Stranded orcas, dolphins left in rotting tanks in closed French marine park

A pair of killer whales and a dozen dolphins have been trapped for four months in Marineland, a shuttered marine park in the south of France, after the facility announced its closure in January 2025. They were left in what animal activists are calling “dangerous” and “despairing” conditions as they scramble to relocate the abandoned mammals.

(The full name of the park is Marineland of Antibes, and is not affiliated with the Niagara Falls, Ont., Marineland.)

Aerial footage released by the animal activist group TideBreakers shows two abandoned orcas, Wikie, 23, and her son, Keijo, 11, swimming aimlessly around an algae-ridden enclosure.

“The mother and son remain trapped there, waiting for their fate in crumbling tanks,” TideBreakers wrote alongside the footage.

The park, which is located in the southern coastal town of Antibes on the French Riviera, about 45 km west of Monaco, has been closed to the public since January, and is also home to 12 dolphins that have been “left to rot,” the group said.

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The facility was forced to close as a result of French legislation passed in 2021 that prohibits the use of dolphins and whales for entertainment purposes.

“While 90 per cent of visitors choose to come to Marineland to admire the orca and dolphin performances, the law of November 30, 2021, banning cetacean shows, requires Marineland to consider this closure,” the company wrote in a statement in December.

But, since shutting down, management has been unable to find a suitable new home for the neglected sea life, especially the orcas, despite its responsibility to do so.

“In compliance with current legislation, Marineland works closely with the relevant authorities to identify the best solutions for housing cetaceans in facilities that are equivalent in terms of quality of care and educational initiatives, with the animals’ well-being as the sole priority,” the statement continued.

Though it no longer operates as a zoo, the organization’s management remains responsible for the well-being of the animals, and a small crew is in charge of keeping them alive until they are rehoused.

Both Wikie and Keijo were born in captivity, meaning they would not survive in the wild.

According to the BBC, an application to relocate the whales to a sanctuary in Tenerife, Spain, was denied as the facility is already home to four orcas, including a newborn. French authorities have yet to approve a new home for the mother and son pair in Europe and have turned down a zoo in Japan, leaving the The Whale Sanctuary Project (WSP) in Nova Scotia as a potential option.

“The Whale Sanctuary Project is making it clear again to all parties that we are ready to work with the French government, with Marineland Antibes, and with any and all other organizations to bring Wikie and Keijo to the sanctuary we are preparing in Nova Scotia,” it wrote in an Instagram on April 5.

A previous bid by the group was rejected by the French Ministry for Ecology earlier this year.

Ideally, the whales would not have to endure long-distance travel. In February, French ecology minister Agnès Pannier-Runacher said she was hoping to identify a suitable home for the whales without having to move them overseas.

So far, all efforts to rehouse them have been unsuccessful.

Global News reached out to Marineland of Antibes for further comment but did not hear back by publication time.

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