Conservation and Biodiversity
Trapped in Silence: The Last Two Captive Orcas in France Are Running Out of Time
August 20, 2025
In 2021, France made international headlines by becoming one of the first European countries to ban cetaceans, like orcas and dolphins, from live entertainment and captive breeding programs. It was hailed as a landmark decision for animal welfare and a step toward ending the captivity of intelligent marine life. But for two orcas named Wikie and her young son Keijo, along with 12 bottlenose dolphins, that progress has left them in limbo.
Marineland Antibes, owned by the Spanish multinational company Parques Reunidos, officially closed its doors in January 2025 and all of the whales and dolphins that unfortunately call it home must be out of the park by December 2026. While most of the 4,000 animals once held there have been relocated, Wikie, a 23-year-old mother, her 11-year-old son, Keijo, and the dolphins are still trapped there. They now live out their days in algae-filled tanks behind shuttered gates, in a facility slowly crumbling around them.
Though the law gave marine parks until December 2026 to find new homes for these animals, time is already running out. In just the past 18 months, Wikie’s firstborn son, Moana, died from a bacterial infection, and her brother, Inouk, succumbed after ingesting a piece of metal from his tank. These deaths were not almost certainly not inevitable, they were most likely the result of poor hygiene and the stress of long term confinement. Unless action is taken, Wikie and Keijo could be next.
The Dirty Secret in the Captive Orca Trade
In July of this year, the animal rights group TideBreakers released a video of drone footage, where you can clearly see Wikie and Keijo are seen circling endlessly in green, algae-filled water. The park is silent. Their world is concrete, empty, and visibly decaying. There seems to be little constructive and prolonged mental enrichment activity to stop them from growing bored. As highly intelligent animals, orcas and dolphins need a lot of mental stimulation.
If those conditions were not concerning enough, TideBreakers discovered on August 12, 2025, something even more alarming when they went back to do some more drone filming above the orca’s tanks. What they filmed is an extremely disturbing video and we advise you to watch with caution, it is not suitable for small children to view.
From a birds-eye view, we can see Keijo’s trainers apparently manually stimulating him sexually. Even though we have different anatomy, body language does not lie; you can see Keijo thrashing in the water.
Why are the owners of these animals, Parques Reunidos, allowing this? They apparently claimed it was to relieve sexual tension in Keijo and then in a bizarre statement they released to the NY Post, Parques Reunidos’s representative stated that – “Marineland underlines the extreme urgency of transferring the animals so that Keijo can meet other females besides his mother.”
Why? Are the owners of these orcas planning to breed with Keijo in a new location, outside of France, that would allow it? Because make no mistake this is often how captive orcas are bred behind closed doors through artificial insemination. It is not for conservation. It is not for science. It is for profit. And the victims are animals like Keijo and any offspring of his, who are treated not as sentient beings, but as assets to produce the next generation of money making captive orcas.
The idea that there is anything fun or enjoyable about watching animals forced to perform for food, held in tiny, crumbling tanks and used as mere assets to make profits for shareholders – is abhorrent. Wikie and Keijo and all captive whales and dolphins deserve more.
Tom Cosgrove, Chief Creative and Content Officer, EARTHDAY.ORG
On August 3, 2025, just days before this disturbing new footage was captured, a young male orca, only 16 years old, tragically named Earth died at Nagoya Public Aquarium in Japan. He was one of two orcas at the facility. Now, only one remains; a lone female, his aunt Lynn, confined in a tank built for performance, not well-being, on her own. It is like holding a human being in solitary confinement for the remainder of their life.
With breeding still allowed at Nagoya, concerns are mounting that Keijo’s semen may be sent there in an attempt to impregnate her. This would effectively allow Keijo to be used for purposes — just not on French soil. The law is very complicated around this issue but it seems that selling genetic material from orcas is not technically breeding in France, yet the result is the same: more orcas born into a hellish life of captivity, condemned to tanks, almost certainly destined to die prematurely, just like Earth.
In the wild, orcas typically live long lives; living till their 60s and even 80s. But in captivity, many die before they reach 20. Despite claims of top-tier veterinary care and round-the-clock supervision, a peer reviewed study found that captive orcas die at 2.5 times the rate of their wild counterparts.
Why Captivity Must End
The terrible truth is there are other orcas in worse conditions, look at Kshamenk (pronounced Shamenk). He has been living in the Mundo Marino aquarium in Buenos Aires, Argentina since 1992. He has been held in a tiny tank no bigger than a swimming pool for 35 solid years, on his own. It is a living hell. I am struggling to comprehend who is paying to witness his suffering?
Sarah Davies, Director Media & Comm’s, EARTHDAY.ORG
Orcas are not circus performers. They are complex, social beings with some of the largest and most sophisticated brains in the animal kingdom. In the wild, they swim up to 100 miles a day, dive hundreds of feet deep, and live their entire lives in close-knit family groups. Their cultures, vocalizations, and even hunting techniques are passed from one generation to the next; marks of intelligence once thought to be uniquely human.
Now imagine shrinking that world to a concrete tank. No space to dive, no family to communicate with, no currents to follow, no prey to catch. Just walls.
In captivity, these same orcas (like Inouk) gnaw on the concrete sides of the pool and the metal sluice gates until their teeth are damaged, crack and rot. They float listlessly, or use their teeth to scrape each other from frustration. In captivity, they become stressed and bored, hurting themselves or each other when in nature they are generally harmless creatures.
Their intelligence, the very thing that makes them extraordinary, becomes a source of suffering and often early death. The truth is simple and heartbreaking: no amount of training, medicine, or walls can replace the open ocean.
The Industry That Profits Off This Suffering Must Finance An Independent Whale Sanctuary – They Owe These Orcas
The stark reality is there are currently no ocean sanctuaries for orcas in France or anywhere nearby. No matter what you may read in the press there is no orca sanctuary in Canada either. A sanctuary in Canada was once proposed and some fund raising was done by other groups to build one but it to this day remains unbuilt.
The only open-water whale sanctuary that does exist is located in Iceland, but it was designed for beluga whales and cannot house orcas. There are no immediate or obvious places for them to go to another marine park because no one has invested the money or political will to build an actual sanctuary. After years of profiting off orcas and dolphins in their numerous marine parks – Parques Reunidos has not invested in building a whale sanctuary to retire these animals to.
This past June, ironically world leaders gathered in nearby Nice for the 2025 United Nations Ocean Conference and pledged billions to protect marine life- not one government stood up to defend Wikie and Keijo.
The political declaration titled “Our ocean, our future: united for urgent action” could deliver real wins for the planet; with historic pledges for marine protected areas, new global coalitions to fight pollution, climate impacts, and illegal activity at sea. French Polynesia’s plan to protect 5 million square kilometers of ocean and the EU’s €1 billion investment in conservation are bold, tangible steps. We support them.
But for all its ambition, the conference failed to acknowledge the suffering just 22 kilometers away. No whale sanctuaries were announced, and no solutions were offered for Keijo and Wikie. They have been forgotten about.
YOU CAN MAKE A DIFFERENCE – PLEASE ACT
However, we have the power of our voice which can influence change. And you will not be alone in the movement; William Shatner already joined us at EARTHDAY.ORG to release an appeal to President Emmanuel Macron, urging him to step up. The plea is simple: find a real, sustainable solution for Wikie and Keijo before it’s too late. So far, neither the French government nor the owners of Marineland, Parques Reunidos, have seemingly secured a workable plan that would seem the dolphins and Wikie and Keijo moved the better facilities where they cannot be bred or perform for our entertainment , or provided even the most basic timeline for relocation.
If you believe Wikie and Keijo deserve more, now is the time to act. Send your own plea to President Macron by signing this letter. Raise your voice and demand that President Macron intervene and ensure these animals survive and are located to better facilities. Today; not next year, not when it’s “convenient,” not when it’s too late. Please do it now.
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