The Marineland water park in Antibes (Alpes-Maritimes) will permanently close its doors as of Sunday January 5. The fate of his two orcas, Wikie and his son Keijo, is still pending. Born in captivity, they cannot survive alone in the wild.
Published on 05/01/2025 13:42
Reading time: 2min
The future of orcs Wikie and Keijo is still uncertain. While the Marineland water park in Antibes (Alpes-Maritimes) closes its doors on Sunday January 5, Agnès Pannier-Runacher, Minister of Ecological Transition, raised at the end of November the possibility that the orcas would be transferred to parks that respect “European regulations”like that of Tenerife in the Spanish archipelago of the Canaries.
But this solution was rejected by the president of the One Voice association, Muriel Arnal, for whom “to send them into captivity again is to send them to certain death”. “It will never be a victory if we throw in the trash these animals which made the good old days and the reputation of the Côte d’Azur”she denounces on franceinfo this Sunday.
“In 2021 there was this animal welfare law, there were promises of sanctuaries, and here we arrive in a situation where animals will simply be moved to other places where the stress of captivity kills them slowly”regrets Muriel Arnal. The One Voice association, at the origin of a long legal battle which led in 2023 to an expert opinion on the living conditions of the orcas of Marineland, requests “a clear and courageous political decision” and greater government involvement in finding sanctuary solutions. “Madam Minister, see this through to the end! Let’s work together, let’s study sanctuary solutions together!”says Muriel Arnal.
According to her, “there are possible solutions”notably that of a sanctuary in Nova Scotia, in the North Atlantic, “where Wikie's parents were captured”. “The locals, the Native Americans, are waiting for Wikie and Keijo, all it takes is political will to change that, to not separate the mother and her son”suggests Muriel Arnal. “We should not send them to another dolphinarium, even in Spain. Many orcas have already died there”she adds. At Marineland, two died, one from septicemia, in October 2023, and the other after ingestion of a piece of metal, in March 2024.
