The Marineland water park in Antibes (Alpes-Maritimes) plans a permanent closure for January 5, 2025, leaving doubt over the fate of its 4,000 animals and in particular its two orcas, born in captivity. The last French zoo to hold this type of cetacean is reportedly considering transferring them to a park in Kobe, Japan.
End clap. The Marineland water park in Antibes (Alpes-Maritimes), which presents itself as the first marine zoo in Europe, announced that it planned to “permanently close its doors from January 5, 2025”. Established on the Côte d’Azur since 1970, Marineland has sparked controversy in recent months by considering the transfer of its last two orcas to a Japanese park, to the great dismay of animal defenders and the Minister of Ecological Transition Agnès Pannier- Runacher, who opposed it at the end of November.
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“There are parks which today are able to accommodate orcas”, like “in Spain”, but “in Japan, there are no such extensive regulations on animal welfare”, had -she explained. Two of the four orcas that Marineland held until last year died recently, one from septicemia and the other after ingesting a foreign body. The two surviving orcas, Wikie and her son Keijo, were both born in captivity in this Antibes park, the first in 2001 and the second in 2013. What will become of them?
“They must take responsibility for their animals and not throw them in the trash like old things!”
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 that the orcas could not be transferred until a legal expertise ordered in 2023 to find out their living conditions had not been completed. Marineland appealed. “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.
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-“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, 11 years old, and his mother Wikie, 23 years old, “have 60 years of life expectancy ahead of them!”
Cetacean shows banned in France from December 2026
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. 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.
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Dolphins, sea lions, turtles also affected
What will become of the 4,000 animals of 150 different species (orcas, dolphins, sea lions, turtles and numerous fish) mostly born in captivity? The largest marine park in Europe has set itself the “priority objectives” of “relocating all of its animals to the best existing structures to date” and of “negotiating in the coming weeks with the social partners the social consequences of this closure project. Specifically regarding cetaceans, the water park says it is “in close contact with the competent authorities to identify the best solutions” to accommodate them “with the welfare of the animals as its sole priority”.
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”. The only solution considered by the animal rights association: the sanctuary. The president, Muriel Arnal, pleads for the two orcas from Antibes to find refuge in a sanctuary in Nova Scotia, Canada.
