of the family, Jon L. Mills argued in court that disclosure of media by state agencies is equivalent to dissemination, based on the Nikki Catsouras photographs case, in which retrospective attempts to limit public access have not been fully successful.

[61] The foundation is "dedicated to improving the lives of children and animals in need, inspiring others to follow their dreams, and promoting the importance of community service".