A Family in Distress – Wikie and Keijo and Their Family

Update, December 2025: The French government has issued a formal decision that Wikie and Keijo should go to the Whale Sanctuary in Nova Scotia. For the sanctuary to be ready to welcome whales by the end of summer 2026 – so they have time to acclimate to ocean waters and temperatures before winter – we must meet a schedule that depends on having the funds available to meet the $15 million of construction costs over the coming months, starting immediately.

In 2020, the French Minister of Ecology, Barbara Pompili, announced her decision to bring an end to keeping whales in concrete tanks at entertainment parks.

At that time, there were four orcas still on display in France: Wikie, Inouk, Keijo, and Moana. One of them, Moana, died in 2023. Shortly thereafter, in March 2024, Inouk died. Wikie and Inouk were sister and brother; Keijo is Wikie’s son, as was Moana. All of them were born and raised in the tanks at Marineland Antibes (not related to Marineland Ontario).

The family’s life and unnatural relationships in captivity highlight all-too-common themes among captive whales.

Inouk was born in February 1999. His mother, Sharkane, and father, Kim 2, had been captured in Icelandic waters. Shortly after his fourth birthday, Inouk’s older sister, Shouka, was transferred to SeaWorld. His parents died soon afterwards.

Prior to his death, Inouk had ground his teeth to the pulp biting the edges of the tanks. Experts explain this behavior generates significant mouth pain and causes gum ulcers, frequent throat infections, yeast infections the tongue, and acid reflux. Inouk’s dorsal fin showed traces of bites and was weak on the right side.

Wikie is Inouk’s younger sister. Born in June 2001, she was held for the first 18 months of her life in a tank separate from her mother, Sharkane, who was very disturbed and unable to give Wikie the care she needed. In the ocean, young orcas always have their mother, aunts and other close family members close by to support them and are never left on their own. But without that support and upbringing, Wikie was left emotionally scarred.

When she was only 10 years old, Wikie was artificially inseminated from Ulises, an orca who had been captured and placed in isolation at the Barcelona Zoo before being sent to SeaWorld San Diego in the United States. In early 2011, Wikie gave birth to a son, Moana, who was the first orca in Europe, to have been born as a result of artificial insemination.

Wikie was too young to be rearing a calf. And because of her young age and the absence of experienced family members, Wikie had no role models to follow and was unable to fully bond with Moana.

For his part, Moana was highly intelligent and learned at a young age to do the kinds of tricks that usually require years of training. Unable to learn from his mother, he learned to do tricks and the like from his trainers and was good at doing what humans expected him to do, as commanded. But his initial enthusiasm soon gave way to boredom in the confines of a concrete tank.

Meanwhile, and all too soon after the birth of Moana, Wikie had found herself pregnant once again. In the wild, orcas space out their pregnancies over many years to give themselves a chance to properly raise their children. Worse yet, Wikie had been made pregnant this time by her half-brother Valentin. Such inbreeding is unheard of in the wild. In November 2013, she gave birth to Keijo, and once again Wikie was unable to bond with her newborn.

Two years later, Valentin died when polluted water from a storm flowed into his tank. And Wikie became even more disturbed. But Keijo took solace in training, showing real passion for learning tricks. However, as the years went by, his need for stimulation was no longer being met and his snout was damaged.

Video courtesy of OneVoice. The images have not been edited.

The decision to bring an end to whale and dolphin captivity and the continuing story of Wikie and Keijo:

In 2020, the French government ruled a phased end to keeping whales or dolphins in captivity for the purposes of entertainment. Since the whales and dolphins were the star attractions at Marineland Antibes, the park began considering plans for the closure of the park and the transfer, not only of the whales, but of all the animals on display. The company’s intention would be for the whales and dolphins to be sold to entertainment parks and aquariums abroad.

By early 2024, there were just three orcas left: Wikie, her brother Inouk, and her second son Keijo. The Whale Sanctuary Project learned that Marineland was planning to send them to the Kobe Suma Sea World park in Japan, where they would be in an even smaller concrete tank than they had at Marineland. And they could well be separated and used for breeding.

When this plan became known, animal protection groups in France protested to the government, saying that such a move would violate the entire purpose and spirit of the law.

Together with the French NGO One Voice, the Whale Sanctuary Project proposed a collaboration with Marineland Antibes to retire Wikie, Inouk and Keijo to the sanctuary in Nova Scotia. And the Whale Sanctuary Project began work on a plan by which it could accommodate the orcas Wikie, Inouk and Keijo before the completion of the full sanctuary.

Just one month later, Inouk died, leaving his sister, Wikie, and his nephew, Keijo, in ever-deeper distress and in greater need of transfer to sanctuary.

The French Secretary of State for the Sea and Biodiversity issued a public “Call for Expressions of Interest for a sanctuary project that could accommodate the two orca specimens currently housed at the Marineland of Antibes.” And the Whale Sanctuary Project responded with a 93-page proposal.

Five months later, in September 2024, the French government’s General Inspectorate of the Environment & Sustainable Development formally recommended the Nova Scotia sanctuary as “the most credible innovative solution among the sanctuary projects.”

In November, the government announced that Marineland’s plan to send the two surviving orcas to Japan was not acceptable. This left the Nova Scotia sanctuary as a clear favorite solution. But the government was now under from special interests, and in January, it rejected the Whale Sanctuary Project’s plan.

In January 2025, Marineland Antibes closed its doors to the public and began pressing for Wikie and Keijo to go to Loro Parque zoo in the Spanish Canary Islands. Even though Loro Parque had a poor track record of care for orcas, the government accepted this plan and Marineland began preparing to dispatch Wikie and Keijo in April. However, just days before the transfer was due to take place, the Spanish government stepped in to call a halt, saying that Loro Parque was not a suitable facility for the two orcas.

Wikie and Keijo remained in limbo throughout the summer.

In November 2025, immediately after the Nova Scotia government had issued a decision that clears the way forward for the sanctuary to begin construction and raise the necessary capital funds, the Whale Sanctuary Project was approached by a new French government regarding the possibility of Wikie and Keijo coming to the Nova Scotia sanctuary. And in December, the government issued a formal decision that Wikie and Keijo should go to the Whale Sanctuary in Nova Scotia, saying that “The sanctuary’s solution is … the most credible, the most ethical and the only one that complies with the requirements of animal safety and welfare.”

At the end of 2025, the Whale Sanctuary Project announced that we could be ready to welcome whales by the end of summer 2026 – so they have time to acclimate to ocean waters and temperatures before winter. We also stressed that this schedule depends on having the funds available to meet the $15 million of construction costs over the coming months, starting immediately.

A Family in Distress – Wikie and Keijo and Their Family

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