Dear Friends,
Marineland Canada announced today that the orca Kiska has died of a bacterial infection.
The news is devastating to all of us who have been working toward the time when she could be retired to sanctuary.
Captured in 1979 at around age three from the North Atlantic Ocean, Kiska gave birth, as a young adult, to five children. All of them died young. One of them didn’t even survive long enough to be named. Orcas feel deep, complex emotions, and the bond between mother and child is so profound that it is hard to imagine the grief and trauma that Kiska would have suffered in each of her bereavements. For the last 12 years, she was forced to live without the company of a single other member of her own species.
The news is devastating to all of us who have been working toward the time when she could be retired to sanctuary.Over the coming days, as we grapple with this awful loss, we will stay in touch with you. My friend, our Executive Director, Charles Vinick, emphasizes that the loss of Kiska will only intensify the urgency of our team to help Marineland relocate the approximately 34 belugas and five dolphins who remain there. And we look to every available means to transfer as many as possible to sanctuaries.
Meanwhile, we can only ask that Marineland be fully transparent about the circumstances surrounding Kiska’s passing. But in the end, we know that no words can explain away a lifetime of pain and misery as experienced by a deeply intelligent, social, family-centered being who had the terrible misfortune to become known as the loneliest whale in the world.
Yours in sorrow,
Lori Marino, President
The Whale Sanctuary Project.
NOTE: You can read Kiska’s bio here.