Sad news in the world of captivity, Freya, the oldest orca in Marineland France, passed away today. According to the park, the orca had been ill for some time (but let’s all be reassured, apparently, she did not suffer thanks to all the care from the veterinary team) and an autopsy will be carried out to figure out the causes of death. Let’s hope the results of that autopsy will be published. A little background story: Freya was born in…
Bad news for two killer whales:
On January 17th, 4 pods of dolphins were captured by Taiji fishermen. That’s about 250 dolphins including a baby albino. The following day, 25 dolphins were selected to a life of captivity (including the baby albino named Angel by Ric O’Barry) Today January 19th, 15 more dolphins were taken captive and we learn that Angel was taken straight to Taiji Whale Museum. That’s 40 dolphins in two days… The remaining 200 await their fate until tomorrow morning. CNN even covered…
____ Yesterday, Tuesday 10th of December, Marineland (France) finally made an official announcement of a new orca calf. (Let’s remind ourselves that the baby was born on November the 20th). The mother, Wikie, has already given birth to a male orca, Moana, in March 2011, via AI, thanks to Ulises’ sperm (a male orca from the group SeaWorld – where a trainer was recently killed by an orca attack). At first, the staff thought Moana was a female, hence the…
Freeing Willy, good or bad idea?