Marineland in Antibes, March 17, 2016 (AFP / VALERY HACHE)
The Marineland water park in Antibes, at the heart of a controversy surrounding its orcas, the last in captivity in France, announced on Wednesday “its plan to permanently close from January 5, 2025”, invoking the 2021 law which prohibits cetacean shows.
The plan to close the park, which employs 103 employees, was announced to the Social and Economic Committee (CSE) on Wednesday morning, management said.
Established on the Côte d'Azur since 1970, Marineland, which presents itself as the first marine zoo in Europe, has been the subject of heated protests for a year after the death of two of its orcas. And the controversy was further strengthened with the plan to transfer the two remaining orcas, born in captivity, to a park in Kobe, Japan.
At the end of November, the Minister of Ecological Transition Agnès Pannier-Runacher opposed this transfer due to Japanese regulations on “animal welfare”.
According to Marineland, this plan to close the park is “totally unrelated” to the orca transfer case, which must be the subject of a decision by the Aix-en-Provence Court of Appeal on Thursday.
At the start of the year, the animal rights association One Voice obtained from the Grasse court (Alpes-Maritimes) that the orcas cannot be transferred until a legal expertise is ordered in 2023 to find out their living conditions. It wasn't finished. Marineland appealed.
A demonstration in front of Marineland in Antibes to demand the transfer of the last two orcas housed in this park to a “sanctuary” and not in Japan, at the call of 220 associations, including One Voice, August 10, 2024 (AFP / Valery HACHE)
“The coincidence is still disturbing, as the judge must make his decision tomorrow on whether or not the orcas should leave,” One Voice president Muriel Arnal told AFP.
– 4,000 animals –
“Whether Marineland closes or not, they must take responsibility for their animals and not throw them in the trash like old things!”, she protests, recalling that “Keijo has just turned 11 and his mother Wikie is 23. They have 60 years of life expectancy ahead of them!”
In its press release, Marineland says it is “forced to consider separating from the animals before the implementation of the 2021 law against animal abuse which will ban cetacean shows in France from December 2026 and will limit the possibilities of keep orcas in captivity.
A representation of dolphins at Marineland in Antibes, December 7, 2016 (AFP / VALERY HACHE)
However, “90% of visitors choose to come to Marineland to admire the representations of orcas and dolphins”, affirms the park, which also reports “serious economic difficulties” due to a continued drop in attendance, past in ten years from 1.2 million to 425,000 visitors per year.
With some 4,000 animals of 150 different species (orcas, dolphins, sea lions, turtles and numerous fish and corals), Marineland's “priority objectives” are “to relocate all of its animals in the best existing structures to date” and to “negotiate in the coming weeks with the social partners the social consequences of this closure project”.
Concerning cetaceans specifically, Marineland says it is “in close contact with the competent authorities to identify the best solutions” to accommodate them “in equivalent structures in terms of quality of care and educational projects, with the sole priority being the well-being of the cetaceans. animals”.
At the end of November, Agnès Pannier-Runacher raised the possibility that the orcas would be transferred to parks respecting “European regulations”, such as that of Tenerife in the Spanish archipelago of the Canaries.
A solution rejected by One Voice, whose president affirms that “the park in Spain is the same as in Japan”, with “very small pools where the orcas fight”.
According to Ms. Arnal, this Spanish park “lost four orcas in four years, the last of which ten days ago”, and the association is still pleading for the two orcas from Antibes to find refuge in a sanctuary in Nova Scotia ( Eastern Canada).
