The recent tragedy involving captive orca Tilikum and SeaWorld employee Dawn Brancheau is cause for more than a brief pause—more than a couple of days of darkness for SeaWorld’s show Believe at Shamu Stadium. It is a kick-in-the-gut cry to STOP.

Isn’t it better to honor Ms. Brancheau’s death by carefully reconsidering our relationships with killer whales, rather than resuming the spectacular Believe show only two days after her drowning? Is it enough that before the show began, a slideshow tribute to Dawn played on the watery stage’s massive screens, and the trainers wearing their orca-styled wetsuits refrained, for now, from swimming with or petting the orcas as part of the killer whale show’s choreography?

SeaWorld’s website still sells Believe as a show that “accentuates the close relationship SeaWorld trainers have with the killer whales,” and a “journey in which anyone believes they can connect with these magnificent mammals.” I imagine the bubbly violence that some customers witnessed a few weeks ago did not highlight the sort of connection SeaWorld wanted to display.

I don’t mean to be flippant. And I’m not suggesting for a moment that the trainers do not have a close relationship with the orcas in their care—or that we, as humans, cannot or do not connect with dolphins and whales—I believe we can, we do, and we should! But the question is how ought we to connect with them, what kind of relationship is best for their well-being and ours, and how can we best honor dolphins and whales as the magnificent individuals we so admire?

To me, SeaWorld’s Believe show is exciting, beautiful, and wildly entertaining; it is also—like SeaWorld itself—an outmoded, arrogant, insensitive story of captivity and dominance. The music, lyrics, choreography, architecture and landscaping are lavish decorations that distract us from the facts: It is not appropriate or wise to keep dolphins and whales for our pleasure. It deprives them of their physical, psychological and social needs and desires. We have witnessed the pain, distress and tragedy that captivity produces—for them and for us.

In light of the recent catastrophe at SeaWorld, let’s more than just pause before resuming business as usual. Instead, let’s recognize this as the major event it was, and just… stop.