It’s been more than four months since Marineland, a marine park in southern France, announced its closure, but two killer whales and a dozen dolphins are still stranded there.
TideBreakers, an animal advocacy group, recently released distressing aerial footage of orcas – Wikie, 23, and her son Keijo, 11 – swimming aimlessly in the abandoned Marineland Antibes near Cannes, France.
Activists rushed to relocate the abandoned creatures after they were left in what they described as “dangerous” and “despairing” conditions, The Standard reported.
“The mother and son are still trapped there, waiting for their fate in collapsing tanks,” TideBreakers wrote, sharing the video on May 11.
Approximately 45 kilometres west of Monaco on the French Riviera’s southern coastal town of Antibes, the park houses 12 abandoned dolphins in the algae-infested, deteriorating tanks.
According to Marketa Schusterova, co-founder of TideBreakers, the emergency in Marineland Antibes needs to be addressed globally.
“These are the last two remaining orcas in France in captivity and should be moved quickly,” Schusterova said, South West News Service reported.
He added that the orcas must be taken out of conditions that endanger their health and well-being. Wikie and Keijo would not be able to survive in the wild because they were both born in confinement, he said.
Marineland Antibes shut down on January 5 per the French 2021 law, which prohibited performances involving cetaceans, like dolphins and whales, to entertain the public. The two orcas and 12 dolphins were trapped in their kennels.
Following the shutdown, the park administration has been frantically trying to locate the creatures, particularly the killer whales.
Although it is no longer a zoo, the management of the facility is still responsible for the animals’ welfare, and a small team is in charge of keeping them alive until they are placed in a new home.
Despite the dire situation, French officials have rejected alternative proposals, such as a marine zoo in Japan, and have not yet found a suitable location for the orcas in Europe.
A plea to move the whales to a sanctuary in Tenerife, Spain, was turned down because the facility currently houses four orcas, including a newborn, BBC reported.
After rejecting a zoo in Japan, the Whale Sanctuary Project (WSP) in Nova Scotia is a possible destination for the mother-son duo.
For now, a skeleton staff is feeding them, but critics caution that this provides little cerebral enrichment—an essential component for highly intelligent animals like orcas.
