As Marineland Antibes prepares to close its orca exhibit, two possible futures await the mother and son orcas.
In the kind of world we want to see for all whales and dolphins, the orca Wikie would have been born among her family in the North Atlantic Ocean. She, in turn, would have raised her own sons, Moana and Keijo, with the help of her mother, her aunts and her sisters. And all of this would have been the great joy of her life.
In reality, though, that’s not what happened. Wikie’s mother and father would be captured and sold to Marineland Antibes in the South of France. And Wikie, in due course, would give birth to two children, not in the ocean but in the same concrete tank in which she’d grown up.
It seemed that Wikie and her offspring would never know life in the ocean. But right now, in the wake of the French government’s decision to bring an end to the use of whales and dolphins as entertainment, Wikie and her surviving son Keijo have a chance to live at the ocean sanctuary we’re establishing in Nova Scotia.
For that to happen, decisions have to be made by France’s Ministry for Ecological Diversity and by the owners and staff of Marineland. And funding has to be secured by the Whale Sanctuary Project for the completion of the work being done to prepare the sanctuary for the whales
Life at the sanctuary will be as close as is possible to what they would have experienced growing up in the ocean. It will be a new life that will make up for so much of what went before.
If, however, they are sent to another theme park or zoo, it will be the same kind of life in a concrete tank that Wikie and her whole family have known over the last 40 years. What follows is a brief history of those years:
Wikie’s family tree
The history of Wikie and her extended family, since they came into captivity, is a tangle of broken relationships and inbreeding.
Her mother Sharkane and her father Kim 2 were captured at different times in Icelandic waters and were sold to Marineland Antibes in the South of France. Some of the other whales among the two pods were also sold to Marineland and some were sold to entertainment parks in Japan, the United States and Spain.
In 1993, Sharkane would give birth to Shouka, in 1999 to Inouk, and in 2001 to Wikie. In 2002, Wikie’s sister Shouka would be shipped to Six Flags in Ohio and then to Six Flags California, where she would live for 10 years before being transferred to Sea World San Diego, where she is still alive.
The sanctuary is the only way forward that meets all the French government regulations.Freya, who came from Kim 2’s group and was mated with him, would give birth, over 12 years at Marineland, to four stillborn calves and to one survivor: Valentin.
Kim 2 would die of pneumonia in 2005 at the young age of 24. Valentin would survive another 10 years. He was Wikie’s half-brother and is generally assumed to have been the father of Wikie’s second son, Keijo, who was born in 2013.
Two years later, in October 2015, Valentin’s life would end shockingly after violent storms swept through Southern France, flooding the marine mammal tanks. Photos showed all five orcas swimming around in muddy waters. The following week, Valentin died, apparently from a sudden twist in his bowels.
In 2011, Wikie had given birth to a son, Moana, sired by Ulises through artificial insemination. It was the first artificial insemination of a whale in Europe. Ulises had been captured from the same Icelandic waters as Freya and Sharkane and had been sold to the Rioleon Safari Park in Spain and then to the Barcelona Zoo before being shipped in 1994 to SeaWorld San Diego. As of this writing, he is still living there.
Inouk, Keijo, Wikie, Moana, Valentin and Freya in a performance at Marineland Antibes.
Moana died in 2023, aged 12, from acute bacterial sepsis. Among orcas, the bond between mother and son is exceptionally strong. So, perhaps the presence of her second son, Keijo, would have been a comfort to Wikie. But more tragedy was to come.
Early the following year, 2024, her brother Inouk perished from subacute fibrinous enteritis peritonitis, leaving Wikie and Keijo as sole survivors of their family at Marineland.
It is to the great credit of the French government that the recommendations of the General Inspectorate favor sending Wikie and Keijo to the sanctuary in Nova Scotia over sending them to another entertainment facility.
A fork in the road
And so it is that Wikie and Keijo are approaching a fork in the road where their fate comes down to two options:
If the final decision is for mother and son to go to an entertainment park – whether that be the Kobe Suma SeaWorld in Japan or Loro Parque Zoo in the Canary Islands – they will find themselves in yet another concrete tank and with whales they don’t know and may not be able to communicate with. It is also likely that Wikie will be used for breeding, which would be contrary to the French decree that’s designed to bring an end to keeping whales captive.
The other option is for the Ministry to approve the recommendation of the government’s Inspectorate and for Wikie and Keijo to come to the sanctuary that we are establishing in Nova Scotia. That decision will need the full cooperation of Marineland Antibes and its staff. And it also depends on our securing the necessary funding to complete the first phase of sanctuary construction: the installation of a bay pen and land-based facilities.
The sanctuary is the only way forward that meets all the French government regulations and gives Wikie and Keijo the kind of life where they are cared for in a dynamic, stimulating ocean environment filled with plants and animals, and given as much autonomy as possible. They will never be used for breeding. They will never be separated.
These two orcas have surely faced lives of trials and tribulations. But if their stars finally line up – with a collaborative relationship among Marineland Antibes, the government and the Whale Sanctuary Project, along with the funding to complete the sanctuary – their future can be bright indeed.
Your donation, large or small, brings us ever closer to the day we welcome them to their new home.
It will be a home and a future that will make up for so much of what went before.